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PRESENTED BY
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Decisive Battles of
the World

By
Edward Shepherd Creasy

With additional chapters on '
Gettysburg and Sedan

Illustrated

 

New York

D. Appleton and Company
1901

By D. APPLQIONQASD. coma-mm

 

 

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CREASY’S “DECISIVE BATTLES ”

 

no two historical inquirers would entirely agree in their

lists of the decisive battles of the world.“ He must
have written this from modesty, rather than from any lack
of mastery of the subject; for his own list has hardly been
questioned, and his book became a standard almost from its
publication, reaching a ninthedition within six years. This
was because the subject, put in that form, was new, and
because he did not begin his work till he had formulated a
correct and defensible deﬁnition of what should be considered
a decisive battle. This is clearly set forth in his preface,
which so admirably discusses the question that little in the
way of criticism remains to be said.

To an American reader, one of the most gratifying things
in this book is the fact that its author, while acknowledging
that “ the war which rent away the North American colonies
from England is, of all subjects in history, the most painful
for an Englishman to dwell on,” shows a most intelligent
and generous appreciation of the greatness and probable
destiny of our Republic. This has not been the wont of
British writers. One of their naval historians gives more
space to the single action of the Cﬁesapeaée and the Skamzon
than to all the other actions in the war of ISIz—many of
the others being brilliant American victories. Perhaps it is
too much to expect every European author who treats of
American affairs to display the knowledge and fairness of
De Tocqueville, Bryce, and Goldwin Smith; but Professor
Creasy does so in his chapter on “ The Victory of the Ameri-
cans at Saratoga.”

Since the original publication of the book, two great battles

have been added to the world’s decisive conﬂicts, ——-Gettys-
iii

P ROFESSOR CREASY remarks that “it is probable that

iV CREASY’S “ DECISIVE BATTLES ”

burg and Sedan, —- and it is to be regretted that the author
did not discuss them in his latest edition. As he neglected
to do so, two chapters devoted to these battles have been
specially written for this edition by American authors.

Edward Shepherd Creasy was born in Bexley, Kent, where
his father was a land-agent, in 1812. A few years later the
family removed to Brighton, where the father became an
auctioneer and published a newspaper. The son was sent to
Eton, and obtained a scholarship. He went thence to Cam-
bridge in 18 34, and in 18 37 was called to the bar at Lincoln’s
Inn. He was for a time assistant judge of the Westminster
sessions court, and in 1840 was made Professor of History in
London University. He was a Liberal in politics. In 1860
he was appointed Chief Justice of Ceylon and was knighted.
After ten years of service in the isle of the spicy breezes, he
returned to England with broken health, and on January 27,
1878, he died.

His “Decisive Battles,” which was originally published
in 1852, so far surpasses all his other work in popularity,
that, to the American reader at least, he appears to be that
anomaly, the author of one book. But in truth he published a
dozen, at least two of which are valuable. His ﬁrst, as with
many other eminent writers of prose, was avolume of poems,
which he published at the age of thirty-one. This was fol-
lowed by “ Eton College ” (I848); “ A Text-book of the Con-
stitution ” (I848 ; enlarged as a history of the English
Constitution, 1856); “Sub Rege Sacerdos ” (1848); “ Emi-
nent Etonians ” (1850); “The Battle of Waterloo” (1852);
“ Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World” (1852); “ Invasions
and Projected Invasions of England, from the Saxon Times ”
(1852); “ History of the Ottoman Turks ” (1856); “ A His-
tory of England, from the Earliest to the Present Time”
(2 vols, unﬁnished, 1869—70); “The Old Love and the
New,” a novel (1870); “ The Imperial and Colonial Consti-
tutions of the Britannic Empire, including Indian Institu-
tions” (1872); and “The First Platform of International
Law” (1876). His “ History of the English Constitution ”
is highly esteemed in his own country. His “History of
England” was intended to be brought down to the present
time in ﬁve moderate volumes, and the two that were pub-

CREASY’S “ DECISIVE BATTLES V

lished gave promise of one of the most admirable of short
histories. Professor Creasy was associated with Dr. Gordon
Latham and Mr. Sheehan in contributing to “ Bentley’s
Miscellany” the political poems called “The Tipperary
Papers.”

The modern fashion of writing history is, to ignore dynas-
ties and military operations as much as possible, and even to
treat legislation and forms of government as rather incidental
than essential, while mercantile and industrial developments
are dwelt upon and religious and intellectual movements
traced—the results being called histories of the people as
distinguished from the sovereigns or the government. This
may be correct, and the nations would certainly be happier if
not more virtuous, were there to be henceforth no other kind
of history to write. But we cannot ignore the fact that in
the past battles have turned the destinies of the race; while
the dawn of universal and permanent peace has been so often
vainly announced that we are still justiﬁed in studying the

art of war.
R. J.

 

THE AUTHOR’S PREFACE

projects of violence and warfare are regarded among civi-

lized states with gradually increasing aversion. The Uni-
versal Peace Society certainly does not, and probably never
will, enroll the majority of statesmen among its members.
But even those who look upon the appeal of battle as occa-
sionally unavoidable in international controversies concur in
thinking it a deplorable necessity, only to be resorted to
when all peaceful modes of arrangement have been vainly
tried, and when the law of self-defense justiﬁes a state, like
an individual, in using force to protect itself from imminent
and serious injury. For a writer, therefore, of the present
day to choose battles for his favorite topic merely because
they were battles, merely because so many myriads of troops
were arrayed in them, and so many hundreds or thousands
of human beings stabbed, hewed, or shot each other to

death during them, would argue strange weakness or de-
pravity of mind. Yet it cannot be denied that a fearful and

wonderful interest is attached to these scenes of carnage.
There is undeniable greatness in the disciplined courage and
in the love of honor which make the combatants confront
agony and destruction. And the powers of the human intel-
lect are rarely more strongly displayed than they are in the
commander who regulates, arrays, and wields at his will
these masses of armed diSputants; who, cool yet daring, in
the midst of peril, reﬂects on all, and provides for all, ever
ready with fresh resources and designs, as the vicissitudes
Of the storm of slaughter require. But these qualities, how-
ever high they may appear, are to be found in the basest as
well as in the noblest of mankind. Catiline was as brave a

soldier as Leonidas, and a much better ofﬁcer. Alva sur-
A* vii ‘

IT is an honorable characteristic of the spirit of this age, that

viii DECISIVE BATTLES

passed the Prince of Orange in the ﬁeld; and Suwarrow was
the military superior of Kosciusko. To adopt the emphatic

words of Byron —

“’Tis the cause makes all,
Degrades or hallows courage in its fall.”

There are some battles, also, which claim our attention, inde-
pendently of the moral worth of the combatants, on account of
their enduring importance, and by reason of the practical in-
fluence on our own social and political condition, which we can
trace up to the results of those engagements. They have for
us an abiding and actual interest, both while we investigate
the chain of causes and effects by which they have helped to
make us what we are, and also while we speculate on what we
probably should have been if any one of these battles had
come to a different termination. Hallam has admirably
expressed this in his remarks on the victory gained by
Charles Martel, between Tours and Poictiers, over the invad-
ing Saracens.

He says of it, that “it may justly be reckoned among those
few battles of which a contrary event would have essentially
varied the drama of the world in all its subsequent scenes: with
Marathon, Arbela, the Metaurus, Chalons, and Leipsic.” It
was the perusal of this note of Hallam’s that ﬁrst led me to
the consideration of my present subject. I certainly differ
with that great historian as to the comparative importance of
some of the battles which he thus enumerates, and also of
some which he omits. It is probable, indeed, that no two
historical inquirers would entirely agree in their lists of the
decisive battles of the world. Different minds will naturally
vary in the impressions which particular events make on
them; and in the degree of interest with which they watch
the career, and reﬂect on the importance, of different his-
torical personages. But our concurrence in our catalogues
isof little moment, provided we learn to look on these great
historical events in the spirit which Hallam’s observations
indicate. Those remarks should teach us to watch how the
interests of many states are often involved in the collisions
between a few; and how the effect of those collisions is not
limited to a single age, but may receive an impulse which

AUTHOR’S PREFACE ix

will sway the fortunes of successive generations of mankind.
Most valuable also is the mental discipline which is thus ac-
quired, and by which we are trained not only to observe what
has been and what is, but also to ponder on what might have
been.

We thus learn not to judge of the wisdom of measures too
exclusively by the results. We learn to apply the juster
standard of seeing what the circumstances and the proba-
bilities were that surrounded a statesman or a general at the
time when he decided on his plan; we value him not by his
fortune, but by his wpoaL’pea-oq, to adopt the expressive Greek
word, for which our language gives no equivalent.

The reasons why each of the following ﬁfteen battles has
been selected will, I trust, appear when it is described. But
it may be well to premise afew remarks on the negative tests
which have led me to reject others which at ﬁrst sight may
appear equal in magnitude and importance to the chosen
ﬁfteen. -

I need hardly remark that it is not the number of killed

and wounded in a battle that determines its general histori-
cal importance. It is not because only a few hundreds fell
in the battle by which Joan of Arc captured the Tourelles and
raised the siege of Orleans that the effect of that crisis is to
be judged; nor would a full belief in the largest number
which Eastern historians state to have been slaughtered in
any of the numerous conﬂicts between Asiatic rulers make
me regard the engagement in which they fell as one of para-
mount importance to mankind. But, besides battles of this
kind, there are many of great consequence, and attended
with circumstances which powerfully excite our feelings and
rivet our attention, which yet appear to me of mere second-
ary rank, inasmuch as either their effects were limited in
area, or they themselves merely conﬁrmed some great ten-
dency or bias which an earlier battle had orlginated. .For
example, the encounters between the Greeks and Persxans
which followed Marathon seem to me not to have been phe-
nomena of primary impulse. Greek superiority had been
already asserted, Asiatic ambition had been already checked,
before Salamis and Plataea conﬁrmed the superiority of Euro-
pean free states over Oriental despotism. So, [Egos-Potamos,

X , DECISIVE BATTLES

which ﬁnally crushed the maritime power of Athens, seems
to me inferior in interest to the defeat before Syracuse, where
Athens received her ﬁrst fatal check, and after which she only
struggled to retard her downfall. I think similarly of Zama
with respect to Carthage, as compared with the Metaurus;
and, on the same principle, the subsequent great battles of
the Revolutionary war appear to me inferior in their impor-
tance to Valmy, which ﬁrst determined the military character
and career of the French Revolution.

I am aware that a little activity ofimagination, and a slight
exercise of metaphysical ingenuity, may amuse us, by show-
ing how the chain of circumstances is so linked together that
the smallest skirmish, or the slightest event of any kind
that ever occurred, may be said to have been essential, in its
actual termination, to the whole order of subsequent events.
But when I speak of causes and effects, I speak of the obvious
and important agency of one fact upon another, and not of
remote and fancifully inﬁnitesimal influences. I am aware
that, on the other hand, the reproach of fatalism is justly in-
curred by those who, like the writers of a certain school in a
neighboringcountry, recognize in history nothing more than
a series of necessary phenomena, which follow inevitably one
upon the other. But when, in this work, I speak of proba-
bilities, I speak of human probabilities only. When I speak
of cause and effect, I speak of those general laws by which
we perceive the sequence of human affairs to be usually
regulated, and in which we recognize emphatically the wisdom

and power of the Supreme Lawgiver, the design of the
Designer.

MITRE COURT CHAMBERS, TEMPLE,
lune 26, 1851.

Emirate!) to

ROBERT GORDON LATHAM, M.D., F.R.S.

LATE FELLOW 0F KING’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE;
FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, LONDON; MEMBER OF THE ETHNOLOGICAL
SOCIETY, NEW YORK; LATE PROFESSOR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND
LITERATURE IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON

BY HIS FRIEND

THE AUTHOR

 

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
PAGE
THE BATTLE OF MARATHON, 490 B.C. . . . . . . r
Explanatory Remarks on Some of the Circumstances of the Battle
Of Marathon . . . . . . . . . . 32
Synopsis of Events between the Battle of Marathon and the Defeat
of the Athenians at Syracuse . . . . . . . 33
CHAPTER II
'DEFEAT OF THE ATHENIANS AT SYRACUSE, 413 B.C. . . . 37
Synopsis of Events between the Defeat of . the Athenians at Syra-
cuse and the Battle of Arbela . . . . . . . 56
CHAPTER III
THE BATTLE OF ARBELA, 331 B.C. . . . . . . 59
Synopsis of Events between the Battle of Arbela and the Battle of
the Metaurus . . . . . . . . . . 82
CHAPTER IV
THE BATTLE OF THE METAURUS, 207 B.C. . . . . . 87
Synopsis of Events between the Battle of the Metaurus and
Arminius’s Victory over the Roman Legions under Varus . 116
CHAPTER V
VICTORY OF ARMINIUS OVER THE ROMAN LEGIONS UNDER VARUS,

9 A.D. 123
Arminius . . . . . . . 136
Synopsis of Events between Arminius’s Victory over Varus and

146

the Battle of Chalons
xiii

xiv DECISIVE BATTLES

CHAPTER VI

PAGE
THE BATTLE OF CHALONS, 451 . . . . . . . I49

Synopsis of Events between the Battle of Chalons and the Battle
of Tours . . . . . . . . . . . I64

CHAPTER VII

THE BATTLE OF TOURS, 732 . . . . . . . . I66

Synopsis of Events between the Battle of Tours and the Battle
of Hastings . . . . . . . . . . [76

CHAPTER VIII

THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS, 1066 . . . . . . . [79
Synopsis of Events between the Battle of Hastings and Joan of
Arc’s Victory at Orleans . . . . . . . . 2r 5
CHAPTER IX

JOAN OF ARC‘S VICTORY OVER THE ENGLISH AT ORLEANS, I429 219

Synopsis of Events between Joan of Arc’s Victory at Orleans and
the Defeat of the Spanish Armada . . . . . . 238

CHAPTER X

THE DEFEAT OF THE SPANISH ARMADA, I 588 . . . . 24o

Synopsis of Events between the Defeat of the Spanish Armada
and the Battle of Blenheim . . . . . . . 271

CHAPTER XI

THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM, I704 . . . . . . . 274

Synopsis of Events between the Battle of Blenheim and the Battle
of Pultowa . . . . . . . . . . 298

CHAPTER XII
THE BATTLE OF PULTOWA, 1709 . . . a . - - 299

Synopsis of Events between the Battle of Pultowa and the Defeat
of Burgoyne at Saratoga . . . . . . . . 313

,e

CONTENTS

CHAPTER XIII

VICTORY OF THE AMERICANS OVER BURGOYNE AT SARATOGA,
1777

Synopsis of Events between the Defeat of Burgoyne at Saratoga
and the Battle of Valmy

CHAPTER XIV

THE BATTLE OF VALMY, 1792

Synopsis of Events between the Battle of Valmy and the Battle
of Waterloo

CHAPTER XV

THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO, I815

CHAPTER XVI
THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG, 1863. (Written for this edition by

Rossiter Johnson)

CHAPTER XVII

THE BATTLE OF SEDAN, 1870. (Written for this edition by Frank
Huntington)

XV

FAG E

316

345

346

362

364

43!

449

 

ILLUSTRATIONS

EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY . .
Photogravure from a portrait

CHARLES MARTEL . . . . .
Photogravure from a painting by Tugnetti

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR .
Photogravure from a drawing by Guilleminot

THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS . . .

Photogravure from an engraving

JOAN OF ARC LISTENING TO THE VOICES .
Photogravure from a painting by Wagrez

PETER THE GREAT. . . . . .
Photogravure from a painting by Kneller

AFTER WATERLOO. . . . . .
Photogravure from a painting by A. C. Gow

PICKETT’S CHARGE AT GETTYSBURG . . .
' Photogravure from a painting by Philippoteaux

’MdLTKE AT SEDAN . . . . . .
Photogravure from a painting by A. von Werner

xvii

FACING PAGE

Fro ntzkpz’ece

I66

178

210

226

412

446

pgwimw

 

THE

DECISIVE BATTLES OF THE WORLD

-——-oo:o::00——

CHAPTER I

We Bafﬂe of Marat/ton, 490 B.C.

“ Quibus actus uterque
Europze atque Asiae fatis concurrerit orbis.”

W0 thousand three hundred and forty years ago, a
council of Athenian ofﬁcers was summoned on the
slope of one of the mountains that look over the plain
of Marathon, on the eastern coast of Attica. The immediate
subject of their meeting was to consider whether they should
give battle to an enemy that lay encamped on the shore
beneath them; but on the result of their deliberations de-
pended, not merely the fate of two armies, but the whole future
progress of human civilization. ‘
There were eleven members of that council of war. Ten
were the generals, Who were then annually elected at Athens,
one for each of the local tribes into which the Athenians were
divided. Each general led the men of his own tribe, and
each was invested with equal military authority. One also
of the Archons was associated with them in the joint command
of the collective force. This magistrate was termed the P01-
emarch, or War Ruler: he had the privilege of leading the
right wing of the army in battle, and of taking part in all
councils of war. A noble Athenian, named Callimachus, was
the War Ruler of this year; and, as such, stood listening to the
earnest discussion of the ten generals. They had, indeed,
deep matter for anxiety, though little aware how momentous
to mankind were the votes they were about to give, or how
the generations to come would read with interest the .record
I I

2 DECISIVE BATTLES [490 B.C.

of their debate. They saw before them the invading forces
of a mighty empire, which had in the last ﬁfty years shattered
and enslaved nearly all the kingdoms and principalities of
the then known world. They knew that all the resources of
their own country were comprised in the little army entrusted
to their guidance. They saw before them a chosen host of
the Great King, sent to wreak his special wrath on that coun-
try, and on the other insolent little Greek community, which
had dared to aid his rebels and burn the capital of one of his
provinces. That victorious host had already fulﬁlled half its
mission of vengeance. Eretria, the confederate of Athens in
the bold march against Sardis nine years before, had fallen
in the last few days; and the Athenian generals could discern
from the heights the island of ngilia, in which the Persians
had deposited their Eretrian prisoners, whom they had re-
served to be led away captives into Upper Asia, there to hear
their doom from the lips of King Darius himself. Moreover,
the men of Athens knew that in the camp before them was
their own banished tyrant, Hippias, who was seeking to be
reinstated by foreign simitars in despotic sway over any
remnant of his countrymen that might survive the sack of
their town, and might be left behind as too worthless for
leading away into Median bondage.

The numerical disparity between the force which the Athe-
nian commanders had under them, and that which they were
called on to encounter, was fearfully apparent to some of the
council. The historians who wrote nearest to the time of the
battle do not pretend to give any detailed statements of the num-
bers engaged, but there are sufﬁcient data for our making a
general estimate. Every free Greek was trained to military
duty; and, from the incessant border wars between the differ-
ent states, few Greeks reached the age of manhood without
having seen some service. But the muster-roll of free Athe-
nian citizens of an age ﬁt for military duty never exceeded
thirty thousand, and at this epoch probably did not amount
to two thirds of that number. Moreover, the poorer portion
of these were unprovided with the equipments and untrained
to the operations of the regulartinfantry. Some detachments
of the best-armed troops would be required to garrison the
city itself and man the various fortiﬁed posts in the territory;

490 B.c.] BATTLE OF MARATHON 3

so that it is impossible to reckon the fully equipped force that
marched from Athens to Marathon, when the news of the
Persian landing arrived, at higher than ten thousand men.1

With one exception, the other Greeks held back from aid-
ing them. Sparta had promised assistance ; but the Persians
had landed on the sixth day of the moon, and a religious
scruple delayed the march of Spartan troops till the moon
should have reached its full. From one quarter only, and
that a most unexpected one, did Athens receive aid at the
moment of her great peril.

For some years before this time, the little state of Platma
in Boeotia, being hard pressed by her powerful neighbor,
Thebes, had asked the protection of Athens, and had owed
to an Athenian army the rescue of her independence. Now
when it was noised over Greece that the Mede had come
from the uttermost parts of the earth to destroy Athens, the
brave Plataeans, unsolicited, marched with their whole force
to assist in the defense, and to share the fortunes of their
benefactors. The general levy of the Plataeans only amounted
to a thousand men; and this little column, marching from
their city along the southern ridge of Mount Cithaeron, and
thence across the Attic territory, joined the Athenian forces
above Marathon almost immediately before the battle. The
reenforcement was numerically small; but the gallant spirit
of the men who composed it must have made it of tenfold
value to the Athenians, and its presence must have gone far
to dispel the cheerless feeling of being deserted and friendless
which the delay of the Spartan succors was calculated to

‘ create among the Athenian ranks.
This generous daring of their weak but true-hearted ally

was never forgotten at Athens. The Plataeans were made
the fellow countrymen of the Athenians, except the right of
exercising certain political functions ; and from that time forth,
in the solemn sacriﬁces at Athens, the public prayers were
offered up for a joint blessing from Heaven upon the Athe-
nians, and the Plataeans also.2

After the junction of the column from Platzea, the Athe-
nian commanders must have had under them about eleven
thousand fully armed and disciplined infantry, and probably
a larger number of irregular light-armed troops; as, besrdes

4 DECISIVE BATTLES [490 B.C.

the poorer citizens who went to the ﬁeld armed with javelins,
cutlasses, and targets, each regular heavy-armed soldier was
attended in the camp by one or more slaves, who were armed
like the inferior freemen.3 Cavalry or archers the Athenians
(on this occasion) had none; and the use in the ﬁeld of mili-
tary engines was not at that period introduced into ancient
warfare. '

Contrasted with their own scanty forces, the Greek com-
manders saw stretched before them, along the shores of the
winding bay, the tents and shipping of the varied nations that
marched to do the bidding of the king of the Eastern world.
The difﬁculty of ﬁnding transports and of securing provisions
would form the only limit to the numbers of a Persian army.
Nor is there any reason to suppose the estimate of Justin ex-
aggerated, who rates at a hundred thousand the force which
on this occasion had sailed, under the satraps Datis and Arta—
phernes, from the Cilician shores, against the devoted coasts
of Euboea and Attica. And after largely deducting from this
total, so as to allow for mere mariners and camp-followers,
there must still have remained fearful odds against the na-
tional levies of the Athenians. Nor could Greek generals
then feel that conﬁdence in the superior quality of their
troops which ever since the battle of Marathon has animated
Europeans in conﬂicts with Asiatics ; as, for instance, in the
after struggles between Greece and Persia, or when the Roman.
legions encountered the myriads of Mithridates and Tigranes,
or as is the case in the Indian campaigns of our own regi-
ments. On the contrary, up to the day of Marathon the
Medes and Persians were reputed invincible. They had more
than once met Greek troops in Asia Minor, in Cyprus, in
Egypt, and had invariably beaten them. Nothing can be
stronger than the expressions used by the early Greek writers
respecting the terror which the name of the Medes inspired,
and the prostration of men’s spirits before the apparently
resistless career of the Persian arms. It is, therefore, little
to be wondered at that ﬁve of the ten Athenian generals
shrank from the prospect of ﬁghting a pitched battle against
an enemy so superior in numbers, and so formidable in mili-
tary renown. Their own position on the heights was strong,
and offered great advantages to a small defending force

490 13.0.] BATTLE OF MARATHON 5

against assailing masses. They deemed it mere foolhardi—
ness to descend into the plain to be trampled down by the
Asiatic horse, overwhelmed with the archery, or cut to pieces
by the invincible veterans of Cambyses and Cyrus. More-
over, Sparta, the great war state of Greece, had been applied
to, and had promised succor to Athens, though the religious
observance which the Dorians paid to certain times and sea-
sons had for the present delayed their march. Was it not
wise, at any rate, to wait till the Spartans came up, and to
have the help of the best troops in Greece, before they
exposed themselves to the shock of the dreaded Medes?

Specious as these reasons might appear, the other ﬁve
generals were for speedier and bolder operations. And,
fortunately for Athens and for the world, one of them was a
man, not only of the highest military genius, but also of that
energetic character which impresses its own type and ideas
upon spirits feebler in conception.

Miltiades was the head of one of the noblest houses at
Athens: he ranked the Aiacidae among his ancestry, and the
blood of Achilles ﬂowed in the veins of the hero of Marathon.
One of his immediate ancestors had acquired the dominion of
the Thracian Chersonese, and thus the family became at the
same time Athenian citizens and Thracian princes. This
occurred at the time when Pisistratus was tyrant of Athens.
Two of the relatives of Miltiades —— an uncle of the same name,
and a brother named Stesagoras -— had ruled the Chersonese
before Miltiades became its prince. He had been brought up
at Athens in the house of his father Cimon, who was renowned
throughout Greece for his victories in the Olympic chariot-
,races, and who must have been possessed of great wealth.
The sons of Pisistratus, who succeeded their father in the
tyranny at Athens, caused Cimon to be assassinated, but they
treated the young Miltiades with favor and klndness; and
when his brother Stesagoras died in the Chersonese, they
sent him out there as lord of the principality. This was
about twenty-eight years before the battle of Marathon, and
it is with his arrival in the Chersonese that our ﬁrst knowl-
edge of the career and character of Miltiades commences.
We ﬁnd, in the ﬁrst act recorded of him, proof of .the same
resolute and unscrupulous spirit that marked his mature

o DECISIVE BATTLES [49o B.C.

age. His brother’s authority in the principality had been
shaken by war and revolt: Miltiades determined to rule more
securely. On his arrival he kept close within his house, as
if he were mourning for his brother. The principal men of
the Chersonese, hearing of this, assembled from all the
towns and districts, and went together to the house of Miltia-
des on a visit of condolence. As soon as he had thus got
them in his power, he made them all prisoners. He then
asserted and maintained his own absolute authority in the
peninsula, taking into his pay a body of ﬁve hundred regu-
lar troops, and strengthening his interest by marrying the
daughter of the king of the neighboring Thracians.

When the Persian power was extended to the Hellespont
and its neighborhood, Miltiades, as prince of the Chersonese,
submitted to King Darius; and he was one of the numerous
tributary rulers who led their contingents of men to serve in
the Persian army in the expedition against Scythia. Miltia-
des and the vassal Greeks of Asia Minor were left by the
Persian king in charge of the bridge across the Danube,
when the invading army crossed that river and plunged into
the wilds of the country that now is Russia, in vain pursuit
of the ancestors of the modern Cossacks. On learning the
reverses that Darius met with in the Scythian wilderness,
Miltiades proposed to his companions that they should break
the bridge down, and leave the Persian king and his army to
perish by famine and the Scythian arrows. The rulers of
the Asiatic Greek cities whom Miltiades addressed shrank
from this bold and ruthless stroke against the Persian power,
and Darius returned in safety. But it was known what
advice Miltiades had given; and the vengeance of Darius
was thenceforth specially directed against the man who had
counseled such a deadly blow against his empire and his
person. The occupation of the Persian arms in other quar-
ters left Miltiades for some years after this in possession of
the Chersonese; but it was precarious and interrupted. He,
however, availed himself of the opportunity which his posi-
tion gave him of conciliating the good-will of his fellow coun-
trymen at Athens by conquering and placing under Athenian
authority the islands of Lemnos and Imbros, to which Athens
had ancient claims, but which she had never previously been

490 B.C.] BATTLE OF MARATHON 7

able to bring into complete subjection. At length, in 494 B.C.,
the complete suppression of the Ionian revolt by the Persians
left their armies and ﬂeets at liberty to act against the
enemies of the Great King to the west of the Hellespont.
A strong squadron of Phoenician galleys was sent against
the Chersonese. Miltiades knew that resistance was hope~
less; and while the Phoenicians were at Tenedos, he loaded
ﬁve galleys with all the treasure that he could collect, and
sailed away for Athens. The Phoenicians fell in with him,
and chased him hard along the north of the Egean. One
of his galleys, on board of which was his eldest son, Meti-
ochus, was actually captured; but Miltiades, with the other
four, succeeded in reaching the friendly coast of Imbros in
safety. Thence he afterwards proceeded to Athens, and
resumed his station as a free citizen of the Athenian
commonwealth.

The Athenians at this time had recently expelled Hippias,
the son of Pisistratus, the last of their tyrants. They were
in the full glow of their newly recovered liberty and equality;
and the constitutional changes of Cleisthenes had inﬂamed
their republican zeal to the utmost. Miltiades had enemies
at Athens; and these, availing themselves of the state of pop-
ular feeling, brought him to trial for his life for having been
tyrant of the Chersonese. The charge did not necessarily
import any acts of cruelty or wrong to individuals: it was
founded on no speciﬁc law; but it was based on the horror
with which the Greeks of that age regarded every man who
made himself compulsory master of his fellow men, and exer-
~ cised irresponsible dominion over them. The fact of Miltia-
des having so ruled in the Chersonese was undeniable; but
the questions which the Athenians, assembled in judgment,
must have tried was, whether Miltiades, by becoming tyrant
of the Chersonese, deserved punishment as an Athenian citi-
zen. The eminent service that he had done the state in con-
quering Lemnos and Imbros for it pleaded strongly in his
favor. The people refused to convict him. He stood high
in public opinion; and when the coming invasion of the Per-
sians was known, the people wisely elected him one of their

generals for the year. . ' '
Two other men of signal eminence in history, though that

8 DECISIVE BATTLES [49° B.C.

renown was achieved at a later period than that of Miltiades,
were also among the ten Athenian generals at Marathon. One
was Themistocles, the future founder of the Athenian navy
and the destined victor of Salamis; the other was Aristides,
who afterwards led the Athenian troops at Plataea, and whose
integrity and just popularity acquired for his country, when
the Persians had ﬁnally been repulsed, the advantageous pre-
eminence of being acknowledged by half of the Greeks as their
impartial leader and protector. It is not recorded what part
either Themistocles or Aristides took in the debate of the
council of war at Marathon. But from the character of The-
mistoeles, his boldness, and his intuitive genius for extempo-
rizing the best measures in every emergency (a quality which
the greatest of historians ascribes to him beyond all his con-
temporaries), we may well believe that the vote of Themisto-
cles was for prompt and decisive action. On the vote of Aris-
tides it may be more difﬁcult to speculate. His predilection
for the Spartans may have made him wish to wait till they
came up ; but, though circumspect, he was neither timid as a
soldier nor as a politician; and the bold advice of Miltiades
may probably have found in Aristides a willing, most assuredly
it found in him a candid, hearer.

Miltiades felt no hesitation as to the course which the Athe-
nian army ought to pursue; and earnestly did he press his
opinion on his brother generals. Practically acquainted with
the organization of the Persian armies, Miltiades was convinced
of the superiority of the Greek troops if properly handled: he
saw with the military eye of a great general the advantage
which the position of the forces gave him for a sudden attack,
and as a profound politician he felt the perils of remaining
inactive, and of giving treachery time to ruin the Athenian
cause. '

One ofﬁcer in the council of war had not yet voted. This
was Callimachus, the War Ruler. The votes of the generals
were ﬁve and ﬁve, so that the voice of Callimachus would be
decisive.

On that vote, in all human probability, the destiny of all
the nations of the world depended. Miltiades turned to him,
and in simple soldierly eloquence, the substance of which we
may read faithfully reported in Herodotus, who had conversed

490 B.C.] BATTLE OF MARATHON 9

with the veterans of Marathon, the great Athenian thus ad«
jured his countryman to vote for giving battle : —

“It now rests with you, Callimachus, either to enslave
Athens, or, by assuring her freedom, to win yourself an im-
mortality of fame, such as not even Harmodius and Aristo-
geiton have acquired. For never, since the Athenians were
a people, were they in such danger as they are in at this
moment. If they bow the knee to these Medes, they are to be
given up to Hippias, and you know what they then will have
to suffer. But if Athens comes victorious out of this contest,
she has it in her to become the ﬁrst city of Greece. Your
vote is to decide whether we are to join battle or not. If we
do not bring on a battle presently, some factious intrigue will
disunite the Athenians, and the city will be betrayed to the
Medes. But if we ﬁght before there is anything rotten in
the state of Athens, I believe that, provided the gods will
give fair play and no favor, we are able to get the best of it
in the engagement.” ‘

The vote of the brave War Ruler was gained; the council
determined to give battle; and such was the ascendency and
military eminence of Miltiades that his brother generals, one
and all, gave up their days of command to him, and cheer—
fully acted under his orders. Fearful, however, of creating
any jealousy, and of so failing to obtain the cooperation of
all parts of his small army, Miltiades waited till the day when
the chief command would have come round to him in regular

rotation before he led the troops against the enemy.
The inaction of the Asiatic commanders during thlS 1nter—

~ val appears strange at ﬁrst sight; but Hippias was with them,

and they and he were aware of their chance of a bloodless
conquest through the machinations of his partisans among
the Athenians. The nature of the ground also explains, in
many points, the tactics of the opposite generals before the
battle, as well as the operations of the troops durmg the
engagement. '
The plain of Marathon, which is about twenty-two m1les
distant from Athens, lies along the bay of the same name on
the northeastern coast of Attica. The plain is nearly in the
form of a crescent, and about six miles in length. It is about
two miles broad in the center, where the space between the

IO DECISIVE BATTLES ’ [490 B.C.

mountains and the sea is greatest, but it narrows towards
either extremity, the mountains coming close down to the
water at the horns of the bay. There is a valley trending
inwards from the middle of the plain, and a ravine comes
down to it to the southward. Elsewhere it is closely girt
round on the land side by rugged limestone mountains, which
are thickly studded with pines, olive-trees, and cedars, and over-
grown with the myrtle, arbutus, and the other low odoriferous
shrubs that everywhere perfume the Attic air. The level of
the ground is now varied by the mound raised over those who
fell in the battle, but it was an unbroken plain when the Per-
sians encamped on it. There are marshes at each end, which
are dry in spring and summer, and then offer no obstruction
to the horseman, but are commonly ﬂooded with rain, and so
rendered impracticable for cavalry, in the autumn, the time
of year at which the action took place.

The Greeks, lying encamped on the mountains, could watch
every movement of the Persians on the plain below, while they
were enabled completely to mask their own. Miltiades also
had, from his position, the power of giving battle whenever
he pleased, or of delaying it at his discretion, unless Datis
were to attempt the perilous operation of storming the heights.

If we turn to the map of the Old World, to test the compara-
tive territorial resources of the two states whose armies were
now about to come into conﬂict, the immense preponderance
of the material power of the Persian king over that of the
Athenian republic is more striking than any similar contrast
which history can supply. It has been truly remarked, that,
in estimating mere areas, Attica, containing on its whole sur-
face only seven hundred square miles, shrinks into-insigniﬁ-
cance if compared with many a baronial ﬁef of the Middle
Ages, or many a colonial allotment of modern times. Its
antagonist, the Persian empire, comprised the whole of modern
Asiatic and much of modern European Turkey, the modern
kingdom of Persia, and the countries of modern Georgia,
Armenia, Balkh, the Punjab, Afghanistan, Baluchistan,
Egypt, and Tripoli.

Nor could a European, in the beginning of the ﬁfth cen-
tury before our era, look upon this huge accumulation of
power beneath the scepter of a single Asiatic ruler with the

490 B.C.] BATTLE OF MARATHON II

indifference with which we now observe on the map the
extensive dominions of modern Oriental sovereigns. For, as
has been already remarked, before Marathon was fought the
prestige of success and of supposed superiority of race was
on the side of the Asiatic against the European. Asia was
the original seat of human societies; and long before any
trace can be found of the inhabitants of the rest of the world
having emerged from the rudest barbarism, we can perceive
that mighty and brilliant empires ﬂourished in the Asiatic
continent. They appear before us through the twilight of
primeval history, dim and indistinct, but massive and majes-
tic, like mountains in the early dawn.

Instead, however, of the inﬁnite variety and restless change
which have characterized the institutions and fortunes of
European states ever since the commencement of the civili-
zation of our continent, a monotonous uniformity pervades
the histories of nearly all Oriental empires, from the most
ancient down to the most recent times. They are character-
ized by the rapidity of their early conquests; by the immense
extent of the dominions comprised in them; by the estab-
lishment of a satrap or pasha system of governing the prov-
inces ; by an invariable and speedy degeneracy in the princes
of the royal house, the effeminate nurslings of the seraglio
succeeding to the warrior sovereigns reared in the camp ; and
by the internal anarchy and insurrections which indicate and
accelerate the decline and fall of these unwieldy and ill-organ-
ized fabrics of power. It is also a striking fact that the
governments of all the great Asiatic empires have in all ages
been absolute despotisms. And Heeren is right in connect-
ing this with another great fact, which is important from its
inﬂuence both on the political and the social life of Asiatics:
“Among all the considerable nations of Inner Asia, the
paternal government of every household was corrupted by
polygamy; where that custom exists, a good political consti-
tution is impossible. Fathers being converted into domestic
despots, are ready to pay the same abject obedience to their
sovereign which they exact from their family and dependents
in their domestic economy.” We should bear in mind also
the inseparable connection between the state religion and all
legislation, which has always prevailed in the East, and the

12 DECISIVE BATTLES [490 B.C.

constant existence of a powerful sacerdotal body, exercising
some check, though precarious and irregular, over the throne
itself, grasping at all civil administration, claiming the su-
preme control of education, stereotyping the lines in which
literature and science must move, and limiting the extent to
which it shall be lawful for the human mind to prosecute its
inquiries.

With these general characteristics rightly felt and under-
stood, it becomes a comparatively easy task to investigate and
appreciate the origin, progress, and principles of Oriental
empires in general, as well as of the Persian monarchy in
particular. And we are thus better enabled to appreciate
the repulse which Greece gave to the arms of the East, and
to judge of the probable consequences to human civilization
if the Persians had succeeded in bringing Europe under their
yoke, as they had already subjugated the fairest portions "of
the rest of the then known world.

The Greeks, from their geographical position, formed the
natural vanguard of European liberty against Persian ambi-
tion; and they preeminently displayed the salient points of
distinctive national character, which have rendered European
civilization so far superior to Asiatic. The nations that
dwelt in ancient times around and near the northern shores
of the Mediterranean Sea were the ﬁrst in our continent to
receive from the East the rudiments of art and literature, and
the germs of social and political organization. Of these
nations, the Greeks, through their vicinity to Asia Minor,
Phoenicia, and Egypt, were among the very foremost in
acquiring the principles and habits of civilized life; and they
also at once imparted a new and wholly original stamp on all
which they received. Thus, in their religion they received
from foreign settlers the names of all their deities and many
of their rites, but they discarded the loathsome monstrosities
of the Nile, the Orontes, and the Ganges : they nationalized
their creed; and their own poets created their beautiful
mythology. No sacerdotal caste ever existed in Greece. So,
in their governments they lived long under hereditary kings,
but never endured the permanent establishment of absolute
monarchy. Their early kings were constitutional rulers,
governing with deﬁned prerogatives. And long before the

490 B.C.] BATTLE OF MARATHON I3

Persian invasion the kingly form of government had given
way in almost all the Greek states to republican institutions,
presenting inﬁnite varieties of the balancing or the alternate
predominance of the oligarchical and democratical principles.
In literature and science the Greek intellect followed no
beaten track, and acknowledged no limitary rules. The
Greeks thought their subjects boldly out ; and the novelty of
a speculation invested it in their minds with interest, and not
with criminality. Versatile, restless, enterprising, and self-
conﬁdent, the Greeks presented the most striking contrast to
the habitual quietude and submissiveness of the Orientals.
And, of all the Greeks, the Athenians exhibited these na-
tional characteristics in the strongest degree. This spirit of
activity and daring, joined to a generous sympathy for the
fate of their fellow Greeks in Asia, had led them to join in
the last Ionian war; and now, mingling with their abhor-
rence of the usurping family of their own citizens, which for
a period had forcibly seized on and exercised despotic power
at Athens, it nerved them to defy the wrath of King Darius,
and to refuse to receive back at his bidding the tyrant whom
they had some years before driven from their land.

The enterprise and genius of an Englishman have lately
conﬁrmed by fresh evidence, and invested with fresh interest,
the might of the Persian monarch, who sent his troops to
combat at Marathon. Inscriptions in a character termed the
Arrow-headed, or Cuneiform, had long been known to exist
on the marble monuments at Persepolis, near the site of the
ancient Susa, and on the faces of rocks in other places for-
merly ruled over by the early Persian kings. But for thou-
sands of years they had been mere unintelligible enigmas to
the curious but bafﬂed beholder; and they were often referred
to as instances of the folly of human pride, which could in-
deed write its own praise in the solid rock, but only for the
rock to outlive the language as well as the memory of the
vainglorious inscribers. The elder Niebuhr, Grotefend, and
Lassen had made some guesses at the meaning of the Cunei-
form letters; but Major Rawlinson, of the East India Gom-
pany’s service, after years of labor, has.at last accompllshed
the glorious achievement of fully revealing the alphabet and
the grammar of this long unknown tongue. He has, in par-

I4 DECISIVE BATTLES ’ [490 B.C.

ticular, fully deciphered and expounded the inscriptions on
the sacred rock of Behistun, on the western frontiers of
Media. These records of the Achaemenidae have at length
found their interpreter; and Darius himself speaks to us from
the consecrated mountain, and tells us the names of the
nations that obeyed him, the revolts that he suppressed, his
victories, his piety, and his glory.

Kings who thus seek the admiration of posterity are little
likely to dim the record of their successes by the mention of
their occasional defeats; and it throws no suspicion on the
narrative of the Greek historians that we ﬁnd these inscrip-
tions silent respecting the overthrow of Datis and Artapher-
nes, as well as respecting the reverses which Darius sustained
in person during his Scythian campaigns. But these indis-
putable monuments of Persian fame conﬁrm, and even increase,
the opinion with which Herodotus inspires us, of the vast
power which Cyrus founded and Cambyses increased; which
Darius augmented by Indian and Arabian conquests, and
seemed likely, when he directed his arms against Europe, to
make the predominant monarchy of the world.

With the exception of the Chinese empire, in which, through-
out all ages down to the last few years, one third of the
human race has dwelt almost unconnected with the other
portions, all the great kingdoms which we know to have ex-
isted in ancient Asia were, in Darius’s time, blended with the
Persian. The northern Indians, the Assyrians, the Syrians,
the Babylonians, the Chaldees, the Phoenicians, the nations
of Palestine, the Armenians, the Bactrians, the Lydians, the
Phrygians, the Parthians, and the Medes—all obeyed the
scepter of the Great King; the Medes standing next to
the native Persians in honor, and the empire being frequently
spoken of as that of the Medes, or that of the Medes and Per-
sians. Egypt and Cyrene were Persian provinces ; the Greek
colonists in Asia Minor and the islands of the ngean were
Darius’s subjects; and their gallant but unsuccessful attempts
to throw off the Persian yoke had only served to rivet it more
strongly, and to increase the general belief that the Greeks
could not stand before the Persians in a ﬁeld of battle. Da-
rius’s Scythian war, though unsuccessful in its immediate
object, had brought about the subjugation of Thrace and the

490 B.C.] BATTLE OF MARATHON 15

submission of Macedonia. From the Indus to the Peneus,
all was his.

We may imagine the wrath with which the lord of so many
nations must have heard, nine years before the battle of
Marathon, that a strange nation towards the setting sun,
called the Athenians, had dared to help his rebels in Ionia
against him, and that they had plundered and burned the
capital of one of his provinces. Before the burning of Sardis,
Darius seems never to have heard of the existence of Athens;
but his satraps in Asia Minor had for some time seen Athe-
nian refugees at their provincial courts imploring assistance
against their fellow countrymen. When Hippias was driven
away from Athens, and the tyrannic dynasty of the Pisistra—
tidae ﬁnally overthrown in 510 B.C., the banished tyrant and
his adherents, after vainly seeking to be restored by Spartan
intervention, had betaken themselves to Sardis, the capital
city of the satrapy of Artaphernes. There Hippias (in the
expressive words of Herodotus) began every kind of agitation,
slandering the Athenians before Artaphernes, and doing all
he could to induce the satrap to place Athens in subjection
to him, as the tributary vassal of King Darius. When the
Athenians heard his practises, they sent envoys to Sardis to
remonstrate with the Persians against taking up the quarrel
of the Athenian refugees. But Artaphernes gave them in
reply a menacing command to receive Hippias back again if
they looked for safety. The Athenians were resolved not
to purchase safety at such a price; and after rejecting the
satrap’s terms, they considered that they and the Persians
were declared enemies. At this very crisis the Ionian Greeks
implored the assistance of their European brethren, to enable
them to recover their independence from Persia. Athens,
and the city of Eretria in Euboea, alone consented. Twenty
Athenian galleys, and ﬁve Eretrian, crossed the ZEgean Sea;
and by a bold and sudden march upon Sardis the Athenians
and their allies succeeded in capturing the capital city of the
haughty satrap, who had recently menaced them with servi-
tude or destruction. The Persian forces were soon rallied,
and the Greeks were compelled to retire. They were pur-
sued, and defeated on their return to the coast, and Athens
took no further part in the Ionian war. But the 1nsult that

16 DECISIVE BATTLES [49o B.C.

she had put upon the Persian power was speedily made
known throughout that empire, and was never to be forgiven
or forgotten. In the emphatic simplicity of the narrative of
Herodotus, the wrath of the Great King is thus described:
“Now when it was told to King Darius that Sardis had been
taken and burned by the Athenians and Ionians, he took small
heed of the Ionians, well knowing who they were, and that
their revolt would soon be put down; but he asked who, and
what manner of men, the Athenians were. And when he had
been told, he called for his bow; and, having taken it, and placed
an arrow on the string, he let the arrow ﬂy towards heaven; and
as he shot it into the air, he said, ‘ 0 Supreme God! grant me
that I may avenge myself on the Athenians.’ And when he
had said this, he appointed one of his servants to say to him
every day as he sat at meat, ‘ Sire, remember the Athenians.’ ”

Some years were occupied in the complete reduction of
Ionia. But when this was effected, Darius ordered his victo-
rious forces to proceed to punish Athens and Eretria, and to
conquer European Greece. The ﬁrst armament sent for this
purpose was shattered by shipwreck, and nearly destroyed
off Mount Athos. But the purpose of King Darius was not
easily shaken. A larger army was ordered to be collected in
Cilicia: and requisitions were sent to all the maritime cities of
the Persian empire for ships of war, and for transports of
sufﬁcient size for carrying cavalry as well as infantry across
the ZEgean. While these preparations were being made, ‘
Darius sent heralds round to the Grecian cities demanding
their submission to Persia. It was proclaimed in the market-
place of each little Hellenic state (some with territories not
larger than the Isle of Wight), that King Darius, the lord of
all men, from the rising to the setting sun,4 required earth and
water to be delivered to his heralds, as a symbolical acknowl-
edgment that he was head and master of the country. Terror-
stricken at the power of Persia and at the severe punishment
that had recently been inﬂicted on the refractory Ionians,
many of the Continental Greeks and nearly all the islanders
submitted, and gave the required tokens of vassalage. At
Sparta and Athens an indignant refusal was returned: a re-
fusal which was disgraced by outrage and violence against
the persons of the Asiatic heralds.

490 B.C.] BATTLE or MARATHON I7

Fresh fuel was thus added to the anger of Darius against
Athens, and the Persian preparations went on with renewed
vigor. In the summer of 490 B.C., the army destined for the
invasion was assembled in the Aleian plain of Cilicia, near the
sea. A ﬂeet of six hundred galleys and numerous transports
was collected on the coast for the embarkation of troops,
horse as well as foot. A Median general named Datis, and
Artaphernes, the son of the satrap of Sardis, and who was
also nephew of Darius, were placed in titular joint command
of the expedition. That the real supreme authority was given
to Datis alone is probable, from the way in which the Greek
writers speak of him. We know no details of the previous
career of this ofﬁcer; but there is every reason to believe that
his abilities and bravery had been proved by experience, or
his Median birth would have prevented his being placed in
high command by Darius. He appears to have been the ﬁrst
Mede who was thus trusted by the Persian kings after the
overthrow of the conspiracy of the Median Magi against the
Persians immediately before Darius obtained the throne.
Datis received instructions to complete the subjugation of
Greece, and especial orders were given him with regard to
Eretria and Athens. He was to take these two cities; and
he was to lead the inhabitants away captive, and bring them

as slaves into the presence of the Great King.
Datis embarked his forces in the ﬂeet that awaited them;

and coasting along the shores of Asia Minor till he was off
Samos, he thence sailed due westward through the Egean
Sea for Greece, taking the islands in his way. The Naxians
had, ten years before, successfully stood a siege against a
Persian armament, but they now were too terriﬁed to offer
any resistance, and ﬂed to the mountain tops, while the enemy
burned their town and laid waste their lands. Thence Datis,
compelling the Greek islanders to join him with their ships
and men, sailed onward to the coast of Euboea. The little
town of Carystus essayed resistance, but was quickly over-
powered. He next attacked Eretria. The Athenlans sent
four thousand men to its aid. But treachery was at work
among the Eretrians; and the Athenian force received timely
warning from one of the leading men of the city to retire to

aid in saving their own country, instead of remaining to share
2

18 DECISIVE BATTLES [490 B.C.

in theinevitable destruction of Eretria. Left to themselves,
the Eretrians repulsed the assault of the Persians against their
walls for six days; on the seventh day they were betrayed by
two of their chiefs, and the Persians occupied the city. The
temples were burned in revenge for the burning of Sardis, and
the inhabitants were bound and placed as prisoners in the
neighboring islet of ZEgylia, to wait there till Datis should
bring the Athenians to join them in captivity, when both
populations were to be led into Upper Asia, there to learn
their doom from the lips of King Darius himself.

Flushed with success, and with half his mission thus accom-
plished, Datis reembarked his troops, and, crossing the little
channel that separates Euboea from the mainland, he en-
camped his troops on the Attic coast at Marathon, drawing
up his galleys on the shelving beach, as was the custom with
the navies of antiquity. The conquered islands behind him
served as places of deposit for his provisions and military
stores. His position at Marathon seemed to him in every
respect advantageous; and the level nature of the ground on
which he camped was favorable for the employment of his
cavalry, if the Athenians should venture to engage him.
Hippias, who accompanied him, and acted as the guide of the
invaders, had pointed out Marathon as the best place for a
landing, for this very reason. Probably Hippias was also in-
ﬂuenced by the recollection that forty-seven years previously
he, with his father Pisistratus, had crossed with an army from
Eretria to Marathon, and had won an easy victory over their
Athenian enemies on that very plain, Which had restored
them to tyrannic power. The omen seemed cheering. The
place was the same; but Hippias soon learned to his cost how
great a change had come over the spirit of the Athenians.

But though “ the ﬁerce democracy” of Athens was zealous
and true against foreign invader and domestic tyrant, a faction
existed in Athens, as at Eretria, of men willing to purchase a
party triumph over their fellow citizens at the price of their
country’s ruin. Communications were opened between these
men and the Persian camp, which would have led to a catas-
trophe like that of Eretria, if Miltiades had not resolved, and

had not persuaded his colleagues to resolve, on ﬁghting at all
hazards.

490 B.c.] BATTLE OF MARATHON 19

When Miltiades arrayed his men for action, he staked on
the arbitrament of one battle not only the fate of Athens, but
that of all Greece; for if Athens had fallen, no other Greek
state, except Lacedaernon, would have had the courage to
resist; and the Lacedaemonians, though they would probably
have died in their ranks to the last man, never could have
successfully resisted the victorious Persians and the numerous
Greek troops which would have soon marched under the Per-
sian satraps had they prevailed over Athens.

Nor was there any power to the westward of Greece that
could have offered an effectual opposition to Persia had she
once conquered Greece and made that country a basis for
future military operations. Rome was at this time in her sea-
son of utmost weakness. Her dynasty of powerful Etruscan
kings had been driven out, and her infant commonwealth
was reeling under the attacks of the Etruscans and Volscians
from without, and the ﬁerce dissensions between the patri-
cians and plebeians within. Etruria, with her Lucumos and
Serfs, was no match for Persia. Samnium had not grown
into the might which she afterwards put forth ; nor could
the Greek colonies in South Italy and Sicily hope to survive
when their parent states had perished. Carthage had escaped
the Persian, yoke in the time of Cambyses, through the reluc-
tance of the Phoenician mariners to serve against their kins-
men. But such forbearance could not long have been relied
on, and the future rival of Rome would have become as sub-
missive a minister of the Persian power as were the Phoeni-
cian cities themselves. If we turn to Spain, or if we pass the

great mountain chain which, prolonged through the Pyrenees,
the Cevennes, the Alps, and the Balkans, divides Northern from

Southern Europe, we shall ﬁnd nothing at that period but
mere savage Finns, Celts, Slaves, and Teutons. Had Persia
beaten Athens at Marathon, she could have found no obsta-
cle to prevent Darius, the chosen servant of Ormuzd, from
advancing his sway over all the known Western races of
mankind. The infant energies of Europe would have been
trodden out beneath universal conquest; and the history of
the world, like the history of Asia, would have become a
mere record of the rise and fall of despotic dynasties, of the
incursions of barbarous hordes, and of the mental and politi-

20 ' DECISIVE BATTLES [49013.c.

cal prostration of millions beneath the diadem, the tiara, and
the sword.

Great as the preponderance of the Persian over the Athe-
nian power at that crisis seems to have been, it would be
unjust to impute wild rashness to the policy of Miltiades, and
those who voted with him in the Athenian council of war, or
to look on the after current of events as the mere result of
successful indiscretion. As before has been remarked, Mil-
tiades, while prince of the Chersonese, had seen service in the
Persian armies; and he knew by personal observation how
many elements of weakness lurked beneath their imposing
aspect of strength. He knew that the bulk of their troops
no longer consisted of the hardy shepherds and mountaineers
from Persia proper and Kurdistan, who won Cyrus’s battles:
but that unwilling contingents from conquered nations now
largely ﬁlled up the Persian muster-rolls, ﬁghting more from
compulsion than from any zeal in the cause of their masters.
He had also the sagacity and the spirit to appreciate the
superiority of the Greek armor and organization over the
Asiatic, notwithstanding former reverses. Above all, he felt
and worthily trusted the enthusiasm of the men under his
command.

The Athenians, whom he led, had proved by their new-

born valor in recent wars against the neighboring states, that -

“Liberty and Equality of civic rights are brave, spirit-stirring
things; and they who, while under the yoke of a despot, had
been no better men of war than any of their neighbors, as
soon as they were free, became the foremost men of all; for
each felt that in ﬁghting, for a free commonwealth he fought
for himself, and, whatever he took in hand, he was zealous to
do the work thoroughly.” So the nearly contemporaneous
historian describes the change of spirit that was seen in the
Athenians after their tyrants were expelled; and; Miltiades
knew that in leading them against the invading army, where
‘ they had Hippias, the foe they most hated, before them,
he was bringing into battle no ordinary men, and could
calculate on no ordinary heroism. As for traitors, he was
sure that, whatever treachery might lurk among some of the
higher-born and wealthier Athenians, the rank and ﬁle whom
he commanded were ready to do their utmost in his and their

49013.0] BATTLE or MARATHON 21

own cause. With regard to future attacks from Asia, he
might reasonably hope that one victory would inspirit all
Greece to combine against the common foe; and that the
latent seeds of revolt and disunion in the Persian empire
would soon burst forth and paralyze its energies, so as to
leave Greek independence secure.

With these hopes and risks, Miltiades, on the afternoon of
a September day, 490 B.C., gave the word for the Athenian
army to prepare for battle. There were many local associa-
tions connected with those mountain heights which were cal-
culated powerfully to excite the spirits of the men, and of
which the commanders well knew how to avail themselves
in their exhortations to their troops before the encounter.
Marathon itself was a region sacred to Hercules. Close to
them was the fountain of Macaria, who had in days of yore
devoted herself to death for the liberty of her people. The
very plain on which they were to ﬁght was the scene of the
exploits of their national hero, Theseus ; and there, too, as old
legends told, the Athenians and the Heraclidae had routed the
invader, Eurystheus. These traditions were not mere cloudy
myths or idle ﬁctions, but matters of implicit, earnest faith to
the men of that day; and many a fervent prayer arose from
the Athenian ranks to the heroic spirits who, while on earth,
had striven and suffered on that very spot, and who were be-
lieved to be now heavenly powers, looking down with interest
on their still beloved country, and capable of interposing with
superhuman aid in its behalf.

According to old national custom, the warriors of each tribe
were arrayed together; neighbor thus ﬁghting by the side of
neighbor, friend by friend, and the spirit of emulation and the
consciousness of responsibility excited to the very utmost.
The War Ruler, Callimachus, had the leading of the right
wing; the Platwans formed the extreme left; and Themis-
tocles and Aristides commanded the center. The line con-
sisted of the heavy-armed spearmen only. For the Greeks
(until the time of Iphicrates) took little or no account of light-
armed soldiers in a pitched battle, using them only in skir-
mishes or for the pursuit of a defeated enemy. The panoply
of the regular infantry consisted of a long spear, of a shield,
and of helmet, breastplate, greaves, and short sword. Thus

22 DECISIVE BATTLES [490 B.C.

equipped, they usually advanced slowly and steadily into
action in a uniform phalanx of about eight spears deep. But,
the military genius of Miltiades led him to deviate on this
occasion from the commonplace tactics of his countrymen.
It was essential for him to extend his line so as to cover all
the practicable ground, and to secure himself from being out-
ﬂanked and charged in the rear by the Persian horse. This
extension involved the weakening of his line. Instead of a
uniform. reduction of its strength, he determined on detaching
principally from his center, which, from the nature of the
ground, would have the best opportunities for rallying if
broken; and on strengthening his wings, so as to insure
advantage at those points; and he trusted to his own skill,
and to his soldiers’ discipline, for the improvement of that
advantage into decisive victory.5 .

In this order, and availing himself probably of the inequali-
ties of the ground, so as to conceal his preparations from the
enemy till the last possible moment, Miltiades drew up the
eleven thousand infantry whose spears were to decide this crisis
in the struggle between the European and the Asiatic worlds.
The sacriﬁces by which the favor of Heaven was sought, and
its will consulted, were announced to show propitious omens.
The trumpet sounded for action, and, chanting the hymn of
battle, the little army bore down upon the host of the foe. »
Then, too, along the mountain slopes of Marathon must have
resounded the mutual exhortation which ZEschylus, who
fought in both battles, tells us was afterwards heard over
the waves of Salamis— “On, sons of the Greeks! Strike for
the freedom of your country! strike for the freedom of your
children and of your wives — for the shrines of your fathers’
gods, and for the sepulchers of your sires. All— all are now
staked upon the strife!”

Instead of advancing at the usual slow pace of the pha-
7 lanx, Miltiades brought his men on at a run. They were all

trained in the exercises of the palestra, so that there was no
fear of their ending the charge in breathless exhaustion; and
it was of the deepest importance for him to traverse as‘
rapidly as possible the space of about a mile of level ground
that lay between the mountain foot and the Persian outposts,
and so to get his troops into close action before the Asiatic

490 RC] BATTLE or MARATHON 23

cavalry could mount, form, and maneuver against him, or
their archers keep him long under bow-shot, and before the
enemy’s generals could fairly deploy their masses.

“ When the Persians,” says Herodotus, “ saw the Athenians
running down On them, Without horse or bowmen, and scanty
in numbers, they thought them a set of madmen rushing
upon certain destruction.” They began, however, to prepare
to receive them, and the Eastern chiefs arrayed, as quickly
as time and place allowed, the varied races who served in
their motley ranks. Mountaineers from Hyrcania and
Afghanistan, wild horsemen from the steppes of Khorassan,
the black archers of Ethiopia, swordsmen from the banks of
the Indus, the Oxus, the Euphrates, and the Nile, made
ready against the enemies of the Great King. But no
national cause inspired them, except the division of native
Persians; and in the large host there was no uniformity of
language, creed, race, or military system. Still, among them
there were many gallant men, under a veteran general; they
were familiarized with victory; and in contemptuous con-
ﬁdence their infantry, which alone had time to form, awaited
the Athenian charge. On came the Greeks, with one un-
wavering line of leveled spears, against which the light
targets, the short lances, and the simitars of the Orientals
offered weak defense. The front rank of the Asiatics must
have gone down to a man at the ﬁrst shock. Still they re-
coiled not, but strove by individual gallantry, and by the
weight of numbers, to make up for the disadvantages of
weapons and tactics, and to bear back the shallow line of the
Europeans. In the center, where the native Persians and
Sacx fought, they succeeded in breaking through the weaker
part of the Athenian phalanx; and the tribes led by Aristides
and Themistocles were, after a brave resistance, driven back
over the plain, and chased by the Persians up the valley
towards the inner country. There the nature of the ground
gave the opportunity of rallying and renewing the struggle;
_ and, meanwhile, the Greek wings, where Miltiades had con-
centrated his chief strength, had routed the Asiatics opposed
to them; and the Athenian and Plataean ofﬁcers, instead of
pursuing the fugitives, kept their troops well in hand,-and
wheeling round they formed the two wings together. Mlltla-

24 DECISIVE BATTLES [49o B.C.

des instantly led them against the Persian center, which had
hitherto been triumphant, but which now fell back and pre-
pared to encounter these new and unexpected assailants.
Aristides and Themistocles renewed the ﬁght with their re-
organized troops, and the full force of the Greeks was brought
into close action with the Persian and Sacian divisions of
the enemy. Datis’s veterans strove hard to keep their

ground, and evening6 was approaching before the stern en-
counter was decided.

But the Persians, with their slight wicker shields, destitute
of body armor, and never taught by training to keep the even
front and act with the regular movement of the Greek
infantry, fought at grievous disadvantage with their shorter
and feebler weapons against the compact array of well-armed
Athenian and Plataean spearmen, all perfectly drilled to per-
form each necessary evolution in concert, and to preserve a
uniform and unwavering line in battle. In personal courage
and in bodily activity the Persians were not inferior to their
adversaries. Their spirits were not yet cowed by the recol-
lection of former defeats; and they lavished their lives freely
rather than forfeit the fame which they had won by so many
victories. While their rear ranks poured an incessant shower
of arrows over the heads of their comrades, the foremost
Persians kept rushing forward, sometimes singly, some-
times in desperate groups of twelve or ten, upon the pro-
jecting spears of the Greeks, striving to force a lane into
the phalanx, and to bring their simitars and daggers into
play. But the Greeks felt their superiority, and though
the fatigue of the long-continued action told heavily on
their inferior numbers, the sight of the carnage that they
dealt among their assailants nerved them to ﬁght still more
ﬁercely on.

At last the previously unvanquished lords of Asia turned
their backs and ﬂed, and the Greeks followed, striking them
down, to the water’s edge,7 where the invaders were now
hastily launching their galleys, and seeking to embark and
ﬂy. Flushed with success, the Athenians dashed at the ﬂeet.
“ Bring ﬁre, bring ﬁre,” was their cry; and they began to lay
hold of the ships. But here the Asiatics resisted desperately,
and the principal loss sustained by the Greeks was in the as—

490 B.C.] BATTLE OF MARATHON 25

sault on the ﬂeet. Here fell the brave War Ruler Callimachus,
the general Stesilaus, and other Athenians of note. Conspicu-
ous among them was Cynageirus, the brother of the tragic poet
fEschylus. He had grasped the ornamental work on the stern
of one of the galleys, and had his hand struck off by an ax.
Seven galleys were captured; but the Persians succeeded in
saving the rest. They pushed off from the fatal shore; but
even here the skill of Datis did not desert him, and he sailed
round to the western coast of Attica, in hopes to ﬁnd the city
unprotected, and to gain possession of it from some of the
partisans of Hippias. Miltiades, however, saw and counter-
acted his maneuver. Leaving Aristides, and the troops of
his tribe, to guard the spoil and the slain, the Athenian com-
mander led his conquering army by a rapid night march back
across the country to Athens. And when the Persian ﬂeet
had doubled the Cape of Sunium and sailed up to the Athe-
nian harbor in the morning, Datis saw arrayed on the heights
above the city the troops before whom his men had ﬂed on the
preceding evening. All hope of further conquest in Europe
for the time was abandoned, and the bafﬂed armada returned
to the Asiatic coasts.

After the battle had been fought, but while the dead bodies
were yet on the ground, the promised reenforcement from
Sparta arrived. Two thousand Lacedaemonian spearmen,
starting immediately after the full moon, had marched the
hundred and ﬁfty miles between Athens and Sparta in the
wonderfully short time of three days. Though too late to
share in the glory of the action, they requested to be allowed
to march to the battle-ﬁeld to behold the Medes. They pro-
ceeded thither, gazed on the dead bodies of the invaders, and
then, praising the Athenians and what they had done, they
returned to Lacedaemon.

The number of the Persian dead was six thousand four hun-
dred; of the Athenians, a hundred and ninety-two. The num-
ber of Plataans who fell is not mentioned, but as they fought
in the part of the army which was not broken, it cannot have
been large.

The apparent disproportion between the losses of the two
armies is not surprising, when we remember the armor of the

Greek spearmen, and the impossibility of heavy slaughter

26 DECISIVE BATTLES [490 B.C.

being inﬂicted by sword or lance on troops so armed, as long
as they kept ﬁrm in their ranks.8

The Athenian slain were buried on the ﬁeld of battle. This
was contrary to the usual custom, according to which the bones
of all who fell ﬁghting for their country in each year were de-
posited in a public sepulcher in the suburb of Athens called
the Cerameicus. But it was felt that a distinction ought to
be made in the funeral honors paid to the men of Marathon,
even as their merit had been distinguished over that of all
other Athenians. A lofty mound was raised on the plain of
Marathon, beneath which the remains of the men of Athens
who fell in the battle were deposited. Ten columns were
erected on the spot, one for each of the Athenian tribes; and
on the monumental column of each tribe were graven the names
of those of its members whose glory it was to have fallen in
the great battle of liberation. The antiquary Pausanias read
those names there six hundred years after the time when they
were ﬁrst graven.9 The columns have long perished, but the
mound still marks the spot where the noblest heroes of antiquity,
the Marat/zonomackoz', repose.

A separate tumulus was raised over the bodies of the slain
Plataeans, and another over the light-armed slaves who had
taken part and had fallen in the battle.10 There was also a
distinct sepulchral monument to the general to whose genius ,
the victory was mainly due. Miltiades did not live long after
his achievement at Marathon, but he lived long enough to expe-
rience a lamentable reverse of his popularity and good fortune.
As soon as the Persians had quitted the western coasts of the
ngean, he proposed to an assembly of the Athenian people
that they should ﬁt out seventy galleys, with a proportionate
force of soldiers and military stores, and place them at his
disposal; not telling them whither he meant to proceed, but
promising them that, if they would equip the force he asked '
_ for, and give him discretionary powers, he would lead it to a
land where there was gold in abundance to be won with ease.
The Greeks at that time believed in the existence of Eastern
realms teeming with gold as ﬁrmly as the Europeans of the
sixteenth century believed in an Eldorado of the West. The
Athenians probably thought that the recent victor of Mara-
thon and former ofﬁcer of Darius was about to guide them on

490 B.C.]' BATTLE OF MARATHON 27

a secret expedition against some wealthy and unprotected cities
of treasure in the Persian dominions. The armament was voted
and equipped, and sailed eastward from Attica, no one but
Miltiades knowing its destination, until the Greek isle of Paros
was reached, when his true object appeared. In former years,
while connected with the Persians as prince of the Chersonese,
Miltiades had been involved in a quarrel with one of the lead-
ing men among the Parians, who had injured his credit and
caused some slights to be put upon him at the court of the
Persian satrap, Hydarnes. The feud had ever since rankled
in the heart of the Athenian chief, and he now attacked Paros
for the sake of avenging himself on his ancient enemy. His
pretext, as general of the Athenians, was that the Parians
had aided the armament of Datis with a war galley. The
Parians pretended to treat about terms of surrender, but used
the time which they thus gained in repairing the defective
parts of the fortiﬁcations of their city; and they then set the
Athenians at deﬁance. So far, says Herodotus, the accounts
of all the Greeks agree. But the Parians, in after years, told
also a wild legend, how a captive priestess of a Parian tem-
ple of the deities of the earth promised Miltiades to give him
the means of capturing Paros : how, at her bidding, the Athe—
nian general went alone at night and forced his way into a
holy shrine near the city gate, but with what purpose it was
not known: how a supernatural awe came over him, and in
his ﬂight he fell and fractured his leg: how an oracle after-

wards forbade the Parians to punish the sacrilegious and trai-
torous priestess, “because it was fated that Miltiades should

come to an ill end, and she was only the instrument to lead
him to evil.” Such was the tale that Herodotus heard at
Paros. Certain it was that Miltiades either dislocated or
broke his leg during an unsuccessful siege of that city, and
returned home in evil plight with his bafﬂed and defeated
forces. .

, The indignation of the Athenians was proportionate to the
hope and excitement which his promises had raised. Xanthip-
pus, the head of one of the ﬁrst families in Athens, indicted h1m
before the supreme popular tribunal for the capital offense
of having deceived the people. His guilt was undeniable,
and the Athenians passed their verdict accordingly. But the

A»,;“ M— 1.-“ ._.__ ‘

e‘x‘i .. ‘

ll
__§
l

 

28 DECISIVE BATTLES [490 B.C.

recollections of Lemnos and Marathon and the sight of the
fallen general, who lay stretched on a couch before them,
pleaded successfully in mitigation of punishment, and the
sentence was commuted from death to a ﬁne of ﬁfty talents.
This was paid by his son, the afterwards illustrious Cimon,
Miltiades dying, soon after the trial, of the injury which he
had received at Paros.11

The melancholy end of Miltiades, after his elevation to such
a height of power and glory, must often have been recalled to
the mind of the ancient Greeks by the sight of one, in partic-
ular, of the memorials of the great battle which he won. This
was the remarkable statue (minutely described by Pausanias)
which the Athenians, in the time of Pericles, caused to be
hewn out of a huge block of marble, which, it was believed,
had been provided by Datis to form a trophy of the antici-
pated victory of the Persians. Phidias fashioned out of this
a colossal image of the goddess Nemesis, the deity whose
peculiar function was to visit the exuberant prosperity both
of nations and individuals with sudden and awful reverses.
This statue was placed in a temple of the goddess at Rhamnus,
about eight miles from Marathon. Athens herself contained
numerous memorials of her primary great victory. Panenus,
the cousin of Phidias, represented it in fresco on the walls of
the painted porch; and, centuries afterwards, the ﬁgures of
Miltiades and Callimachus at the head of the Athenians were
conspicuous in the fresco. The tutelary deities were exhib-
ited taking part in the fray. In the background were seen
the Phoenician galleys; and nearer to the spectator the Athe-
nians and Platmans (distinguished by their leathern helmets)
were chasing routed Asiatics into the marshes and the sea.
The battle was sculptured, also, on the Temple of Victory in the
Acropolis; and even now there may be traced on the frieze the
figures of the Persian combatants with their lunar shields, their
bows and quivers, their curved simitars, their loose trousers,
and Phrygian tiaras.

These and other memorials of Marathon were the produce
of the meridian age of Athenian intellectual splendor—of the
age of Phidias and Pericles. For it was not merely by the
generation of men whom the battle liberated from Hippias and
the Medes that the transcendent importance of their victory

490 B.C.] BATTLE or MARATHON 29

was gratefully recognized. Through the whole epoch of her
prosperity, through the long Olympiads of her decay, through
centuries after her fall, Athens looked back on the day of
Marathon as the brightest of her national existence.

By a natural blending of patriotic pride with grateful piety,
the very spirits of the Athenians who fell at Marathon were
deiﬁed by their countrymen. The inhabitants of the districts
of Marathon paid religious rites to them, and orators solemnly
invoked them in their most impassioned adjurations before
the assembled men of Athens. “Nothing was omitted that
could keep alive the remembrance of a deed which had ﬁrst
taught the Athenian people to know its own strength by meas-
uring it with the power which had subdued the greater part of
the known world. The consciousness thus awakened ﬁxed its
character, its station, and its destiny; it was the spring of its
later great actions and ambitious enterprises.” [Thirlwall.]

It was not, indeed, by one defeat, however signal, that the
pride of Persia could be broken and her dreams of universal
empire be dispelled. Ten years afterwards she renewed her
attempts upon Europe on a grander scale of enterprise, and
was repulsed by Greece with greater and reiterated loss.
Larger forces and heavier slaughter than had been seen at
Marathon signalized the conﬂicts of Greeks and Persians at
Artemisium, Salamis, Plataea, and the Eurymedon. But,
mighty and momentous as these battles were, they rank not
with Marathon in importance. They originated no new im-
pulse. They turned back no current of fate. They were
merely conﬁrmatory of the already existing bias which Mara-
thon had created. The day of Marathon is the critical epoch
in the history of the two nations. It broke forever the spell
of Persian invincibility which had paralyzed men’s minds. It
generated among the Greeks the spirit which beat back Xer-
xes, and afterwards led on Xenophon, Agesilaus, and Alex-
ander, in terrible retaliation, through their Asiatic campalgns.
It secured for mankind the intellectual treasures of Athens,
the growth of free institutions, the liberal enlightenment of
the Western world, and the gradual ascendency for many
ages of the great principles of European civilization.

3o DECISIVE BATTLES [490 B.C.

NOTES

1 The historians who lived long after the time of the battle, such as
Justin, Plutarch, and others, give ten thousand as the number of the Athe-
nian army. Not much reliance could be placed on their authority if unsup-
ported by other evidence; but a calculation made from a number of the
Athenian free population remarkably conﬁrms it. Some Metoikoi probably
served as Hoplites at Marathon, but the number of resident aliens at Athens
cannot have been large at this period.

2 Mr. Grote observes that “this volunteer march of the whole Plataean
force to Marathon is one of the most affecting incidents of all Grecian his-
tory.” In truth, the whole career of Plataea, and the friendship, strong even
unto death, between her and Athens, form one of the most affecting episodes
in the history of antiquity. In the Peloponnesian war the Plataeans again
were true to the Athenians against all risks and all calculation of self—
interest; and the destruction of Platxa was the consequence. There are
few nobler passages in the classics than the speech in which the Plataean
prisoners of war, after the memorable siege of their city, justify before their
Spartan executioners their loyal adherence to Athens. '

3 At the battle of Plataea, eleven years after Marathon, each of the eight
thousand Athenian regular infantry who served there was attended by a
light—armed slave.

4 fEschines in Ctes. [Eschines is speaking of Xerxes, but Mitford is
probably right in considering it as the style of the Persian kings in their
proclamations. In one of the inscriptions at Persepolis, Darius terms
himself “Darius the great king, king of kings, the king of the many peopled
countries, the supporter also of this great world.” In another, he styles
himself “the king of all inhabited countries.”

5 It is remarkable that there is no other instance of a Greek general
deviating from the ordinary mode of bringing a phalanx of spearmen into
action, until the battles of Leuctra and Mantineia, more than a century after
Marathon, when Epaminondas introduced the tactics (which Alexander the
Great in ancient times, and Frederick the Great in modern times, made so
famous) of concentrating an overpowering force on some decisive point of
the enemy’s line, while he kept back, or, in military phrase, refused the
weaker part of his own. A

6 See the description, in the 62d section of the ninth book of Herodotus,
of the gallantry shown by the Persian infantry against the Lacedaamonians
at Plataea. We have no similar detail of the ﬁght at Marathon, but we
know that it was long and obstinately contested, and the spirit of the Per-
sians must have been even higher at Marathon than at Plataea. In both

.battles it was only the true Persians and the Sacae who showed this valor;
the other Asiatics ﬂed like sheep.

7 “The ﬂying Mede, his shaftless broken bow;
The ﬁery Greek, his red pursuing spear;
Mountains above, Earth’s, Ocean’s plain below,
Death in the front, Destruction in the rear !
Such was the scene.”— BYRON’S C/zz'lde Harold.

490 B.C.] BATTLE OF MARATHON 31

8 Mitford well refers to Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt, as instances of
similar disparity of loss between the conquerors and the conquered. ‘

9 Pausanias states, with implicit belief, that the battle—ﬁeld was haunted
at night by supernatural beings, and that the noise of combatants and the
snorting of horses were heard to resound on it. The superstition has sur-
vived the change of creeds, and the shepherds of the neighborhood still
believe that spectral warriors contend on the plain at midnight, and they
say that they have heard the shouts of the combatants and the neighing of
the steeds.

1° It is probable that the Greek light-armed irregulars were active in the
attack on the Persian ships, and it was in this attack that the Greeks suf-
fered their principal loss.

11 The commonplace calumnies against the Athenians respecting Mil-
tiades have been well answered by Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton in his “Rise
and Fall of Athens,” and Bishop Thirlwall, in the second volume of his
“History of Greece”; but they have received their most complete refutation
from Mr. Grote, in the fourth volume of his History. I quite concur with
him that, “looking to the practise of the Athenian dicastery in criminal
cases, ﬁfty talents was the minor penalty actually proposed by the defenders
of Miltiades themselves as a substitute for the punishment of death. In
those penal cases at Athens where the punishment was not ﬁxed beforehand
by the terms of the law, if the person accused was found guilty it was cus-
tomary to submit to the jurors, subsequently and separately, the question as
to the amount of punishment. First, the accuser named the penalty which
he thought suitable; next, the accused person was called upon to name an
amount of penalty for himself, and the jurors were constrained to take their
choice between these two; no third gradation of penalty being admissible
for consideration. Of course, under such circumstances, it was the interest
of the accused party to name, even in his own case, some real and serious
penalty, something which the jurors might be likely to deem not wholly
inadequate to his crime just proved; for if he proposed some penalty only
triﬂing, he drove them to prefer the heavier sentence recommended by his
opponent.” The stories of Miltiades having been cast into prison and
dying there, and of his having been saved from death only by the Inter-

position of the Prytanis of the day, are, I think, rightly rejected by Mr.
Grote as the ﬁctions of after ages. The silence of Herodotus respecting

them is decisive. It is true that Plato, in the “Gorgias,” says that the
Athenians passed a vote to throw Miltiades into the Barathrum, and speaks
of the interposition of the Prytanis in his favor; but it is to be remembered
that Plato, with all his transcendent genius, was (as Niebuhr has termed
him) a very indifferent patriot, who loved to blacken the character of 1115
country’s democratic institutions; and if the fact was that the Prytanis, at.
the trial of Miltiades, opposed the vote of capital punishment, and spoke in
favor of the milder sentence, Plato (in a passage Written to show the mis-
fortunes which befell Athenian statesmen) would readily exaggerate this

fact into the story that appears in his text.

32 DECISIVE BATTLES [490 13.0

EXPLANATORY REMARKS ON SOME OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES
OF THE BATTLE OF MARATHON

Nothing is said by Herodotus of the Persian cavalry tak-
ing any part in the battle, although he mentions that Hippias
recommended the Persians to land at Marathon, because the
plain was favorable for cavalry evolutions. In the life of
Miltiades, which is usually cited as the production of Cor-
nelius Nepos, but which I believe to be of no authority what-
ever, it is said that Miltiades protected his ﬂanks from the
enemy’s horse by an abattis of felled trees. While he was on
the high ground he wouldnot have required this defense;
and it is not likely that the Persians would have allowed him
to erect it on the plain.

Bishop Thirlwall calls our attention to a passage in Suidas,
where the proverb C/zorz's Hzppez's is said to have originated
from some Ionian Greeks, who were serving compulsorily
in the army of Datis, contriving to inform Miltiades that the
Persian cavalry had gone away, whereupon Miltiades immedi-
ately joined battle and gained the victory. There may prob-
ably be a gleam of truth in this legend. If Datis’s cavalry
was numerous, as the abundant pastures of Euboea were
close at hand, the Persian general, when he thought, from
the inaction of his enemy, that they did not mean to come

down from the heights and give battle, might naturally send

the larger part of his horse back across the channel to the
neighborhood of Eretria, where he had already left a detach-
ment, and where his military stores must have been deposited.
The knowledge of such a movement would of course conﬁrm
Miltiades in his resolution to bring on a speedy engagement.
But, in truth, whatever amount of cavalry we suppose
Datis to have had with him on the day of Marathon, their
inaction in the battle is intelligible, if we believe the attack
of the Athenian spearmen to have been as sudden as it was
rapid. The Persian horse-soldier, on an alarm being given,
had to take the shackles off his horse, to strap the saddle on,
and bridle him, besides equipping himself; and when each
individual horseman was ready, the line had to be formed;
and the time that it takes to form the Oriental cavalry in line
for a charge has, in all ages, been observed by Europeans.

1.223;." V _. I. A;

490 B.C.] BATTLE OF MARATHON 33

The wet state of the marshes at each end of the plain, in
the time of year when the battle was fought, has been ad-
verted to by Mr. Wordsworth; and this would hinder the
Persian general from arranging and employing his horsemen
on his extreme wings, while it also enabled the Greeks, as
they came forward, to occupy the whole breadth of the prac-
ticable ground with an unbroken line of leveled spears, against
which, if any Persian horse advanced, they would be driven
back in confusion upon their own foot.

Even numerous and fully arrayed bodies of cavalry have
been repeatedly broken, both in ancient and modern warfare,
by resolute charges of infantry. For instance, it was by an
attack of some picked cohorts that Cmsar routed the Pompeian
cavalry, which had previously defeated his own at Pharsalia.

I have represented the battle of Marathon as beginning in
the afternoon and ending towards evening. If it had lasted
all day, Herodotus would have probably mentioned that fact.
That it ended towards evening is, I think, proved by a line
from the “Vespae ” to which my attention was called by Sir
Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s account of the battle. I think that the
succeeding lines in Aristophanes justify the description which I
have given of the rear ranks of the Persians keeping up a ﬂight
of arrows over the heads of their comrades against the Greeks.

SYNOPSIS OF EVENTS BETWEEN THE BATTLE OF MARATHON,
490 B.C., AND THE DEFEAT OF THE ATHENIANs AT SYRA-

CUSE, 41 3 B.C.

490 to 487 B.C. All Asia is ﬁlled with the preparations
made by King Darius for a new expedition against Greece.
Themistocles persuades the Athenians to leave off dividing
the proceeds of their silver mines among themselves, and to

employ the money in strengthening their navy.
487. Egypt revolts from the Persians, and delays the ex-

pedition against Greece. .
485. Darius dies, and Xerxes, his son, becomes king of
Persia in his stead.

484. The Persians recover Egypt. .
480. Xerxes invades Greece. Indecisive actions between

the Persian and Greek ﬂeets at Artemisium. Destruction of
3

34 DECISIVE BATTLES [490 B.C.

the three hundred Spartans at Thermopylae. The Athenians
abandon Attica and go on shipboard. Great naval victory of
the Greeks at Salamis. Xerxes returns to Asia, leaving a chosen
army under Mardonius to carry on the war'against the Greeks.

478. Mardonius and his army destroyed by the Greeks at
Plateea. The Greeks land in Asia Minor, and defeat a Per-
sian force at Mycale. In this and the following years the
Persians lose all their conquests in Europe, and many on the
coast of Asia.

477. Many of the Greek maritime states take Athens as
their leader, instead of Sparta.

466. Victories of Cimon over the Persians at the Eurym—
edon.

464. Revolt of the Helots against Sparta. Third Messe-
nian war.

460. Egypt again revolts against Persia. The Athenians
send a powerful armament to aid the Egyptians, which, after
gaining some successes, is destroyed, and Egypt submits.
This war lasted six years.

457. Wars in Greece between the Athenian and several
Peloponnesian states. Immense exertions of Athens at this
time. “ There is an original inscription still preserved in the
Louvre, which attests the energies of Athens at this crisis,

when Athens, like England in modern wars, at once sought »

conquests abroad and repelled enemies at home. At the
period we now advert to (457 B.C.), an Athenian armament
of two hundred galleys was engaged in a bold though unsuc-
cessful expedition against Egypt. The Athenian crews had
landed, had won a battle; they had then reembarked and
sailed up the Nile, and were busily besieging the Persian
garrison in Memphis. As the complement of a trireme galley
was at least two hundred men, we cannot estimate the forces
then employed by Athens against Egypt at less than forty
thousand men. At the same time she kept squadrons on the
' coasts of Phoenicia and Cyprus, and yet maintained a home
ﬂeet that enabled her to defeat her Peloponnesian enemies at
Cecryphalae and AEgina, capturing in the last engagement
seventy galleys. This last fact may give us some idea of the
strength of the Athenian home ﬂeet that gained the victory;
' and by adopting the same ratio of multiplying whatever num-

 

490 B.C.]‘ BATTLE OF MARATHON 35

her of galleys we suppose to have been employed by two
hundred, so as to gain the aggregate number of the crews, we
may form some estimate of the forces which this little Greek
state then kept on foot. Between sixty and seventy thou-
sand men must have served in her ﬂeets during that year.
Her tenacity of purpose was equal to her boldness of enter-
prise. Sooner than yield or withdraw from any of their ex—
peditions, the Athenians at this very time, when Corinth sent
an army to attack their garrison at Megara, did not recall a
single crew or a single soldier from ngina or from abroad;
but the lads and old men, who had been left to guard the
city, fought and won a battle against these new assailants.
The inscription which we have referred to is graven on a
votive tablet to the memory of the dead, erected in that year
by the Erecthean tribe, one of the ten into which the Athe-
nians were divided. It shows, as Thirlwall has remarked,
‘that the Athenians were conscious of the greatness of their
own effort ’ ; and in it this little civic community of the ancient
world still ‘records to us with emphatic simplicity that “its
slain fell in Cyprus, in Egypt, in Phoenicia, at Halim, in
ngina, and in Megara, in the same year.” ’ ”

455. A thirty years’ truce concluded between Athens and
Lacedaernon.

440. The Samians endeavor to throw off the supremacy of
Athens. Samos completely reduced to subjection. Pericles
is now sole director of the Athenian councils.

431. Commencement of the great Peloponnesian war, in
which Sparta, at the head of nearly all the Peloponnesian
states, and aided by the Boeotians and some of the other
Greeks beyond the Isthmus, endeavors to reduce the power
of Athens, and to restore independence to the Greek mari-
time states who were the subject allies of Athens. At the
commencement of the war the Peloponnesian armies re-
peatedly invade and ravage Attica, but Athens .herself is
impregnable, and her ﬂeets secure her the dominlon of the

sea.
430. Athens visited by a pestilence, which sweeps off large

numbers of her population.
425. The Athenians gain great advantages over the Spar-

tans at Sphacteria, and by occupying Cythera; but they suffer

36 DECISIVE BATTLES [49o B.C.

a severe defeat in Boeotia, and the Spartan general, Brasidas,
leads an expedition to the Thracian coasts, and conquers
many of the most valuable Athenian possessions in those
regions.

421. Nominal truce for thirty years between Athens and
Sparta, but hostilities continue on the Thracian coast and in
other quarters.

415. The Athenians send an expedition to conquer Sicily.

CHAPTER II

Defeat of the Al/zem'am at Syracuse, 4r 3 B.C.

“The Romans knew not, and could not know, how deeply the greatness
of their own posterity, and the fate of the whole Western world, were in-
volved in the destruction of the ﬂeet of Athens in the harbor of Syracuse.
Had that great expedition proved victorious, the energies of Greece during
the next eventful century would have found their ﬁeld in the West no less
than in the East; Greece, and not Rome, might have conquered Carthage;
Greek instead of Latin might have been at this day the principal element
of the language of Spain, of France, and of Italy; and the laws of Athens,
rather than of Rome, might be the foundation of the law of the civilized

world.” — ARNOLD.
“The great expedition to Sicily, one of the most decisive events in the

history of the world.”—— N IEBUHR.

ing ancient and medieval times than has the city of
Syracuse. Athenian, Carthaginian, Roman, Vandal,
Byzantine, Saracen, and Norman have in turn beleaguered
her walls; and the resistance which she successfully opposed
to some of her assailants was of the deepest importance, not
only to the fortunes of the generations then in being, but to
all the subsequent current of human events. To adopt the
eloquent expressions of Arnold respecting the check which
she gave to the Carthaginian arms, “Syracuse was a break-
water which God’s providence raised up to protect the yet
immature strength of Rome.” And her triumphant repulse
'of the great Athenian expedition against her was of even
more wide-spread and enduring importance. It forms a de-
cisive epoch in the strife for universal empire, in whlch all the
great states of antiquity successively engaged and failed. . .
The present city of Syracuse is a place of 11ttle or no mili-
tary strength, as the ﬁre of artillery from the neighboring
heights would almost completely command 1t. But 1n anc1ent
37

I :EW cities have undergone more memorable sieges dur-

38 DECISIVE BATTLES [413 B.C.

warfare its position, and the care bestowed on its walls, ren-
dered it formidably strong against the means of offense which
then were employed by besieging armies. _

The ancient city, in the time of the Peloponnesian war, was
chieﬂy built on the knob of land which projects into the sea
on the eastern coast of Sicily, between two bays; one of
which, to the north, was called the Bay of Thapsus, while the
southern one formed the great harbor of the city of Syracuse
itself. A small island, or peninsula (for such it soon was
rendered), lies at the southeastern extremity of this knob of
land, stretching almost entirely across the mouth of the great
harbor, and rendering it nearly landlocked. This island com-
prised the original settlement of the ﬁrst Greek colonists from
Corinth, who founded Syracuse two thousand ﬁve hundred
years ago; and the modern city has shrunk again into these
primary limits. But, in the ﬁfth century before our era, the
growing wealth and population of the Syracusans had led
them to occupy and include within their city walls portion
after portion of the mainland lying next to the little isle; so
that at the time of the Athenian expedition the seaward part
of the land between the two bays already spoken of was built
over, and fortiﬁed from bay to bay, constituting the larger
part of Syracuse.

The landward wall, therefore, of the city traversed this
knob of land, which continues to slope upwards from the sea,
and which to the west of the old fortiﬁcations (that is, towards
the interior of Sicily) rises rapidly for a mile or two, but
diminishes in width, and ﬁnally terminates in a long, narrow
ridge, between which and Mount Hybla a succession of
chasms and uneven low ground extends. On each ﬂank of
this ridge the descent is steep and precipitous from its sum-
mits to the strips of level land that lie immediately below it,
both to the southwest and northwest. l

‘The usual mode of assailing fortiﬁed towns in the time of
the Peloponnesian war was to build a double wall round them,
sufﬁciently strong to check any sally of the garrison from
within, or any attack of a relieving force from without. The
interval within the two walls of the circumvallation was roofed
over, and formed barracks, in which the besiegers posted
themselves and awaited the effects of want or treachery

4I3 B.c.] ATHENIAN DEFEAT AT SYRACUSE 39

among the besieged in producing a surrender. And in every
Greek city of those days, as in every Italian republic of the
Middle Ages, the rage of domestic sedition between aristo-
crats and democrats ran high. Rancorous refugees swarmed
in the camp of every invading enemy; and every blockaded
city was sure to contain within its walls a body of intriguing
malcontents, who were eager to purchase a party triumph at
the expense of a national disaster. Famine and faction were
the allies on whom besiegers relied. The generals of that
time trusted to the operation of these sure confederates as
soon as they could establish a complete blockade. They
rarely ventured on the attempt to storm any fortiﬁed post.
For the military engines of antiquity were feeble in breaching
masonry, before the improvements which the ﬁrst Dionysius
effected in the mechanics of destruction; and the lives of
spearmen, the boldest and most highly trained, would, of
course, have been idly spent in charges against unshattered
walls.

A city built close to the sea, like Syracuse, was impregna-
ble, save by the combined operations of a superior hostile
ﬂeet and a superior hostile army. And Syracuse, from her
size, her population, and her military and naval resources, not
unnaturally thought herself secure from ﬁnding in another
Greek city a foe capable of sending a sufﬁcient armament to
menace her with capture and subjection. But in the spring
of 414 B.C. the Athenian navy was mistress of her harbor and
the adjacent seas; an Athenian army had defeated her troops,
and cooped them within the town; and from bay to bay a
blockading wall was being rapidly carried across the strips of
level ground and the high ridge outside the city (then termed
Epipolae), which, if completed, would have cut the Syracusans
off from all succor from the interior of Sicily, and have left
them at the mercy of the Athenian generals. The besiegers’
works were, indeed, unﬁnished; but every day the unfortiﬁed
interval in their lines grew narrower, and with it diminished
all apparent hope of safety for the beleaguered town.

Athens was now staking the ﬂower of her forces, and the
accumulated fruits of seventy years of glory, on one bold
throw for the dominion of the Western world. As Napoleon
from Mount Coeur de Lion pointed to St. Jean d’Acre, and

4O DECISIVE BATTLES [413 B.C.

told his staff that the capture of that town would decide his
destiny and would change the face of the world, so the
Athenian ofﬁcers, from the heights of Epipolae, must have
looked on Syracuse and felt that with its fall all the known
powers of the earth would fall beneath them. They must
have felt that Athens, if repulsed there, must pause forever
in her career of conquest, and sink from an imperial republic
into a ruined and subservient community.

At Marathon, the ﬁrst in date of the great battles of the
world, we beheld Athens struggling for self-preservation
against the invading armies of the East. At Syracuse she
appears as the ambitious and oppressive invader of others.
In her, as in other republics of old and of modern times, the
same energy that had inspired the most heroic efforts in
defense of the national independence soon learned to employ
itself in daring and unscrupulous schemes of self-aggrandize-
ment at the expense of neighboring nations. In the interval
between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars she had rapidly
grown into a conquering and dominant state, the chief of a
thousand tributary cities, and the mistress of the largest and
best-manned navy that the Mediterranean had yet beheld.
The occupation of her territory by Xerxes and Mardonius, in
the second Persian war, had forced her whole population to

become mariners; and the glorious results of that struggle _

conﬁrmed them in their zeal for their country’s service at sea.
The voluntary suffrage of the Greek cities of the coasts and
islands of the Egean ﬁrst placed Athens at the head of the
confederation formed for the further prosecution of the war
against Persia. But this titular ascendency was soon con-
verted by her into practical and arbitrary dominion. She
protected them from piracy and the Persian power, which
soon fell into decrepitude and decay; but she exacted in
return implicit obedience to herself. She claimed and en-
forced a prerogative of taxing them at her discretion, and
proudly refused to be accountable for her mode of expending
their supplies. Remonstrance against her. assessments was
treated as factious disloyalty; and refusal to pay was promptly
punished as revolt. Permitting and encouraging her subject
allies to furnish all their contingents in money, instead of
part consisting of ships and men, the sovereign republic

41313.0] ATHENIAN DEFEAT AT SYRACUSE 41

gained the double object of training her own citizens by con-
stant and well-paid service in her ﬂeets, and of seeing her
confederates lose their skill and discipline by inaction, and
become more and more passive and powerless under her yoke.
Their towns were generally dismantled, while the imperial
city herself was fortiﬁed with the greatest care and sumptu-
ousness, the accumulated revenues from her tributaries serv-
ing to strengthen and adorn to the utmost her havens, her
docks, her arsenals, her theaters, and her shrines, and to
array her in that plenitude of architectural magniﬁcence the
[ruins of which still attest the intellectual grandeur of the age
and people which produced a Pericles to plan and a Phidias
to execute.

All republics that acquire supremacy over other nations rule
them selﬁshly and oppressively. There is no exception to this
in either ancient or modern times. Carthage, Rome, Venice,
Genoa, Florence, Pisa, Holland, and Republican France, all
tyrannized over every province and subject state where they
gained authority. But none of them openly avowed their
system of doing so upon principle with the candor which the
Athenian republicans displayed when any remonstrance was
made against the severe exactions which they imposed upon
their vassal allies. They avowed that their empire was a tyr-
anny, and frankly stated that they solely trusted to force and
terror to uphold it. They appealed to what they called “ the
eternal law of nature, that the weak should be coerced by the
strong.” Sometimes they stated, and not Without some truth,
that the unjust hatred of Sparta against themselves forced
them to be unjust to others in self-defense. To be safe they
must be powerful; and to be powerful they must plunder and
coerce their neighbors. They never dreamed of communicat-
ing any franchise, or share in ofﬁce, to their dependents; but
jealously monopolized every post of command, and all political
and judicial power; exposing themselves to every risk with
unﬂinching gallantry; enduring cheerfully the laborious train-
ing and severe discipline which their sea—service required;
venturing readily on every ambitious scheme; and never suf-
fering difﬁculty or disaster to shake their tenacity of purpose.
Their hope was to acquire unbounded empire for thelr country,
and the means of maintaining each of the thirty thousand

42 DECISIVE BATTLES [413 B.C.

citizens who made up the sovereign republic in exclusive de-
votion to military occupations, and to those brilliant sciences
and arts in which Athens already had reached the meridian
of intellectual splendor.

Her great political dramatist speaks of the Athenian empire
as comprehending a thousand states. The language of the
stage must not be taken too literally; but the number of the
dependencies of Athens, at the time when the Peloponnesian
confederacy attacked her, was undoubtedly very great. With
a few triﬂing exceptions, all the islands of the ngean, and all
the Greek cities which in that age fringed the coasts of Asia
Minor, the Hellespont, and Thrace, paid tribute to Athens, and
implicitly obeyed her orders. The ngean Sea was an Attic
lake. Westward of Greece, her inﬂuence, though strong, was
not equally predominant. She had colonies and allies among
the wealthy and populous Greek settlements in Sicily and
South Italy, but she had no organized system of confederates
in those regions; and her galleys brought her no tribute from
the Western seas. The extension of her empire over Sicily
was the favorite project of her ambitious orators and generals.
While her great statesman Pericles lived, his commanding
genius kept his countrymen under control, and forbade them
to risk the fortunes of Athens in distant enterprises while they
had unsubdued and powerful enemies at their doors. He
taught Athens this maxim, but he also taught her to know and
to use her own strength; and when Pericles had departed, the
bold spirit which he had fostered overleaped the salutary
limits which he had prescribed. When her bitter enemies, the
Corinthians, succeeded, in 431 B.C., in inducing Sparta to
attack her, and a confederacy was formed of ﬁve sixths of the
Continental Greeks, all animated by anxious jealousy and bitter
hatred of Athens; when armies far superior in numbers and
equipment to those which had marched against the Persians
were poured into the Athenian territory, and laid it waste to
the city walls; the general opinion was that Athens would, in
two or three years at the farthest, be reduced to submit to the
requisitions of her invaders. But her strong fortiﬁcations, by
which she was girt and linked to her principal haven, gave her,
in those ages, almost all the advantages of an insular position.
Pericles had made her trust to her empire of the seas. Every

413 B.C.] ATHENIAN DEFEAT AT SYRACUSE 43

Athenian in those days was a practised seaman. A state in-
deed whose members, of an age ﬁt for service, at no time
exceeded thirty thousand, and whose territorial extent did
not equal half Sussex, could only have acquired such a naval
dominion as Athens once held, by devoting and zealously train-
ing all its sons to service in its ﬂeets. In order to man the
numerous galleys which she sent out, she necessarily employed
also large numbers of hired mariners and slaves at the oar; but
the staple of her crews was Athenian, and all posts of com-
mand were held by native citizens. It was by reminding them
of this, of their long practise in seamanship, and the certain
superiority which their discipline gave them over the enemy’s
marine, that their great minister mainly encouraged them to
resist the combined power of Lacedaemon and her allies. He
taught them that Athens might thus reap the fruit of her zeal-
ous devotion to maritime affairs ever since the invasion of
the Medes; “ she had not, indeed, perfected herself; but the
reward of her superior training was the rule of the sea—a
mighty dominion, for it gave her the rule of much fair land
beyond its waves, safe from the idle ravages with which the
Lacedeemonians might harass Attica, but never could subdue

Athens.” [Thucydides]
Athens accepted the war with which her enemies threat-

ened her rather than descend from her pride of place. And
though the awful visitation of the plague came upOn her and
swept away more of her citizens than the Dorian spear laid
low, she held her own gallantly against her foes. If the Pelo-
ponnesian armies in irresistible strength wasted every spring
her corn-lands, her vineyards, and her olive groves with ﬁre
and sword, she retaliated on their coasts with her ﬂeets;
which, if resisted, were only resisted to display the preemi-
nent skill and bravery of her seamen. Some of her subject
allies revolted, but the revolts were in general sternly and
promptly quelled. The genius of one enemy had, indeed,
inﬂicted blows on her power in Thrace which she was unable
to remedy; but he fell in battle in the tenth year of the war;
and with the loss of Brasidas the Lacedaemonians seemed to
have lost all energy and judgment. Both sides at length
grew weary of the war; and in 421 B.C. a truce of ﬁfty years
was concluded, which, though ill kept, and though many of

44 DECISIVE BATTLES [413 8.0.

the confederates of Sparta refused to recognize it, and hos-
tilities still continued in many parts of Greece, protected the
Athenian territory from the ravages of enemies, and enabled
Athens to accumulate large sums out of the proceeds of her
annual revenues. So also, as a few years passed by, the havoc
which the pestilence and the sword had made in her popula-
tion was repaired; and in 415 B.C. Athens was full of bold
and restless spirits who longed for some ﬁeld of distant enter-
prise wherein they might signalize themselves and aggrandize
the state, and who looked on the alarm of Spartan hostility
as a mere old woman’s tale. When Sparta had wasted their
territory she had done her worst; and the fact of its always
being in her power to do so seemed a strong reason for seek-
ing to increase the transmarine dominion of Athens.

The West was now the quarter towards which the thoughts
of every aspiring Athenian were directed. From the very
beginning of the war Athens had kept up an interest in
Sicily; and her squadrons had from time to time appeared
on its coasts and taken part in the dissensions in which the
Sicilian Greeks were universally engaged one against the
other. There were plausible grounds for a direct quarrel and
an open attack by the Athenians upon Syracuse.

With the capture of Syracuse all Sicily, it was hoped,
would be secured. Carthage and Italy were next to be
assailed. With large levies of Iberian mercenaries she then
meant to overwhelm her Peloponnesian enemies. The Per-
sian monarchy lay in hopeless imbecility, inviting Greek inva-
sion; nor did the known world contain the power that seemed
capable of checking the growing might of Athens, if Syracuse
onCe could be hers.

The national historian of Rome has left us, as an episode of
his great work, a disquisition on the probable effects that would
have followed if Alexander the Great had invaded Italy. Pos-
terity has generally regarded that disquisition as proving Livy’s
patriotism more strongly than his impartiality or acuteness.
Yet, right or wrong, the speculations of the Roman writer
were directed to the consideration of a very remote possibility.
To whatever age Alexander’s life might have been prolonged,
the East would have furnished full occupation for his martial
ambition, as well as for those schemes of commercial grandeur

 

 

413 B.C.] ATHENIAN DEFEAT AT SYRACUSE 45

and imperial amalgamation of nations in which the truly great
qualities of his mind loved to display themselves. With his
death the dismemberment of his empire among his generals
was certain, even-as the dismemberment of Napoleon’s em-
pire among his marshals would certainly have ensued if he
had been cut off in the zenith of his power. Rome, also, was
far weaker when the Athenians were in Sicily than she was
a century afterwards, in Alexander’s time. There can be little
doubt but that Rome would have been blotted out from the
independent powers of the West had she been attacked at
the end of the ﬁfth century B.C. by an Athenian army, largely
aided by Spanish mercenaries, and ﬂushed with triumphs
over Sicily and Africa, instead of the collision between her
and Greece having been deferred until the latter had sunk
into decrepitude and the Roman Mars had grown into full
vigor.

The armament which the Athenians equipped against Syra—
cuse was in every way worthy of the state which formed such
projects of universal empire; and it has been truly termed
“ the noblest that ever yet had been sent forth. by a free and
civilized commonwealth.” The ﬂeet consisted of one hundred
and thirty-four war galleys, with a multitude of store-ships.
A powerful force of the best heavy—armed infantry that Athens
and her allies could furnish was sent on board, together with
a smaller number of slingers and bowmen. The quality of the

forms was even more remarkable than the number. The zeal

of individuals vied with that of the republic in giving every
galley the best possible crew and every troop the most perfect
aCcouterments. And with private as well as public wealth
eagerly lavished on all that could give splendor as well as
efﬁciency to the expedition, the fated ﬂeet began its voyage
for the Sicilian shores in the summer of 415 B.C.

The Syracusans themselves, at the time of the Pelopon-
nesian war, were a bold and turbulent democracy, tyrannizing
over the weaker Greek cities in Sicily, and trying to gain in
that island the same arbitrary supremacy which Athens main-
tained along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. In
numbers and in spirit they were fully equal to the Athenlans,
but far inferior to them in military and naval discipline.
When the probability of an Athenian invasion was ﬁrst pub-

46 DECISIVE BATTLES [413 n.c.

licly discussed at Syracuse, and efforts were made by some of
the wiser citizens to improve the state of the national defenses
and prepare for the impending danger, the rumors of coming
war and the proposals for preparation were received by the
mass of the Syracusans with scornful incredulity. The speech
of one of their popular orators is preserved to us in Thu-
cydides, and many of its topics might, by a slight alteration of
names and details, serve admirably for the party among our-
selves at present which opposes the augmentation of our
forces, and derides the idea of our being in any peril from the
sudden attack of a French expedition. The Syracusan orator
told his countrymen to dismiss with scorn the visionary terrors
which a set of designing men among themselves strove to
excite in order to get power and inﬂuence thrown into their
own hands. He told them that Athens knew her own interest
too well to think of wantonly provoking their hostility: “ Even
if the enemies were to come,” said he, “so distant from their
resources, and opposed to such a power as ours, their destruction
would be easy and inevitable. Their ships will have enough to
do to get to our island at all, and to carry such stores of all sorts
as will be needed. .7 hey cannot therefore carry, besides, an
army large enough to cope with such a population as ours. T hey
will have no fortiﬁed place from which to commence their oper-
ations; but must rest them on no better base than a set of
wretched tents, and such means as the necessities of the moment
will allow them. But, in truth, I do not believe that they would
even be able to eﬂ'ect a disembarhation. Let us, therefore, set
at naught these reports as altogetherof home manufacture ; and
be sure that, if any enemy does come, the state will hnow how
to defend itself in a manner worthy of the national honor.”
Such assertions pleased the Syracusan assembly ; and their
counterparts ﬁnd favor now among some portions of the Eng-
lish public. But the invaders of Syracuse came; made good
their landing in Sicily; and, if they had promptly attacked
the city itself, instead of wasting nearly a year in desultory

operations in other parts of the island, the Syracusans must '

have paid the penalty of their self-sufﬁcient carelessness in
submission to the Athenian yoke. But of the three generals
who led the Athenian expedition, two only were men of ability,
and one was most weak and incompetent. Fortunately for

 

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413 13.0] ATHENIAN DEFEAT AT SYRACUSE 47

Syracuse, Alcibiades, the most skilful of the three, was soon
deposed from his command by a factious and fanatic vote of
his fellow countrymen, and the other competent one, Lama-
chus, fell early in a skirmish; while, more fortunately still for
her, the feeble and vacillating Nicias remained unrecalled and
unhurt, to assume the undivided leadership of the Athenian
army and ﬂeet, and to mar, by alternate overcaution and
overcarelessness, every chance of success which the early
part of the operations offered. Still, even under him, the
Athenians nearly won the town. They defeated the raw
levies of the Syracusans, cooped them within the walls, and,
as before mentioned, almost effected a continuous fortiﬁca-
tion from bay to bay over Epipolae, the completion of which
would certainly have been followed by capitulation.

Alcibiades, the most complete example of genius without
principle that history produces, the Bolingbroke of antiquity,
but with high military talents superadded to diplomatic and
oratorical powers, on being summoned home from his com-
mand in Sicily to take his trial before the Athenian tribunal,
had escaped to Sparta; and he exerted himself there with all
the selﬁsh rancor of a renegade to renew the war with Athens,
and to send instant assistance to Syracuse.

When we read his words in the pages of Thucydides (who
was himself an exile from Athens at this period, and may
probably have been at Sparta and heard Alcibiades speak),
we are at a loss whether most to admire or abhor his subtle
and traitorous counsels. After an artful exordium, in which
he tried to disarm the suspicions which he felt must be enter-
tained of him, and to point out to the Spartans how com-
pletely his interests and theirs were identiﬁed, through hatred
of the Athenian democracy, he thus proceeded: “ Hear me,
at any rate, on the matters which require your grave atten-
tion, and which I, from the personal knowledge that I have
of them, can and ought to bring before you. We Athenians
sailed to Sicily with the design of subduing, ﬁrst the Greek
cities there, and next those in Italy. Then we intended to
make an attempt on the dominions of Carthage and on Car-
thage itself.1 If all these projects succeeded (nor d1d we
limit ourselves to them in these quarters), we intended to in-
crease our ﬂeet with the inexhaustible supplies of ship timber

48 DECISIVE BATTLES [413 B.C.

which Italy affords, to put in requisition the whole military
force of the conquered Greek states, and also to hire large
armies of the barbarians—of the Iberians,2 and others in
those regions, who are allowed to make the best possible sol-
diers. T/zm, when we had done all this, we intended to assail
Peloponnesus with our collected force. Our ﬂeets would
blockade you by sea, and desolate your coasts; our armies
would be landed at different points, and assail your cities.
Some of these we expected to storm,3 and others we meant
to take by surrounding them with fortiﬁed lines. We thought
that it would thus be an easy matter thoroughly to war you
down; and then we should become the masters of the whole
Greek race. As for expense, we reckoned that each con-
quered state would give us supplies of money and provisions
sufﬁcient to pay for its own conquest, and furnish the means
for the conquest of its neighbors.

“Such are the designs of the present Athenian expedition
to Sicily, and you have heard them from the lips of the man
who, of all men living, is most accurately acquainted with
them. The other Athenian generals who remain with the
expedition will endeavor to carry out these plans. And be
sure that, without your speedy interference, they will all be
accomplished. The Sicilian Greeks are deﬁcient in military
training; but still, if they could be at once brought to com-
bine in an organized resistance to Athens, they might even
now be saved. But as for the Syracusans resisting Athens
by themselves, they have already, with the whole strength of
their population, fought a battle and been beaten; they can-‘
not face the Athenians at sea; and it is quite impossible for
them to hold out against the force of their invaders. And if
this city falls into the hands of the Athenians, all Sicily is
theirs, and presently Italy also; and the danger which I
warned you of from that quarter will soon fall upon your-
selves. You must, therefore, in Sicily ﬁght for the safety of
Peloponnesus. Send some galleys thither instantly. Put men
on board who can work their own way over, and who, as soon
as they land, can do duty as regular troops. But, above all,
let one of yourselves, let a man of Sparta, go over to take the
chief command, to bring into order and effective discipline
the forces that are in Syracuse, and urge those who at pres-

 

41313.0] ATHENIAN DEFEAT AT SYRACUSE 49

ent hang back to come forward and aid the Syracusans. The
presence of a Spartan general at this crisis will do more to
save the city than a whole army.” [Thucydides] The
renegade then proceeded to urge on them the necessity of
encouraging their friends in Sicily by showing that they
themselves were earnest in hostility to Athens. He exhorted
them not only to march their armies into Attica again, but to
take up a permanent fortiﬁed position in the country; and
he gave them in detail information of all that the Athenians
most dreaded, and how his country might receive the most
distressing and enduring injury at their hands.

The Spartans resolved to act on his advice, and appointed
Gylippus to the Sicilian command. Gylippus was a man who,
to the national bravery and military skill of a Spartan, united
political sagacity that was worthy of his great fellow country-
man Brasidas; but his merits were debased by mean and
sordid vice; and his is one of the cases in which history has
been austerely just, and where little or no fame has been
accorded to the successful but venal soldier. But for the
purpose for which he was required in Sicily, an abler man
could not have been found in Lacedeemon. His country gave
him neither men nor money, but she gave him her authority;
and the inﬂuence of her name and of his own talents was
speedily seen in the zeal with which the Corinthians and other
Peloponnesian Greeks began to equip a squadron to act under
him for the rescue of Sicily. As soon as four galleys were
ready he hurried over with them to the southern coast of Italy;
and there, though he received such evil tidings of the state
of ' Syracuse that he abandoned all hope of saving that city,
he determined to remain on the coast, and do what he could
in preserving the Italian cities from the Athenians.

So nearly, indeed, had Nicias completed his beleaguering
lines, and so utterly desperate had the state of Syracuse seem-
ingly become, that an assembly of the Syracusans was actu-
ally convened, and they were discussing the terms on Wthh
they should offer to capitulate, when a galley was seen dash-
ing into the great harbor, and making her way towards the
town with all the speed that her rowers could supply. From
her shunning the part of the harbor where the Athenian ﬂeet

lay, and making straight for the Syracusan side, it was clear
4

so DECISIVE BATTLES [413 Bic.

that she was a friend. The enemy’s cruisers, careless through
conﬁdence of success, made no attempt to cut her off; she
touched the beach, and a Corinthian captain springing on
shore from her was eagerly conducted to the assembly of the
Syracusan people, just in time to prevent the fatal vote being
put for a surrender.

Providentially for Syracuse, Gongylus, the commander of
the galley, had been prevented by an Athenian squadron from
following Gylippus to South Italy, and he had been obliged
to push direct for Syracuse from Greece.

The sight of actual succor, and thepromise of more, revived
the drooping spirits of the Syracusans. They felt that they
were not left desolate to perish; and the tidings that a Spar-
tan was coming to command them conﬁrmed their resolution
to continue their resistance. Gylippus was already near the
city. He had learned at Locri that the ﬁrst report which
had reached him of the state of Syracuse was exaggerated;
and that there was an unﬁnished space in the besiegers’ lines
through which it was barely possible to introduce reenforce-
ments into the town. Crossing the straits of Messina, which
the culpable negligence of Nicias had left unguarded, Gylippus
landed on the northern coast of Sicily, and there began to
collect from the Greek cities an army, of which the regular
troops that he brought from Peloponnesus formed the nucleus.
Such was the inﬂuence of the name of Sparta,4 and such were
his own abilities and activity, that he succeeded in raising
a force of about two thousand fully armed infantry, with
a larger number of irregular troops. Nicias, as if infatuated,
made no attempt to counteract his operations; nor, when
Gylippus marched his little army towards Syracuse, did the
Athenian commander endeavor to check him. The Syracu-
sans marched out to meet him; and while the Athenians
were solely intent on completing their fortiﬁcations on the
southern side towards the harbor, Gylippus turned their
position by occupying the high ground in the extreme
rear of Epipolae. He then marched through the unfortiﬁed
interval of Nicias’s lines into the besieged town; and, join-
ing his troops with the Syracusan forces, after some engage-
ments with varying success, gained the mastery over Nicias,
drove the Athenians from Epipolae, and hemmed them into

 

4I3 B.C.] ATHENIAN DEFEAT AT SYRACUSE 51

a disadvantageous position in the low grounds near the great
harbor.

The attention of all Greece was now ﬁxed on Syracuse; and
every enemy of Athens felt the importance of the opportu-
nity now offered of checking her ambition, and, perhaps, of
striking a deadly blow at her power. Large reenforcements
from Corinth, Thebes, and other Cities now reached the Syra-
cusans; while the bafﬂed and dispirited Athenian general
earnestly besought his countrymen to recall him, and repre-
sented the further prosecution of‘the siege as hopeless.

But Athens had made it a maxim never to let difﬁculty or
disaster drive her back from any enterprise once undertaken,
so long as she possessed the means of making an effort, how-
ever desperate, for its accomplishment. With indomitable
pertinacity she now decreed, instead of recalling her ﬁrst
armament from before Syracuse, to send out a second, though
her enemies near home had now renewed open warfare against
her, and by occupying a permanent fortiﬁcation in her terri-
tory had severely distressed her population, and were press-
ing her with almost all the hardships of an actual siege. She
still was mistress of the sea, and she sent forth another ﬂeet
of seventy galleys, and another army, which seemed to drain

the very last reserves of her military population, to try if
Syracuse could not be won, and the honor of the Athenian

arms be preserved from the stigma of retreat. Hers was,
indeed, a spirit that might be broken, but never would bend.
At the head of this second expedition she wisely placed her
best general, Demosthenes, one of the most distinguished
ofﬁcers whom the Peloponnesian war had produced, and who,
if he had originally held the Sicilian command, would soon
have brought Syracuse to submission.

The fame of Demosthenes the general has been dimmed
by the superior luster of his great countryman, Demosthenes
the orator. When the name of Demosthenes is mentioned,
it is the latter alone that is thought of. The soldier has found
no biographer. Yet out of the long list of the great men
Of the Athenian republic there are few that deserve to stand
higher than this brave, though ﬁnally unsuccessful, leader of
her ﬂeets and armies in the ﬁrst half of the Peloponnesian
war. In his ﬁrst campaign in fEtolia he had shown some of

52 DECISIVE BATTLES [413 B.C.

the rashness of youth, and had received a lesson of caution,
by which he proﬁted throughout the rest of his career, but
without losing any of his natural energy in enterprise or in
execution. He had performed the eminent service of rescuing
Naupactus from a powerful hostile armament in the seventh
year of the war; he had then, at the request of the Acarna-
nian republic, taken on himself the ofﬁce of commander-in-
chief of all their forces, and at their head he had gained some
important advantages over the enemies of Athens in Western
Greece. His most celebrated exploits had been the occupation
of Pylos, on the ,Messenian coast, the successful defense of
that place against the ﬂeet and armies of Lacedaemon, and
the subsequent capture of the Spartan forces on the isle of
Sphacteria; which was the severest blow dealt to Sparta
throughout the war, and which had mainly caused her to
humble herself to make the truce with Athens. Demosthenes
was as honorably unknown in the war of party politics at
Athens as he was eminent in the war against the foreign
enemy. We read of no intrigues of his on either the aristo-
cratic or democratic side. He was neither in the interest of
Nicias nor of Cleon. His private character was free from any
of the stains which polluted that of Alcibiades. On all these
points the silence of the comic dramatist is decisive evidence
in his favor. He had also the moral courage, not always
combined with physical, of seeking to do his duty to his coun-
try irrespectively of any odium that he himself might incur,
and unhampered by any petty jealousy of those who were
associated with him in command. There are few men named
in ancient history of whom posterity would gladly know more,
or whom we sympathize with more deeply in the calamities
that befell them, than Demosthenes, the son of Alcisthenes,
who, in the spring of the year 413 B.C., left Piraeus at the head
of the second Athenian expedition against Sicily.

His arrival was critically timed; for Gylippus had encour-
aged the Syracusans to attack the Athenians under Nicias by
sea as well as by land, and by an able stratagem of Ariston,
one of the admirals of the Corinthian auxiliary squadron, the
Syracusans and their confederates had inﬂicted on the ﬂeet
of Nicias the ﬁrst defeat that the Athenian navy had ever
sustained from a numerically inferior foe. Gylippus was pre-

 

413 B.C.] ATHENIAN DEFEAT AT SYRACUSE 53

paring to follow up his advantage by fresh attacks on the
Athenians on both elements, when the arrival of Demosthenes
completely changed the aspect of affairs, and restored the
superiority to the invaders. With seventy-three war galleys
in the highest state of efﬁciency, and brilliantly equipped
with a force of ﬁve thousand picked men of the regular in-
fantry of Athens and her allies, and a still larger number
of bowmen, javelin men, and slingers on board, Demosthenes
rowed round the great harbor with loud cheers and martial
music, as if in deﬁance of the Syracusans and their confeder-
ates. His arrival had indeed changed their newly born hopes
into the deepest consternation. The resources of Athens
seemed inexhaustible, and resistance to her hopeless. They
had been told that she was reduced to the last extremities,
and that her territory was occupied by an enemy; and yet,
here they saw her, as if in prodigality of power, sending forth,
to make foreign conquests, a second armament, not inferior
to that with which Nicias had ﬁrst landed on the Sicilian
shores.

With the intuitive decision of a great commander, Demos-
thenes at once saw that the possession of Epipolae was the
key to the possession of Syracuse, and he resolved to make a
prompt and vigorous attempt to recover that position, while
his force was unimpaired and the consternation which its
arrival had produced among the besieged remained unabated.
The Syracusans and their allies had run out an outwork
along Epipolae from the city walls, intersecting the fortiﬁed
lines of circumvallation which Nicias had commenced, but
from which they had been driven by Gylippus. Could Demos-
thenes succeed in storming this outwork, and in reestablish—
ing the Athenian troops on the high ground, he might fairly
hope to be able to resume the circumvallation of the city, and
become the conqueror of Syracuse; for, when once the be-
siegers’ lines were completed, the number of the troops with
which Gylippus had garrisoned the place would only tend to
exhaust the stores of provisions and accelerate its downfall.

An easily repelled attack was ﬁrst made on the outwork in
the daytime, probably more with the view of blinding the
besieged to the nature of the main operations than With any
expectation of succeeding in an open assault, With every dis-

54 DECISIVE BATTLES [413 B.C.

advantage of the ground to contend against. But when the
darkness had set in, Demosthenes formed his men in columns,
each soldier taking with him ﬁve days’ provisions, and the
engineers and workmen of the camp following the troops
with their tools, and all portable implements of fortiﬁcation,
so as at once to secure any advantage of ground that the
army might gain. Thus equipped and prepared, he led his
men along by the foot of the southern ﬂank of Epipolae, in
a direction towards the interior of the island, till he came
immediately below the narrow ridge that forms the extremity
of the high ground looking westward. He then wheeled his
vanguard to the right, sent them rapidly up the paths that
wind along the face of the cliff, and succeeded in completely
surprising the Syracusan outposts, and in placing his troops
fairly on the extreme summit of the all-important Epipolae.
Thence the Athenians marched eagerly down the slope to-
wards the town, routing some Syracusan detachments that
were quartered in their way, and vigorously assailing the
unprotected part of the outwork. All at ﬁrst favored them.
The outwork was abandoned by its garrison, and the Athe-
nian engineers began to dismantle it. In vain Gylippus brought
up fresh troops to check the assault; the Athenians broke
and drove them back, and continued to press hotly forward, .
in the full conﬁdence of victory. But, amid the general con-
sternation of the Syracusans and their confederates, one body
of infantry stood ﬁrm. This was a brigade of their Boeotian
allies, which was posted low down the slope of Epipolae, out-
side the city walls. Coolly and steadily the Boeotian infantry
formed their line, and, undismayed by the current of ﬂight
around them, advanced against the advancing Athenians.
This was the crisis of the battle. But the Athenian van was
disorganized by its own previous successes; and, yielding to
the unexpected charge thus made on it by troops in perfect
- order and of the most obstinate courage, it was driven back
in confusion upon the other divisions of the army that still
continued to press forward. When once the tide was thus
turned, the Syracusans passed rapidly from the extreme of
panic to the extreme of vengeful daring, and with all their
forces they now ﬁercely assailed the embarrassed and reced-
ing Athenians. In vain did the ofﬁcers of the latter strive

 

413 B.C.] ATHENIAN DEFEAT AT SYRACUSE 55

to reform their line. Amid the din and the shouting of the
ﬁght, and the confusion inseparable upon a night engage-
ment, especially one where many thousand combatants were
pent and whirled together in a narrow and uneven area, the
necessary maneuvers were impracticable; and though many
companies still fought on desperately, wherever the moonlight
showed them the semblance of a foe, they fought without con-
cert of subordination; and not unfrequently, amid the deadly
chaos, Athenian troops assailed each other. Keeping their
ranks close, the Syracusans and their allies pressed on against
the disorganized masses of the besiegers; and at length drove
them, with heavy slaughter, over the cliffs, which, scarce an
hour before, they had scaled full of hope and apparently cer-
tain of success.

This defeat was decisive of the event of the siege. The
Athenians afterwards struggled only to protect themselves
from the vengeance which the Syracusans sought to wreak in
the complete destruction of their invaders. Never, however,
was vengeance more complete and terrible. A series of sea-
ﬁghts followed, in which the Athenian galleys were utterly
destroyed or captured. The mariners and soldiers who escaped
death in disastrous engagements, and in a vain attempt to
force a retreat into the interior of the island, became prison-
ers of war. Nicias and Demosthenes were put to death in
cold blood; and their men either perished miserably in the
Syracusan dungeons, or were sold into slavery to the very
persons whom, in their pride of power, they had crossed the

seas to enslave.
All danger from Athens to the independent nations of the

West was now forever at an end. She, indeed, continued to
struggle against her combined enemies and revolted allies with
unparalleled gallantry; and many more years of varying war-
fare passed away before she surrendered to their arms. But
no success in subsequent conquests could ever have restored
her to the preeminence in enterprise, resources, and maritime
skill which she had acquired before her fatal reverses in Sic-
ily. Nor among the rival Greek republics, whom her own
rashness aided to crush her, was there any capable of reor-
ganizing her empire or resuming her schemes of conquest.
The dominion of Western Europe was left for Rome and

Wt

56 DECISIVE BATTLES [413 B.C.

Carthage to dispute two centuries later, in conﬂict still more
terrible, and with even higher displays of military daring and
genius, than Athens had witnessed either in her rise, her
meridian, or her fall.

NOTES

1 Arnold well reminds the reader that Agathocles, with a Greek force far
inferior to that of the Athenians at this period, did, a century afterwards,
very nearly conquer Carthage.

2 It will be remembered that Spanish infantry were the staple of the
Carthaginian armies. Doubtless Alcibiades and other leading Athenians
had made themselves acquainted with the Carthaginian system of carrying
on war, and meant to adopt it. With the marvelous powers which Alcibi-
ades possessed of ingratiating himself with men of every class and every
nation, and his high military genius, he would have been as formidable a
chief of an army of condottz'erz' as Hannibal afterwards was.

3 Alcibiades here alluded to Sparta itself, which was unfortiﬁed. His
Spartan hearers must have glanced round them, at these words, with mixed
alarm and indignation.

4 The effect of the presence of a Spartan ofﬁcer on the troops of the other
Greeks seems to have been like the effect of the presence of an English
ofﬁcer upon native Indian troops.

SYNOPSIS OF THE EVENTS BETWEEN THE DEFEAT OF THE
ATHENIANS AT SYRACUSE AND THE BATTLE OF ARBELA

412 B.C. Many of the subject allies of Athens revolt from »

her, on her disasters before Syracuse being known; the seat
of war is transferred to the Hellespont and eastern Side of the
ngean.

410. The Carthaginians attempt to make conquests in
Sicily. -

407. Cyrus the Younger is sent by the king of Persia to
take the government of all the maritime parts of Asia Minor,
and with orders to help the Lacedaemonian ﬂeet against the
Athenian. '

406. Agrigentum taken by the Carthaginians.

405. The last Athenian ﬂeet destroyed by Lysander at
ngospotamos. Athens closely besieged. Rise of the power
of Dionysius at Syracuse.

404. Athens surrenders. End of the Peloponnesian war.
The ascendency of Sparta complete throughout Greece.

403. Thrasybulus, aided by the Thebans and with the con-

 

{

D

i
ii
.

413 B.C.] ATHENIAN DEFEAT AT SYRACUSE S7

nivance of one of the Spartan kings, liberates Athens from
the Thirty Tyrants, and restores the democracy.

401. Cyrus the Younger commences his expedition into
Upper Asia to dethrone his brother Artaxerxes Mnemon.
He takes with him an auxiliary force of ten thousand Greeks.
He is killed in battle at Cunaxa; and the ten thousand, led by
Xenophon, effect their retreat in spite of the Persian armies
and the natural obstacles of their march.

399. In this, and the ﬁve following years, the Lacedaemo-
nians under Agesilaus and other commanders carry on war
against the Persian satraps in Asia Minor.

396. Syracuse is besieged by the Carthaginians, and suc-
cessfully defended by Dionysius.

394. Rome makes her ﬁrst great stride in the career of
conquest by the capture of Veii.

393. The Athenian admiral, Conon, in conjunction with
the Persian satrap, Pharnabazus, defeats the Lacedaemonian
ﬂeet off Cnidus, and restores the fortiﬁcations of Athens.
Several of the former allies of Sparta in Greece carry on
hostilities against her.

388. The nations of Northern Europe now ﬁrst appear in
authentic history. The Gauls overrun great part of Italy,
and burn Rome. Rome recovers from the blow, but her old
enemies, the [Equians and Volscians, are left completely
crushed by the Gallic invaders.

387. The peace of Antalcidas is concluded among the
Greeks by the mediation and under the sanction of the Per-
sian king.

378 to 361. Fresh wars in Greece. Epaminondas raises
, Thebes to be the leading state of Greece, and the supremacy
of Sparta is destroyed at the battle of Leuctra. Epaminondas
is killed in gaining the victory of Mantinea, and the power of
Thebes falls with him. The Athenians attempt a balancing
system between Sparta and Thebes.

359. Philip becomes king of Macedon.
357. The Social war breaks out in Greece, and lasts three

years. Its result checks the attempt of Athens to regain her

old maritime empire.
356. Alexander the Great is born. 7
343. Rome begins her wars with the Samnites: they ex-

58 DECISIVE BATTLES [413 B.C.

tend over a period of ﬁfty years. The result of this obstinate
contest is to secure for her the dominion of Italy.

340. Fresh attempts of the Carthaginians upon Syracuse.
Timoleon defeats them with great slaughter.

338. Philip defeats the confederate armies of Athens and
Thebes at Chaeronea, and the Macedonian supremacy over
Greece is ﬁrmly established.

336. Philip is assassinated, and Alexander the Great be-
comes king of Macedon. He gains several victories over
the northern barbarians who had attacked Macedonia, and
destroys Thebes, which, in conjunction with Athens, had
taken up arms against the Macedonians.

334. Alexander passes the Hellespont.

 

CHAPTER III

The Battle of Aréela, 331 B.C.

. “ Alexander deserves the glory which he has enjoyed for so many centu-
ries and among all nations ; but what if he had been beaten at Arbela, hav-
ing the Euphrates, the Tigris, and the deserts in the rear, without any strong
places of refuge, nine hundred leagues from Macedonia? ”—NAPOLEON.

“Asia beheld with astonishment and awe the uninterrupted progress of
a hero, the sweep of whose conquests was as wide and rapid as that of her
own barbaric kings or the Scythian or Chaldman hordes; but, far unlike
the transient whirlwinds of Asiatic warfare, the advance of the Macedonian
leader was no less deliberate than rapid; at every step the Greek power
took root, and the language and the civilization of Greece were planted
from the shores of the [Egean to the banks of the Indus, from the Caspian
and the great Hyrcanian plain to the cataracts of the Nile; to exist actually
for nearly a thousand years, and in their effects to endure forever.”—
ARNOLD.

of illustrious men whose characters have been vindi-

cated during recent times from aspersions which for
centuries had been thrown on them. The spirit of modern
inquiry and the tendency of modern scholarship, both of
which are often said to be solely negative and destructive,
have, in truth, restored to splendor, and almost created anew,
far more than they have assailed with censure, or dismissed
from consideration as unreal. The truth of many a brilliant
narrative of brilliant exploits has of late years been trium-
phantly demonstrated; and the shallowness of the skeptical
scoffs with which little minds have carped at the great minds
of antiquity has been in many instances decisively exposed.
The laws, the politics, and the lines of action adopted or rec-
ommended by eminent men and powerful nations have been
examined with keener investigation, and considered with more
comprehensive judgment, than formerly were brought to bear
on these subjects. The result has been at least as often favor«

59

g LONG and not uninstructive list might be made out

60 DECISIVE BATTLES [33: B.C.

able as unfavorable to the persons and the states so scruti-
nized; and many an oft-repeated slander against both meas-
ures and men has thus been silenced, we may hope, forever.

The veracity of Herodotus, the pure patriotism of Pericles,
of Demosthenes, and of the Gracchi, the wisdom of Cleisthenes
and of Licinius as constitutional reformers, may be mentioned
as facts which recent writers have cleared from unjust suspi-
cion and censure. And it might be easily shown that the
defensive tendency which distinguishes the present and recent
best historians of Germany, France, and England has been
equally manifested in the spirit in which they have treated
the heroes of thought and the heroes of action who lived dur-

ing what we term the Middle Ages, and whom it was so long
the fashion to sneer at or neglect.

The name of the victor of Arbela has led to these reﬂec-
tions; for, although the rapidity and extent of Alexander’s
conquests have through all ages challenged admiration and
amazement, the grandeur of genius which he displayed in his
schemes of commerce, civilization, and of comprehensive union
and unity among nations has, until lately, been comparatively
unhonored. This long-continued depreciation was of early
date. The ancient rhetoricians — a class of babblers, a school
for lies and scandal, as Niebuhr justly termed them—chose
among the stock themes for their commonplaces the character
and exploits of Alexander. They had their followers in every
age; and until a very recent period, all who wished to “ point
a moral or adorn a tale ” about unreasoning ambition, extrava-
gant pride, and the formidable frenzies of free will when
leagued with free power, have never failed to blazon forth the
so-called madman of Macedonia as one of the most glaring
examples. Without doubt, many of these writers adopted
with implicit credence traditional ideas, and supposed, with
uninquiring philanthropy, that in blackening Alexander they
were doing humanity good service. But also, without doubt,
many of his assailants, like those of other great men, have
been mainly instigated by “ that strongest of all antipathies,
the antipathy of a second-rate mind to a ﬁrst-rate one,” and
by the envy which talent too often bears to genius.

Arrian, who wrote his history of Alexander when Hadrian
was emperor of the Roman world, and when the spirit of dec-

 

33: B.C.] BATTLE or ARBELA 61

lamation and dogmatism was at its full height, but who was
himself, unlike the dreaming pedants of the schools, a states-
man and a soldier of practical and proved ability, well rebuked
the malevolent aspersions which he heard continually thrown
upon the memory of the great conqueror of the East. He
truly says, “ Let the man who speaks evil of Alexander not
merely bring forward those passages of Alexander’s life which
were really evil, but let him collect and review all the actions
of Alexander, and then let him thoroughly consider ﬁrst who
and What manner of man he himself is, and what has been his
own career; and then let him consider who and what manner
of man Alexander was, and to What an eminence of human
grandeur lze arrived. Let him consider that Alexander was
a king, and the undisputed lord of the two continents; and
that his name is renowned throughout the whole earth. Let the
evil speaker against Alexander bear all this in mind, and then
let him reﬂect on his own insigniﬁcance, the pettiness of his
own circumstances and affairs, and the blunders that he makes
about these, paltry and triﬂing as they are. Let him then ask
himself whether he is a ﬁt person to censure and revile such
a man as Alexander. I believe that there was in his time no
nation of men, no city—nay, no single individual— with
whom Alexander’s name had not become a familiar word. I
therefore hold that such a man, who was like no ordinary
mortal, was not born into the world without some special
providence.”

And one of the most distinguished soldiers and writers of
our own nation, Sir Walter Raleigh, though he failed to esti-
mate justly the full merits of Alexander, has expressed his
sense of the grandeur of the part played in the world by
“The Great Emathian Conqueror ” in language that well

deserves quotation 2—- 0
“ So much hath the spirit of some one man excelled as 1t

hath undertaken and effected the alteration of the greatest
states and commonweals, the erection of monarchies, the con-
quest of kingdoms and empires, guided handfuls of men
against multitudes of equal bodily strength, contrived v1ctor1es
beyond all hope and discourse of reason, converted the fearful
passions of his own followers into magnammlty, and the valor
of his enemies into cowardice; such spirits have been stirred

62 DECISIVE BATTLES [331 B.C.

up in sundry ages of the world, and in divers parts thereof, to
erect and cast down again, to establish and to destroy, and to
bring all things, persons, and states to the same certain ends,
which the inﬁnite spirit of the Universal, piercing, moving, and
governing all things, hath ordained. Certainly, the things
that this king did were marvelous, and would hardly have been
undertaken by any one else; and though his father had
determined to have invaded the Lesser Asia, it is like that he
would have contented himself with some part thereof, and
not have discovered the river Indus, as this man did.”

A higher authority than either Arrian or Raleigh may now
be referred to by those who wish to know the real merit of
Alexander as a general, and how far the commonplace asser-
tions are true, that his successes were the mere results of
fortunate rashness and unreasoning pugnacity. Napoleon
selected Alexander as one of the seven greatest generals
whose noble deeds history has handed down to us, and from
the study of whose campaigns the principles of war are to be
learned. The critique of the greatest conqueror of modern
times on the military career of the great conqueror of the old
world is no less graphic than true.

“Alexander crossed the Dardanelles 334 so, with an army
of about forty thousand men, of which one eighth was cav-
alry; he forced the passage of the Granicus in opposition
to an army under Memnon, the Greek, who commanded for
Darius on the coast of Asia, and he spent the whole of the
year 333 in establishing his power in Asia Minor. He was
seconded by the Greek colonists, who dwelt on the borders of
the Black Sea, and on the Mediterranean, and in Smyrna,
Ephesus, Tarsus, Miletus, etc. The kings of Persia left their
provinces and towns to be governed according to their own
particular laws. Their empire was a union of confederated
states, and did not form one nation; this facilitated its con-
quest. As Alexander only wished for the throne of the mon-
arch, he easily effected the change by respecting the customs,
manners, and laws of the people, who experienced no change
in their condition.

“In the year 332, he met with Darius at the head of sixty
thousand men, who had taken up a position near Tarsus, on
the banks of the Issus, in the province of Cilicia. He

; 0f
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33: B.C.] BATTLE OF ARBELA 63

defeated him, entered Syria, took Damascus, which contained
all the riches of the Great King, and laid siege to Tyre. This
superb metropolis of the commerce of the world detained him
nine months. He took Gaza after a siege of two months;
crossed the desert in seven days; entered Pelusium and
Memphis, and founded Alexandria. In less than two years,
after two battles and four or ﬁve sieges, the coasts of the
Black Sea from Phasis to Byzantium, those of the Mediter-
ranean as far as Alexandria, all Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt,
had submitted to his arms.

“ In 33 I he repassed the desert, encamped in Tyre, recrossed
Syria, entered Damascus, passed the Euphrates and Tigris,
and defeated Darius on the ﬁeld of Arbela, when he was at
the head of a still stronger army than that which he com-
manded on the Issus, and Babylon opened her gates to him.
In 3 30, he overran Susa, and took that city, Persepolis, and
Pasargada, which contained the tomb of Cyrus. In 329, he
directed his course northward, entered Ecbatana, and extended
his conquests to the coasts of the Caspian; punished Bessus,
the cowardly assassin of Darius ; penetrated into Scythia, and
subdued the Scythians. In 328, he forced the passage of the
Oxus, received sixteen thousand recruits from Macedonia, and
reduced the neighboring people to subjection. In 327, he
crossed the Indus, vanquished Porus in a pitched battle, took
him prisoner, and treated him as a king. He contemplated
passing the Ganges, but his army refused. He sailed down
the Indus, in the year 326, with eight hundred vessels; hav-
ing arrived at the ocean, he sent Nearchus with a ﬂeet to run
along the coasts of the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf, as
far as the mouth of the Euphrates. In 325, he. took sixty
days in crossing from Gedrosia, entered Keramania, returned
to Pasargada, Persepolis, and Susa, and marrled Statira, the
daughter of Darius. In 324, he marched once more to the
north, passed Ecbatana, and terminated his career at Babylon.”

The enduring importance of Alexander’s conquests is. to be
estimated not by the duration of his own life and empire, or
even by the duration of the kingdoms which his generals after
his death formed out of the fragments of that mighty dominion.
In every region of the world that he traversed, Alexander

planted Greek settlements, and founded cities, in the popula-

64 DECISIVE BATTLES [331 B.C.

tions of which the Greek element at once asserted its pre-
dominance. Among his successors, the Seleucidae and the
Ptolemies imitated their great captain in blending schemes of
civilization, of commercial intercourse, and of literary and
scientiﬁc research with all their enterprises of military ag-
grandizement, and with all their systems of civil administration.
Such was the ascendency of the Greek genius, so wonderfully
comprehensive and assimilating was the cultivation which it
introduced, that, within thirty years after Alexander crossed
the Hellespont, the language, the literature, and the arts of
Hellas, enforced and promoted by the arms of semi-Hellenic
Macedon, predominated in every country from- the shores of
that sea to the Indian waters. Even sullen Egypt acknowl-
edged the intellectual supremacy'of Greece; and the language
of Pericles and Plato became the language of the statesmen
and the sages who dwelt in the mysterious land of the Pyramids
and the Sphinx. It is not to be supposed that this victory of
the Greek tongue was so complete as to exterminate the Coptic,
the Syrian, the Armenian, the Persian, or the other native
languages of the numerous nations and tribes between the
ngean, the Iaxartes, the Indus, and the Nile; they survived
as provincial dialects. Each probably was in use as the vul-
gar tongue of its own district. But every person with the
slightest pretense to education spoke Greek. Greek was uni-
versally the state language, and the exclusive language of all
literature and science. It formed also for the merchant, the
trader, and the traveller, as well as for the courtier, the gov-
ernment ofﬁcial, and the soldier, the organ of intercommunica-
tion among the myriads of mankind inhabiting these large
portions of the Old World. Throughout Asia Minor, Syria,
and Egypt, the Hellenic character that was thus imparted
remained in full vigor down to the time of the Mahometan
conquests. The inﬁnite value of this to humanity in the
. highest and holiest point of View has often been pointed out;
and the workings of the ﬁnger of Providence have been
gratefully recognized by those who have observed how the
early growth and progress of Christianity were aided by that
diffusion of the Greek language and civilization throughout
Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt which had been caused by the
Macedonian conquest of the East.

 

331 B.C.] BATTLE OF ARBELA 65

In Upper Asia, beyond the Euphrates, the direct and material
inﬂuence of Greek ascendency was more short-lived. Yet
during the existence of the Hellenic kingdoms in these regions,
especially of the Greek kingdom of Bactria, the modern Bo-
khara, very important effects were produced on the intellectual
tendencies and tastes of the inhabitants of those countries
and of the adjacent ones by the animating contact of the
Grecian spirit. Much of Hindoo science and philosophy,
much of the literature of the later Persian kingdom of the
Arsacidae, either originated from, or was largely modiﬁed
by, Grecian inﬂuences. So, also, the learning and science of
the Arabians were in a far less degree the result of original
invention and genius than the reproduction, in an altered
form, of the Greek philosophy and the Greek lore acquired
by the Saracenic conquerors together with their acquisition of
the provinces which Alexander had subjugated nearly a thou-
sand years before the armed disciples of Mahomet com-
' menced their career in the East. It is well known that
Western Europe in the Middle Ages drew its philosophy,
its arts, and its science principally from Arabian teachers.
And thus we see how the intellectual inﬂuence of ancient
Greece, poured on the Eastern world by Alexander’s vic-
tories, and then brought back to bear on medieval Europe
by the spread of the Saracenic powers, has exerted its action
on the elements of modern civilization by this powerful
though indirect channel, as well as by the more obvious
effects of the remnants of classic civilization which survived
in Italy, Gaul, Britain, and Spain after the irruption of the

Germanic nations. . .
These considerations invest the Macedonian triumphs in

the East with never-dying interest, such as the most showy
and sanguinary successes of mere “low ambition and the

pride of kings,” however they may dazzle for a moment, can
never retain with posterity. Whether the old Per51an emplre,

which Cyrus founded, could have survived much longer than
it did, even if Darius had been victorious at Arbela, may
safely be disputed. That ancient dominion, like the Turklsh
at the present time, labored under every cause of decay and
dissolution. The satraps, like the modern pashas, continually

rebelled against the central power; and Egypt, in particular,
5

66 DECISIVE BATTLES [331 Vac.

was almost always in a state of insurrection against its nomi-
nal sovereign. There was no longer any effective central
control, or any internal principle of unity fused through the
huge mass of the empire and binding it together. Persia was
evidently about to fall; but, had it not been for Alexander’s
invasion of Asia, she would most probably have fallen
beneath some other Oriental power, as Media and Babylon
had formerly fallen before herself, and as, in after-times,
the Parthian supremacy gave way to the revived ascendency
of Persia in the East, under the scepters of the Arsacidae.
A revolution that merely substituted one Eastern power for
another would have been utterly barren and unproﬁtable to
mankind.

Alexander’s victory at Arbela not only overthrew an Ori-
ental dynasty, but established European rulers in its stead.
It broke the monotony of the Eastern world by the impres-
sion of Western energy and superior civilization; even as
England’s present mission is to break up the mental and
moral stagnation of India and Cathay by pouring upon and
through them the impulsive current of Anglo-Saxon com-
merce and conquest.

Arbela, the city which has furnished its name to the deci-
sive battle that gave Asia to Alexander, lies more than twenty
miles from the actual scene of conﬂict. The little village»
then named Gaugamela is close to the spot where the armies
met, but has ceded the honor of naming the battle to its
more euphonious neighbor. Gaugamela is situated in one of
the wide plains that lie between the Tigris and the mountains
of Kurdistan. A few undulating hillocks diversify the sur-
face of this sandy track; but the ground is generally level,
and admirably qualiﬁed for the evolutions of cavalry, and
also calculated to give the larger of two armies the full
advantage of numerical superiority. The Persian king (who,
before he came to the throne, had proved his personal valor
as a soldier and his skill as a general) had wisely selected
this region for the third and decisive encounter between his

forces and the invaders. The. previous defeats of his troops,

however severe they had been, were not looked on as irrepa-
rable. The Granicus had been fought by his generals rashly

and without mutual concert. And, though Darius himself.

arkvér'ae‘.» A... »

4.4L,“ . _.;.,. A.

 

331 no] BATTLE OF ARBELA 67

had commanded and been beaten at Issus, that defeat might
be attributed to the disadvantageous nature of the ground;
where, cooped up between the mountains, the river, and the
sea, the numbers of the Persians confused and clogged alike
the general’s skill and the soldiers’ prowess, so that their
very strength became their weakness. Here, on the broad
plains of Kurdistan, there was scope for Asia’s largest host
to array its lines, to wheel, to skirmish, to condense or
expand its squadrons, to maneuver, and to charge, at will.
Should Alexander and his scanty band dare to plunge into
that living sea of war, their destruction seemed inevitable.
Darius felt, however, the critical nature to himself as well
as to his adversary of the coming encounter. He could not
hope to retrieve the consequences of a third overthrow. The
great cities of Mesopotamia and Upper Asia, the central
provinces of the 'Persian empire, were certain to be at the
mercy of the victor. Darius knew also the Asiatic character
well enough to be aware how it yields to the prestige of suc—
cess and the apparent career of destiny. He felt that the
diadem was now either to be ﬁrmly replaced on his own
brow, or to be irrevocably transferred to the head of his
EurOpean conqueror. He, therefore, during the long inter—
val left him after the battle of Issus, while Alexander was
subjugating Syria and Egypt, assiduously busied himself in
selecting the best troops which his vast empire supplied, and
in training his varied forces to act together with some uni-
formity of discipline and system. .
The hardy mountaineers of Afghanistan, Bokhara, Khiva,
and Thibet were then, as at present, far different from the
generality of Asiatics in warlike spirit and endurance. from
these districts Darius collected large bodies of admirable
infantry; and the countries of the modern Kurds and Turko-
mans supplied, as they do now, squadrons of horsemen-strong,
skilful, bold, and trained to a life of constant act1v1ty and
warfare. It is not'uninteresting to notice that the ancestors
of our own late enemies, the Sikhs, served as allies of Darius
against the Macedonians. They are spoken of in Arrian as
Indians who dwelt near Bactria. They were attached to the
troops of that satrapy, and’their cavalry was one of the most

formidable forces in the whole Persian army.

1 $ .
-«...-Ai -. .

68 DECISIVE BATTLES . [33x B.C.

Besides these picked troops, contingents also came in from
the numerous other provinces that yet obeyed the Great King.
Altogether, the horse are said to have been forty thousand,
the scythe-bearing chariots two hundred, and the armed ele-
phants ﬁfteen in number. The amount of the infantry is
uncertain ; but the knowledge which both ancient and modern
times supply of the usual character of Oriental armies, and
of their populations of camp-followers, may warrant us in
believing that many myriads were prepared to ﬁght, or to
encumber those who fought, for the last Darius.

The position of the Persian king near Mesopotamia was
chosen with great military skill. It was certain that Alex-
ander on his return from Egypt must march northward along
the Syrian coast, before he attacked the central provinces of
the Persian empire. A direct eastward march from the lower
part of Palestine across the great Syrian desert was then, as
now, utterly impracticable. Marching eastward from Syria,
Alexander would, on crossing the Euphrates, arrive at the
vast Mesopotamian plains. The wealthy capitals of the em-
pire, Babylon, Susa, and Persepolis, would then lie to his
south; and if he marched down through Mesopotamia to
attack them, Darius might reasonably hope to follow the
Macedonians with his immense force of cavalry, and, without
even risking a pitched battle, to harass and ﬁnally overwhelm
them. We may remember that three centuries afterwards a
Roman army under Crassus was thus actually destroyed by
the Oriental archers and horsemen in these very plains; and
that the ancestors of the Parthians who thus vanquished the
Roman legions served by thousands under King Darius. If,
on the contrary, Alexander should defer his march against
Babylon, and ﬁrst seek an encounter with the Persian army,
the country on each side of the Tigris in this latitude was
highly advantageous for such an army as Darius commanded;
and he had close in his rear the mountainous districts of
Northern Media, where he himself had in early life been
satrap, where he had acquired reputation as a soldier and a
general, and where he justly expected to ﬁnd loyalty to his
person and a safe refuge 1n case of defeat.

His great antagonist came on across the Euphrates against
him, at the head of an army which Arrian, copying from the

 

331 B.C.] BATTLE OF ARBELA 69

journals of Macedonian ofﬁcers, states to have consisted of
forty thousand foot and seven thousand horse. In studying
the campaigns of Alexander, we possess the peculiar advan-
tage of deriving our information from two of Alexander’s
generals of division, who bore an important part in all his
enterprises. Aristobulus and Ptolemy (who afterwards be-
came king of Egypt) kept regular journals of the military
events which they witnessed; and these journals were in the
possession of Arrian when he drew up his history of Alex-
ander’s expedition. The high character of Arrian for integ-
rity makes us conﬁdent that he used them fairly, and his
comments on the occasional discrepancies between the two
Macedonian narratives prove that he used them sensibly.
He frequently quotes the very words of his authorities: and
his history thus acquires a charm such as very few ancient
or modern military narratives possess. The anecdotes and
expressions which he records we fairly believe to be genuine,
and not to be the coinage of a rhetorician, like those in Cur-
tius. In fact, in reading Arrian, we read General Aristobulus
and General Ptolemy on the campaigns of the Macedonians;
and it is like reading General Jomini or General F oy on the
campaigns of the French.

The estimate which we ﬁnd in Arrian of the strength of
Alexander’s army seems reasonable when we take into account
both the losses which he had sustained and the reenforcements
which he had received since he left Europe. Indeed, to
Englishmen, who know with what mere handfuls of men our
own generals have, at Plassy, at Assaye, at Meeanee, and
other Indian battles, routed large hosts of Asiatics, the dis-
parity of numbers that we read of in the victories won by the
Macedonians over the Persians presents nothing incredible.
The army which Alexander now led was wholly composed of
veteran troops in the highest possible state of equipment and
discipline, enthusiastically devoted to their leader, and full of
conﬁdence in his military genius and his victorious destiny.

The celebrated Macedonian phalanx formed the main
strength of his infantry. This force had been raised and
organized by his father Philip, who on hIS accessmn to the
Macedonian throne needed a numerous and qulckly formed
army, and who, by lengthening the spear of the ordinary

7O DECISIVE BATTLES [331 B.C.

Greek phalanx, and increasing the depth of the ﬁles, brought
the tactic of armed masses to the greatest efﬁciency of which
it was capable with such materials as he possessed. He
formed his men sixteen deep, and placed in their grasp the
sarissa, as the Macedonian pike was called, which was four-
and-twenty feet in length, and, when couched for action,
reached eighteen feet in front of the soldier; so that, as a
space of about two feet was allowed between the ranks, the
spears of the ﬁve ﬁles behind him projected in advance of
each front-rank man. The phalangite soldier was fully
equipped in the defensive armor of the regular Greek infan-
try. And thus the phalanx presented a ponderous and bris-
tling mass, which, as long as its order was kept compact, was
sure to bear down all opposition. The defects of such an
organization are obvious, and were proved in after-years, when
the Macedonians were opposed to the Roman legions. But
it is clear that, under Alexander, the phalanx was not the
cumbrous, unwieldy body which it was at Cynoscephalm and
Pydna. His men were veterans; and he could obtain from
them an accuracy of movement and steadiness of evolution
such as probably the recruits of his father would only have
floundered in attempting, and such as certainly were imprac-
ticable in the phalanx when handled by his successors, espe-
cially as under them it ceased to be a standing force, and
became only a militia. Under Alexander the phalanx con-
sisted of an aggregate of eighteen thousand men, who were
divided into six brigades of three thousand each. These were
again subdivided into regiments and companies; and the men
were carefully trained to wheel, to face about, to take more
ground, or to close up, as the emergencies of the battle
required. Alexander also arrayed, in the intervals of the
regiments of his phalangites, troops armed in a different man-
ner, which could prevent their line from being pierced, and
their companies taken in ﬂank, when the nature of the ground
prevented a close formation; and which could be withdrawn,
when a favorable opportunity arrived for closing up the
phalanx or any of its brigades for a charge, or when it was
necessary to prepare to receive cavalry.

Besides the phalanx, Alexander had a considerable force of
infantry who Were called shield-bearers: they were not so

 

2" ”run:

331 no] BATTLE OF ARBELA 71

heavily armed as the phalangites, or as was the case with the
Greek regular infantry in general; but they were equipped
for close ﬁght, as well as for skirmishing, and were far supe-
. rior to the ordinary irregular troops of Greek warfare. They
were about six thousand strong. Besides these, he had sev-
eral bodies of Greek regular infantry; and he had archers,
slingers, and javelin men, who fought also with broadsword
and target. These were principally supplied to him by the
highlanders of Illyria and Thracia. The main strength of
his cavalry consisted in two chosen corps of cuirassiers—one
Macedonian and one Thessalian—each of which was about
ﬁfteen hundred strong. They were provided with long lances
and heavy swords, and horse as well as man was fully
equipped with defensive armor. Other regiments of regular
cavalry were less heavily armed, and there were several
bodies of light horsemen, whom Alexander’s conquests in
Egypt and Syria had enabled him to mount superbly.

A little before the end of August, Alexander crossed the
Euphrates at Thapsacus, a small corps of Persian cavalry
under Mazaeus retiring before him. Alexander was too pru-
dent to march down through the Mesopotamian deserts, and
continued to advance eastward with the intention of passing
the Tigris, and then, if he was unable to ﬁnd Darius and
bring him to action, of marching southward on the left side
of that river along the skirts of a mountainous district, where
his men would suffer less from heat and thirst, and where
provisions would be more abundant.

Darius, ﬁnding that his adversary was not to be enticed
into the march through Mesopotamia against his capital, de-
termined to remain on the battle-ground which he had chosen
on the left of the Tigris; where, if his enemy met a defeat or
a check, the destruction of the invaders would be certain with
two such rivers as the Euphrates and the Tigris in their rear.
The Persian king availed himself to the utmost of every ad-
vantage in his power. He caused a large space of ground to
be carefully leveled for the operation of his scythe—armed
chariots; and he deposited his military stores in the strong
town of Arbela, about twenty miles in his rear. The rhetori-
cians of after-ages have loved to describe Darius Codomannus

as a second Xerxes in ostentation and imbecility; but a fair

72 DECISIVE BATTLES [331 B.C.

examination of his generalship in this his last campaign shows
that he was worthy of bearing the same name as his great
predecessor, the royal son of Hystaspes.

On learning that Darius was with a large army on the left
of the Tigris, Alexander hurried forward and crossed that
river without opposition. He was at ﬁrst unable to procure
any certain intelligence of the precise position of the enemy,
and after giving his army a short interval of rest, he marched
for four days down the left bank of the river. A moralist
may pause upon the fact that Alexander must in this march
have passed within a few miles of the remains of Nineveh,
the great city of the primeval conquerors of the human race.
Neither the Macedonian king nor any of his followers knew
what those vast mounds had once been. They had already
become nameless masses of grass-grown ruins; and it is only
within the last few years that the intellectual energy of one of
our own countrymen has rescued Nineveh from its long
centuries of oblivion.

On the fourth day of Alexander’s southward march, his
advanced guard reported that a body of the enemy’s cavalry
was in sight. He instantly formed his army in order for
battle, and, directing them to advance steadily, he rode for-
ward at the head of some squadrons of cavalry, and charged
the Persian horse whom he found before him. This was a
mere reconnoitering party, and they broke and ﬂed immedi- »
ately; but the Macedonians made some prisoners, and from
them Alexander found that Darius was posted only a few
miles off, and learned the strength of the army that he had
with him. On receiving this news, Alexander halted, and
gave his men repose for four days, so that they should go into
action fresh and vigorous. He also fortiﬁed his camp, and
deposited in it all his military stores and all his sick and dis-
abled soldiers, intending to advance upon the enemy with the
serviceable part of his army perfectly unencumbered. After
this halt he moved forward, while it was yet dark, with the
‘ intention of reaching the enemy, and attacking them at break
of day. About half-way between the camps there were some
undulations of the ground, which concealed the two armies
from each other’s view. But, on Alexander arriving at their
summit, he saw by the early light the Persian host arrayed

 

 

 

331 B.C.] BATTLE OF ARBELA 73

before him; and he probably also observed traces of some
engineering operation having been carried on along part of
the ground in front of them. Not knowing that these marks
had been caused by the Persians having leveled the ground
for the free use ,. of their war chariots, Alexander suspected
that hidden pitfalls had been prepared with a view of dis-
ordering the approach of his cavalry. He summoned a
council of war forthwith. Some of the ofﬁcers were for at-
tacking instantly at all hazards, but the more prudent opinion
of Parmenio prevailed, and it was determined not to advance
farther till the battle-ground had been carefully surveyed.
Alexander halted his army on the heights; and, taking with
him some light—armed infantry and some cavalry, he passed
part of the day in reconnoitering the enemy, and observing the
nature of the ground which he had to ﬁght on. Darius wisely
refrained from moving from his position to attack the Mace-
donians on the eminences which they occupied, and the two
armies remained until night without molesting each other.
On Alexander’s return to his headquarters, he summoned his
generals and superior ofﬁcers together, and, telling them that
he well knew that Mair zeal wanted no exhortation, he be-
sought them to do their utmost in encouraging and instructing
those whom each commanded, to do their best in the next
day’s battle. They were to remind them that they were now
not going to ﬁght for a province, as they had hitherto fought,
but they were about to decide by their swords the dominion
of all Asia. Each ofﬁcer ought to impress this upon his sub—
alterns, and they should urge it on their men. Their natural
courage required no long words to excite its ardor ; but they
Should be reminded of the paramount importance of steadiness
in action. The silence in the ranks must be unbroken as long

as silence was proper; but when the time came for the
charge, the shout and the cheer must be full of terror for the
foe. The ofﬁcers were to be alert in receiving and communl-
eating orders; and every one was to act as if he felt that the
whole result of the battle depended on his own single good

conduct. .
Having thus brieﬂy instructed his generals, Alexander

ordered that the army should sup, and take their rest for
the night.

74 DECISIVE BATTLES [33: B.C.

Darkness had closed over the tents of the Macedonians,
when Alexander’s veteran general, Parmenio, came to_him,
and proposed that they should make a night attack on the‘
Persians. The king is said to have answered, that he scorned
to ﬁlch a victory, and that Alexander must conquer openly
and fairly. Arrian justly remarks that Alexander’s resolution
was as wise as it was spirited. Besides the confusion and
uncertainty which are inseparable from night engagements,
the value of Alexander’s victory would have been impaired if
gained under circumstances which might supply the enemy
with any excuse for his defeat and encourage him to renew
the contest. It was necessary for Alexander not only to beat
Darius, but to gain such a victory as should leave his rival
without apology for defeat, and without hope of recovery.

The Persians, in fact, expected, and were prepared to meet,
a night attack. Such was the apprehension that Darius enter-
tained of it, that he formed his troops at evening in order of
battle, and kept them under arms all night. The effect of this
was, that the morning found them jaded and dispirited, While
it brought their adversaries all fresh and vigorous against them.

The written order of battle which Darius himself caused to
be drawn up fell into the hands of the Macedonians after the
engagement, and Aristobulus copied it into his journal. We
thus possess, through Arrian, unusually authentic information
as to the composition and arrangement of the Persian army. '
On the extreme left were the Bactrian, Daan, and Arachosian
cavalry. Next to these Darius placed the troops from Persia
proper, both horse and foot. Then came the Susians, and
next to these the Cadusians. These forces made up the left
wing. Darius’s own station was in the center. This was com-
posed of the Indians, the Carians, the Mardian archers, and
the division of Persians who were distinguished by the golden
apples that formed knobs on their spears. Here also were
stationed the body-guard of the Persian nobility. Besides
. these, there were in the center, formed in deep order, the
Uxian and Babylonian troops, and the soldiers from the Red
Sea. The brigade of Greek mercenaries whom Darius had
in his service, and who were alone considered ﬁt to stand in
the charge of the Macedonian phalanx, was drawn up on
either side of the royal chariot. The right wing was com-

 

33:133.] BATTLE OF ARBELA 75

posed of the Coelesyrians and Mesopotamians, the Medes, the
Parthians, the Sacians, the Tapurians, Hyrcanians, Albanians,
and Sacesinae. In advance of the line on the left wing were
placed the Scythian cavalry, with a thousand of the Bactrian
horse, and a hundred scythe—armed chariots. The elephants
and ﬁfty scythe-armed chariots were ranged in front of the
center; and ﬁfty more chariots, with the Armenian and Cap-
padocian cavalry, were drawn up in advance of the right wing.

Thus arrayed, the great host of King Darius passed the
night, that to many thousands of them was the last of their
existence. The imorning of the ﬁrst of October,1 two thou-
sand one hundred and eighty-two years ago, dawned slowly
tovtheir wearied watching, and they could hear the note of
the Macedonian trumpet sounding to arms, and could see
King Alexander’s forces descend from their tents on the
heights, and form in order of battle on the plain.

There was deep need of skill, as well as of valor, on Alex~
ander’s side; and few battle-ﬁelds have witnessed more consum-
mate generalship than was now displayed by the Macedonian
king. There were no natural barriers by which he could pro-
tect his ﬂanks; and not only was he certain to be overlapped
on either wing by the vast lines of the Persian army, but there
was imminent risk of their circling round him and charging
him in the rear, while he advanced against their center. He
formed, therefore, a second or reserve line, which was to wheel
round, if required, or to detach troops to either ﬂank, as the
enemy’s movements might necessitate; and thus, w1th the1r
whole army ready at any moment to be thrown 1nto one vast
hollow square, the Macedonians advanced in two llnes against
the enemy, Alexander himself leading on the right Wing, and
the renowned phalanx forming the center, while Parmemo
commanded on the left. .

Such was the general nature of the disposition Wthh Alex-1
ander made of his army. But we have in Arrian the detalls
of the position of each brigade and regiment; and as we know
that these details were taken from the journals of Macedonian
generals, it is interesting to examine them, and to read the
names and stations of King Alexander’s generals and colo-

nels in this the greatest of his battles. .
The eight troops of the royal horse-guards formed the right

76 DECISIVE BATTLES [33x B.C.

of Alexander’s line. Their captains were Cleitus (whose regi-
ment was on the extreme right, the post of peculiar danger),
Glaucias, Ariston, Sopolis, Heracleides, Demetrias, Meleager,
and Hegelochus. Philotas was general of the whole division.
Then came the shield—bearing infantry: Nicanor was their gen-
eral. Then came the phalanx, in six brigades. Coenus’s bri-
gade was on the right, the nearest to the shield-bearers; next
to this stood the brigade of Perdiccas, then Meleager’s, then
Polysperchon’s; and then the brigade of Amynias, but which
was now commanded by Simmias, as Amynias had been sent
to Macedonia to levy recruits. Then came the infantry of
the left wing, under the command of Craterus. Next to Cra-
terus’s infantry were placed the cavalry regiments of the
allies, with Eriguius for their general. The Thessalian cav-
alry, commanded by Philippus, were next, and held the ex-
treme left of the whole army. The whole left wing was
entrusted to the command of Parmenio, who had round his
person the Pharsalian troop of cavalry, which was the strong-
est and best amid all the Thessalian horse regiments.

The center of the second line was occupied by a body of
phalangite infantry, formed of companies, which were drafted
for this purpose from each of the brigades of their phalanx.
The ofﬁcers in command of this corps were ordered to be
ready to face about if the enemy should succeed in gaining
the rear of the army. On the right of this reserve of infan- -
try, in the second line, and behind the royal horse-guards,
Alexander placed half the Agrian light-armed infantry under
Attalus, and with them Brison’s body of Macedonian archers,
and Cleander’s regiment of foot. He also placed in this part
of his army Menidas’s squadron of cavalry, and Aretes’s and
Ariston’s light-horse. Menidas was ordered to watch if the
enemy’s cavalry tried to turn the ﬂank, and if they did so, to
charge them before they wheeled completely round, and so
take them in ﬂank themselves. A similar force was arranged
on the left of the second line for the same purpose. The
Thracian infantry of Sitalces were placed there, and Coera-
nus’s regiment of the cavalry of the Greek allies, and Aga-
thon’s troops of the Odrysian irregular horse. The extreme
left of the second line in this quarter was held by Androma-
chus’s cavalry. A division of Thracian infantry was left in

 

33x B.C.] BATTLE OF ARBELA 77

guard of the camp. In advance of the right wing and center
were scattered a number of light-armed troops, of javelin men
and bowmen, with the intention of warding off the charge of
the armed chariots.2

Conspicuous by the brilliancy of his armor, and by the
chosen band of ofﬁcers who were round his person, Alexan-
der took his own station, as his custom was, in the right wing,
at the head of his cavalry; and when all the arrangements
for the battle were complete, and his generals were fully
instructed how to act in each probable emergency, he began
to lead his men towards the enemy.

It was ever his custom to expose his life freely in battle,
and to emulate the personal prowess of his great ancestor,
Achilles. Perhaps, in the bold enterprise of conquering Per-
sia, it was politic for Alexander to raise his army’s daring to
the utmost by the example of his own heroic valor; and, in
his subsequent campaigns, the love of the excitement, of “ the
rapture of the strife,” may have made him, like Murat, con-
tinue from choice a custom which he commenced from duty.
But he never suffered the ardor of the soldier to make him
lose the coolness of the general; and at Arbela, in particu-
lar, he showed that he could act up to his favorite Homeric

maxim of being ——

’A/.L¢6Tepov, ﬂanked: 1" d'yadbs Kpa'repés ‘r’ alxmrrﬁs.

Great reliance had been placed by the Persian king on the
effects of the scythe-bearing chariots. It was designed to
launch these against the Macedonian phalanx, and to follow
them up by a heavy charge of cavalry, which it was hoped
would ﬁnd the ranks of the spearmen disordered by the rush
0f the chariots, and easily destroy this most formidable part
Of Alexander’s force. In front, therefore, of the Persian cen-
ter, Where Darius took his station, and which it was supposed
the phalanx would attack, the ground had been carefully lev-
eled and smoothed, so as to allow the chariots to charge over
it with their full sweep and speed. As the Macedonian army
approached the Persian, Alexander found that the front of hls
whole line barely equaled the front of the Per51an center, so
that he was outﬂanked on his right by the entire left Wing of
the enemy, and by their entire right wing on his left. HIS

78 DECISIVE BATTLES [331 B.C.

tactics were to assail some one point of the hostile army and
gain a decisive advantage, while he refused, as far as possible,
the encounter along the rest of the line. He therefore inclined
his order of march to the right, so as to enable his right wing
and center to come into collision with the enemy on as favor-
able terms as possible, though the maneuver might in some
respects compromise his left.

The effect of this oblique movement was to bring the pha-
lanx and his own wing nearly beyond the limits of the ground
which the Persians had prepared for the operations of the
chariots; and Darius, fearing to lose the beneﬁt of this arm
against the most important parts of the Macedonian force,
ordered the Scythian and Bactrian cavalry, who were drawn
up on his extreme left, to charge round upon Alexander’s
right wing, and check its further lateral progress. Against
these assailants Alexander sent from his second line Menidas’s
cavalry. As these proved too few to make head against the.
enemy, he ordered Ariston also from the second line with his
light-horse, and Cleander with his foot, in support of Menidas.
The Bactrians and Scythians now began to give way, but
Darius reenforced them by the mass of Bactrian cavalry from
his main line, and an obstinate cavalry ﬁght now took place.
The Bactrians and Scythians were numerous, and were better
armed than the horsemen under Menidas and Ariston; and
the loss at ﬁrst was heaviest on the Macedonian side. But
still the European cavalry stood the charge of the Asiatics,
and at last, by their superior discipline, and by acting in
squadrons that supported each other, instead of ﬁghting in a
confused mass like the barbarians, the Macedonians broke
their adversaries, and drove them off the ﬁeld.3

Darius now directed the scythe-armed chariots to be driven
against Alexander’s horse-guards and the phalanx; and these
formidable vehicles were accordingly sent rattling across the
plain, against the Macedonian line. When we remember the
alarm which the war chariots of the Britons created among
Caesar’s legions, we shall not be prone to deride this arm of
ancient warfare as always useless. The object of the chariots
was to create unsteadiness in the ranks against which they
were driven, and squadrons of cavalry followed close upon
them, to proﬁt by such disorder. But the Asiatic chariots

 

331 B.C.] . BATTLE OF ARBELA 79

were rendered ineffective at Arbela by the light-armed troops
whom Alexander had specially appointed for the service, and
who, wounding the horses and drivers with their missile weap-
ons, and running/alongside so as to cut the traces or seize the
reins, marred the intended charge ; and the few chariots that
reached the phalanx passed harmlessly through the intervals
which the spearmen opened for them, and were easily cap-
tured in the rear.

A mass of the Asiatic cavalry was now, for the second time,
collected against Alexander’s extreme right, and moved round
it, with the view of gaining the ﬂank of his army. At the
critical moment Aretes, with his horsemen from Alexander’s
second line, dashed on the Persian squadrons when their own
ﬂanks were exposed by this evolution. While Alexander thus
met and bafﬂed all the ﬂanking attacks of the enemy with
troops brought up from his second line, he kept his own
horse-guards and the rest of the front line of his wing fresh,
and ready to take advantage of the ﬁrst opportunity for strik-
ing a decisive blow. This soon came. A large body of horse,
' who were posted on the Persian left wing nearest to the cen-
ter, quitted their station, and rode off to help their comrades
in the cavalry ﬁght that still was going on at the extreme
right of Alexander’s wing against the detachments from his
second line. This made a huge gap in the Persian array, and
into this space Alexander instantly dashed with his guard;
and then pressing towards his left, he soon began to make
havoc in the left ﬂank of the Persian center. The shield-
bearing infantry now charged also among the reeling masses
of the Asiatics; and ﬁve of the brigades of the phalanx, with
the irresistible might of their sarissas, bore down the Greek
mercenaries of Darius, and dug their way through the Persian
center. In the early part of the battle, Darius had shown
skill and energy; and he now for some time encouraged 1113
men, by voice and example, to keep ﬁrm. But the lances of

Alexander’s cavalry and the pikes of the phalanx now gleamed
nearer and nearer to him. His charioteer was struck down

by a javelin at his side ; and at last Darius’s nerve failed him;
and, descending from his chariot, he mounted on a ﬂeet horse
and galloped from the plain, regardless of the state of the
battle in other parts of the ﬁeld, where matters were gomg on

80 DECISIVE BATTLES [33x B.C.

much more favorably for his cause, and where his presence
might have done much towards gaining a victory.

Alexander’s operations with his right and center had ex-
posed his left to an immensely preponderating force of the
enemy. Parmenio kept out of action as long as possible;
but Mazmus, who commanded the Persian right wing, ad-
vanced against him, completely outﬂanked him, and pressed
him severely with reiterated charges by superior numbers.
Seeing the distress of Parmenio’s wing, Simmias, who com-
manded the sixth brigade of the phalanx, which was next to
the left wing, did not advance with the other brigades in the
great charge upon the Persian center, but kept back to cover
Parmenio’s troops on t/zez'r right ﬂank; as otherwise they
would have been completely surrounded and cut off from the
rest of the Macedonian army. By so doing, Simmias had
unavoidably opened a gap in the Macedonian left center; and
a large column of Indian and Persian horse, from the Per-
sian right center, had galloped forward through this interval,
and right through the troops of the Macedonian second line.
Instead of then wheeling round upon Parmenio, or upon the
rear of Alexander’s conquering wing, the Indian and Persian
cavalry rode straight on to the Macedonian camp, overpow-
ered the Thracians who were left in charge of it, and began
to plunder. This was stopped by the phalangite troops of
the second line, who, after the enemy’s horsemen had rushed
by them, faced about, countermarched upon the camp, killed
many of the Indians and Persians in the act of plundering,
and forced the rest to ride off again. Just at this crisis
Alexander had been recalled from his pursuit of Darius by
tidings of the distress of Parmenio, and of his inability to
bear up any longer against the hot attacks of Mazaeus.
Taking his horse-guards with him, Alexander rode towards
the part of the ﬁeld Where his left wing was ﬁghting; but
on his way thither he encountered the Persian and Indian
cavalry, on their return from his camp.

These men now saw that their only chance of safety was
to cut their way through; and in one huge column they
charged desperately upon the Macedonians. There was
here a close hand-to-hand ﬁght, which lasted some time, and
sixty of the royal horse-guards fell, and three generals, who

 

331 B.C.] BATTLE OF ARBELA 8r

fought close to Alexander’s side, were wounded. At length
the Macedonian discipline and valor again prevailed, and a
large number of the Persian and Indian horsemen were cut
down; some few, only succeeded in breaking through and
riding away. Relieved of these obstinate enemies, Alex-
ander again formed his horse-guards, and led them towards
Parmenio; but by this time that general also was victorious.
Probably the news of Darius’s ﬂight had reached Mazaeus,
and had damped the ardor of the Persian right wing; while
the tidings of their comrades’ success must have propor-
tionally encouraged the Macedonian forces under Parmenio.
His Thessalian cavalry particularly distinguished themselves
by their gallantry and persevering good conduct; and by
the time that Alexander had ridden up to Parmenio, the
whole Persian army was in full ﬂight from the ﬁeld.

It was of the deepest importance to Alexander to secure
the person of Darius, and he now urged on the pursuit. The
river Lycus was between the ﬁeld of battle and the city of
Arbela, whither the fugitives directed their course, and the
passage of this river was even more destructive to the Per-
sians than the swords and spears of the Macedonians had
been in the engagement.4 The narrow bridge was soon
choked up by the ﬂying thousands who rushed towards it, and
vast numbers of the Persians threw themselves, or were
hurried by others, into the rapid stream, and perished in its
waters. Darius had crossed it, and had ridden on through

Arbela without halting. Alexander reached that city on the
next day, and made himself master of all Darius’s treasure

and stores; but the Persian king, unfortunately for himself,
had ﬂed too fast for his conqueror; he had only escaped to

perish by the treachery of his Bactrian satrap, Bessus.
A few days after the battle Alexander entered Babylon,

“the oldest seat of earthly empire” then in existence, as its
acknowledged lord and master. There were yet some cam-
paigns of his brief and bright career to be accomplished.
Central Asia was yet to witness the march of his phalanx.
He was yet to effect that conquest of Afghanlstan 1n which
England since has failed. His generalship, as well as his
valor, was yet to be signalized on the banks of the Hydaspes
and the ﬁeld of Chillianwallah; and he was yet to precede
6

82 DECISIVE BATTLES [331 B.C.

the queen of England in annexing the Punjab to the domin-
ions of a European sovereign. But the crisis of his career
was reached; the great object of his mission was accom-
plished; and the ancient Persian empire, which once menaced
all the nations of the earth with subjection, was irreparably
crushed when Alexander had won his crowning victory at
Arbela.

NOTES

1 The battle was fought eleven days after an eclipse of the moon, which
gives the means of ﬁxing the precise date.

2 Kléber’s arrangement of his troops at the battle of Heliopolis, where,
with ten thousand Europeans, he had to encounter eighty thousand Asiatics
in an open plain, is worth comparing with Alexander’s tactics at Arbela.

3 The best explanation of this may be found in Napoleon’s account of the
cavalry ﬁghts between the French and the Mamelukes: “ Two Mamelukes
were able to make head against three Frenchmen, because they were better
armed, better mounted, and better trained; they had two pairs of pistols, a
blunderbuss, a carbine, a helmet with a vizor, and a coat of mail; they had
several horses, and several attendants on foot. One hundred cuirassiers,
however, were not afraid of one hundred Mamelukes; three hundred could
beat an equal number, and one thousand could easily put to the rout ﬁfteen
hundred, so great is the inﬂuence of tactics, order, and evolutions! Leclerc
and Lasalle presented their men to the Mamelukes in several lines. When
the Arabs were on the point of overwhelming the ﬁrst, the second came to
its assistance on the right and left; the Mamelukes then halted and wheeled,
in order to turn the wings of this new line; this moment was always seized
upon to charge them, and they were uniformly broken.”——MONTHOLON‘S
History of the Caﬂtiw'éy of Napoleon.

4 I purposely omit any statement of the loss in the battle. There is a
palpable error of the transcribers in the numbers which we ﬁnd in our
present manuscripts of Arrian; and Curtius is of no authority.

SYNOPSIS OF EVENTS BETWEEN THE BATTLE OF ARBELA
AND THE BATTLE OF THE METAURUS

33o B.C. The Lacedaemonians endeavor to create a rising
in Greece against the Macedonian power. They are defeated
by Antipater, Alexander’s Viceroy; and their king, Agis, falls
in the battle.

3 30 to 327. Alexander’s campaigns in Upper Asia. “ Hav-
ing conquered Darius, Alexander pursued his way, encounter-
ing difﬁculties which would have appalled almost any other
general, through Bactriana, and taking Bactra, or Zariaspa
(now Balkh), the chief city of that province, where he spent

 

331 B.C.] BATTLE OF ARBELA' 83

the Winter. Crossing the Oxus, he advanced in the follow-
ing spring to Marakanda (Samarcand) to replace the loss of
horses which he had sustained in crossing the Caucasus, to
obtain supplies from the rich valley of Sogd (the Mahometan
Paradise of Mader—al-Nahr), and to enforce the submission of
Transoxiana. The northern limit of his march is probably
represented by the modern Uskand, or Aderkand, a village
on the Iaxartes, near the end of the Ferganah district. In
Margiana he founded another Alexandria. Returning from
the north, he led on his army in the hope of conquering
India, till at length, marching in a line apparently nearly
parallel with the Kabul River, he arrived at the celebrated
rock .Aornos, the position of which must have been on the
right bank of the Indus, at some distance from Attock;
and it may perhaps be represented by the modern Akora.”
[Vaux.]

327, 326. Alexander marches through Afghanistan to the
Punjab. He defeats Porus. His troops refuse to march
towards the Ganges, and he commences the descent of the
Indus. On his march he attacks and subdues several Indian
tribes, among others the Malli; in the storming of whose capi-
tal (Mooltan) he is severely wounded. He directs his admiral,
Nearchus, to sail round from the Indus to the Persian Gulf,
and leads the army back across Scinde and Beloochistan.

324. Alexander returns to Babylon. “In the tenth year
after he had crossed the Hellespont, Alexander, having won
his vast dominion, entered Babylon; and, resting from his

career in that oldest seat of earthly empire, he steadily sur-
veyed the mass of various nations which owned hIS sover-

eignty, and revolved in his mind the great work of breathing
into this huge but inert body the living spirit of Greek c1v111-
zation. In the bloom of youthful manhood, at the age 'of
thirty-two, he paused from the ﬁery speed of his earlier
' course; and for the ﬁrst time gave the nations an opportu~
nity of offering their homage before his throne. They came
from all the extremities of the earth to propitiate hls anger,

to celebrate his greatness, or to solicit his protection. . . .
History may allow us to think that Alexander and a Roman

ambassador did meet at Babylon; that the greatest man of
the ancient world saw and spoke with a Citizen of that great

84 DECISIVE BATTLES [331 B.C.

nation which was destined to succeed him in his appointed
work and to found a wider and still more enduring empire.
They met, too, in Babylon, almost beneath the shadow of the
temple of Bel, perhaps the earliest monument ever raised by
human pride and power, in a city stricken, as it were, by the
word of God’s heaviest judgment, as the symbol of greatness
apart from and opposed to goodness.” [Arnold]

32 3. Alexander dies at Babylon. On his death being
known at Greece, the Athenians, and others of the southern
states, take up arms to shake off the domination of Macedon.
They are at ﬁrst successful; but the return of some of Alex-
ander’s veterans from Asia enables Antipater to prevail over
them.

317 to 289. Agathocles is tyrant of Syracuse, and carries
on repeated wars with the Carthaginians, in the course of
which (31 I) he invades Africa and reduces the Carthaginians
to great distress. ,

306. After a long series of wars with each other, and after
all the heirs of Alexander had been murdered, his principal
surviving generals assume the title of king, each over the
provinces which he has occupied. The four chief among
them were Antigonus, Ptolemy, Lysimachus, and Seleucus.
Antipater was now dead, but his son Cassander succeeded to
his power in Macedonia and Greece. . .

30I. Seleucus and Lysimachus defeat Antigonus at Ipsus.
Antigonus is killed in the battle.

28o. Seleucus, the last of Alexander’s captains, is assassi~
nated. Of all Alexander’s successors, Seleucus had formed
the most powerful empire. He had acquired all the prov-
inces between Phrygia and the Indus. He extended his
dominion in India beyond the limits reached by Alexander.
Seleucus had some sparks of his great master’s genius in
promoting civilization and commerce, as well as in gaining
victories. Under his successors, the Seleucidm, this vast
empire rapidly diminished; Bactria became independent, and
a separate dynasty of Greek kings ruled there in the year
125, when it was overthrown by the Scythian tribes. Parthia
threw off its allegiance to the Seleucidae in 250 B.C., and the
powerful Parthian kingdom, which afterwards proved 'so
formidable a foe to Rome, absorbed nearly all the provinces

 

331 B.c.] BATTLE OF ARBELA 85

west of the Euphrates that had obeyed the ﬁrst Seleucus.
Before the battle of Ipsus, Mithridates, a Persian prince of
the blood royal of the Achmmenidae, had escaped to Pontus,
and founded there the kingdom of that name.

Besides the kingdom of Seleucus, which, when limited to
Syria, Palestine, and parts of Asia Minor, long survived the
most important kingdom formed by a general of Alexander,
was that of the Ptolemies in Egypt. The throne of Mace-
donia was long and obstinately contended for by Cassander,
Polysperchon, Lysimachus, Pyrrhus, Antigonus, and others;
but at last was secured by the dynasty of Antigonus Gonatas.
The old republics of Southern Greece suffered severely dur-
ing these tumults, and the only Greek states that showed any
strength and spirit were the cities of the Achaean League, the
Etolians, and the islanders of Rhodes.

290. Rome had now thoroughly subdued the Samnites and
the Etruscans, and had gained numerous victories over the
Cisalpine Gauls. Wishing to conﬁrm her dominion in Lower
Italy, she became entangled in a war with Pyrrhus, fourth
king of Epirus, who was called over by the Tarentines to aid
them. Pyrrhus was at ﬁrst victorious, but in the year 275
was defeated by the Roman legions in a pitched battle. He
returned to Greece, remarking of Sicily, Oi’av dwerL'n-oueu
KapanOVL’ocs Kai ’Pamac’ocs wakac’a'rpav, “Rome becomes
mistress of all Italy from the Rubicon to the straits of

Messina.” .
264. The ﬁrst Punic war begins. Its primary cause was

the desire of both the Romans and the Carthaginians to
possess themselves of Sicily. The Romans form a ﬂeet, and
successfully compete with the marine of Carthage.1 During
the latter half of the war the military genius of Hamilcar
Barca sustains the Carthaginian cause in Sicily. At the end
of twenty-four years the Carthaginians sue for peace, though
their aggregate loss in ships and men had been less than that
sustained by the Romans since the beginning of the war.

Sicily becomes a Roman province. '
240 to 218. The Carthaginian mercenaries who had been

brought back from Sicily to Africa mutiny against Carthage,
and nearly succeed in destroying her. After a sangumary
and desperate struggle, Hamilcar Barca crushes them.

86 ‘ DECISIVE BATTLES [33; 3.0.

During this season of weakness to Carthage, Rome takes
from her the island of Sardinia. Hamilcar Barca forms the
project of obtaining compensation by conquests in Spain, and
thus enabling Carthage to renew the struggle with Rome.
He takes Hannibal (then a child) to Spain with him. He
and (after his death) his brother win great part of Southern
Spain to the Carthaginian interest. Hannibal obtains the
command of the Carthaginian armies in Spain, 221 B.C., being
then twenty-six years old. He attacks Saguntum, a city on
the Ebro in alliance with Rome, which is the immediate pre-
text for the second Punic war.

During this interval Rome had to sustain a storm from the
north. The Cisalpine Gauls, in 226, formed an alliance with
one of the ﬁercest tribes of their brethren north of the Alps,
and began a furious war against the Romans, which lasted
six years. The Romans gave them several severe defeats,
and took from them part of their territories near the Po. It
was on this occasion that the Roman colonies of CremOna
and Placentia were founded, the latter of which did such
essential service to Rome in the second Punic war, by the
resistance which it made to the army of Hasdrubal. A
muster-roll was made in this war of the effective military
force of the Romans themselves, and of those Italian states
that were subject to them. The return showed a force of
seven hundred thousand foot and seventy thousand horse.

218. Hannibal crosses the Alps and invades Italy.

1 NOTE.—There is at this present moment [written in June, 1851] in the
Great Exhibition at Hyde Park a model of a piratical galley of Labuan, part
of the mast of which can be let down on an enemy and form a bridge for
boarders. It is worth while to compare this with the account in Polybius
of the boarding bridges which the Roman admiral, Duilius, aﬂixed to the

masts of his galleys, and by means of which he won his great victory over
the Carthaginian ﬂeet.

 

3*:

CHAPTER IV

The Battle of the Melaurm, 207 B.C.

“ Quid debeas, O Roma, Neronibus,
Testis Metaurum ﬂumen, et Hasdrubal
Devictus, et pulcher fugatis
Ille dies Latio tenebris.

“ Qui primus alma risit adorea;
Dirus per urbes Afer ut Italas,
Ceu ﬂamma per taedas, vel Eurus
Per Siculus equitavit undas.”—HORACE.

“. . . The consul Nero, who made the unequaled march which deceived
Hannibal, and defeated Hasdrubal, thereby accomplishing an achievement
almost unrivaled in military annals. The ﬁrst intelligence of his return,
to Hannibal, was the sight of Hasdrubal’s head thrown into his camp.
When Hannibal saw this, he exclaimed, with a sigh, that ‘Rome would
now be the mistress of the world.’ To this victory of N ero’s it might be
owing that his imperial namesake reigned at all. But the infamy of the
one has eclipsed the glory of the other. When the name of Nero is heard,
who thinks of the consul P But such are human things.”—BYRON.

falls into the Adriatic, after traversing one of those dis-
tricts of Italy in which a vain attempt has lately been
made to revive, after long centuries of servitude and shame,

the spirit of Italian nationality and the energy of free institu-
tions. That stream is still called the Metauro ; and wakens
by its name recollections of the resolute daring of ancient
Rome, and of the slaughter that stained its current two
thousand and sixty-three years ago, when the combined con~
sular armies of Livius and Nero encountered and crushed near
its banks the varied hosts which Hannibal’s brother was lead-
ing from the Pyrenees, the Rhone, the Alps, and the P0, to aid
the great Carthaginian in his stern struggle to annihilate the
growing might of the Roman republic, and make the Punic

power supreme over all the nations of the world.
87

a BOUT midway between Rimini and Ancona a little river

88 DECISIVE BATTLES . [207 B.C.

The Roman historian, Livy, who termed that struggle the
most memorable of all wars that ever were carried on, wrote
in no-spirit of exaggeration. For it is not in ancient, but in
modern history that parallels for its incidents and its heroes
are to be found. The similitude between the contest which
Rome maintained against Hannibal, and that which England
was for many years engaged in against Napoleon, has not
passed unobserved by recent historians. “Twice,” says
Arnold, “ has there been witnessed the struggle of the high-
est individual genius against the resources and institutions of
a great nation; and in both cases the nation has been victo-
rious. For seventeen years Hannibal strove against Rome;
for sixteen years Napoleon Bonaparte strove against Eng-
land: the efforts of the ﬁrst ended in Zama, those of the
second in Waterloo.” One point, however, of the similitude
between the two wars has scarcely been adequately dwelt on.
That is, the remarkable parallel between the Roman general
who ﬁnally defeated the great Carthaginian, and the English
general who gave the last deadly overthrow to the French
emperor. Scipio and Wellington both held for many years
commands of high importance, but distant from the main
theaters of warfare. The same country was the scene of the
principal military career of each. It was in Spain that
Scipio, like Wellington, successively encountered and over-
threw nearly all the subordinate generals of the enemy, before -
being opposed to the chief champion and conqueror himself.
Both Scipio and Wellington restored their countrymen’s con-
ﬁdence in arms, when shaken by a series of reverSes. And
each of them closed a long and perilous, war by a complete
and overwhelming defeat of the chosen leader and the chosen
veterans of the foe. ‘

Nor is the parallel between them limited to their military
characters and exploits. Scipio, like Wellington, became an
important leader of the aristocratic party among his country-
men, and was exposed to the unmeasured invectives of the
‘ violent section of his political antagonists. When, early in the
last reign, an infuriated mob assaulted the Duke of Welling-
ton in the streets of the English capital on the anniversary of
Waterloo, England was even more disgraced by that outrage
than Rome was by the factious accusations which demagogues

 

207 B.C.] BATTLE OF THE METAURUS 89

brought against Scipio, but which he proudly repelled on the
day of trial by reminding the assembled people that it was the
anniversary of the battle of Zama. Happily, a wiser and a
better spirit has now for years pervaded all classes of our
community; and we shall be spared the ignominy of having
worked out to the end the parallel of national ingratitude.
Scipio died a voluntary exile from the malevolent turbulence
of Rome. Englishmen of all ranks and politics have now
long united in affectionate admiration of our modern Scipio;
and even those who have most widely differed from the duke
on legislative or administrative questions forget what they
deem the political errors of that time~honored head, while they
gratefully call to mind the laurels that have wreathed it.

Scipio at Zama trampled in the dust the power of Carthage;
but that power had been already irreparably shattered in another
ﬁeld where neither Scipio nor Hannibal commanded. When
the Metaurus witnessed the defeat‘and death of Hasdrubal,
it witnessed the ruin of the scheme by which alone Carthage
could hope to organize decisive success—the scheme of en-
veloping Rome at once from the north and the south of Italy
by chosen armies, led by two sons of Hamilcar. That battle
was the determining crisis of the contest, not merely between
Rome and Carthage, but between the two great families of the
world, which then made Italy the arena of their oft—renewed
contest for preeminence.

The French historian Michelet, whose “ Histoire Romaine ”
would have been invaluable if the general industry and accu—
racy of the writer had in any degree equaled his originality
and brilliancy, eloquently remarks: “It is not without reason
that so universal and vivid a remembrance of the Punic wars
has dwelt in the memories of men. They formed no mere
struggle to determine the lot of two cities or two empires; but
it was a strife on the event of which depended the fate of two
races of mankind, whether the dominion of the world should
belong to the Indo—Germanic or to the Semitic family of nations.
Bear in mind that the ﬁrst of these comprises, besides the
Indians and the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, and the
Germans. In the other are ranked the Jews and the Arabs,
the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians. On the one side is
the genius of heroism, of art, and legislation; on the other is

90 DECISIVE BATTLES [207 B.C.

the spirit of industry, of commerce, of navigation. The two
opposite races have everywhere come into contact, everywhere
into hostility. In the primitive history of Persia and Chaldea,
the heroes are perpetually engaged in combat with their indus-
trious and perﬁdious neighbors. The struggle is renewed
between the Phoenicians and the Greeks on every coast of the
Mediterranean. The Greek supplants the Phoenician in all
his factories, all his colonies in the East; soon will the Roman
come, and do likewise in the West. Alexander did far more
against Tyre than Salmanasar or Nabuchodonosor had done.
Not content with crushing her, he took care that she never
should revive; for he founded Alexandria as her substitute,
and changed forever the track of commerce of the world.
There remained Carthage, —-the great Carthage, and her
mighty empire, —mighty in a far different degree than Phoe-
nicia’s had been. Rome annihilated it. Then occurred that
which has no parallel in history: an entire civilization per:
ished at one blow —vanished, like a falling star. The ‘ Peri-
plus ’ of Hanno, a few coins, a score of lines in Plautus, and,
10, all that remains of the Carthaginian world !

“ Many generations must needs pass away before the strug-
gle between the two races could be renewed; and the Arabs,
that formidable rear-guard of the Semitic world, dashed forth
from their deserts. The conﬂict between the two races then
became the conﬂict of two religions. Fortunate was it that
those daring Saracenic cavaliers encountered in the East the
impregnable walls of Constantinople, in the West the chival-
rous valor of Charles Martel and the sword of the Cid. The
crusades were the natural reprisals for the Arab invasions,
and form the last epoch of that great struggle between the
two principal families of the human race.”

It is difﬁcult, amid the glimmering light supplied by the
allusions of the classical writers, to gain a full idea of the
character and institutions of Rome’s great rival. But we can
perceive how inferior Carthage was to her competitor in mili-
tary resources; and how far less ﬁtted than Rome she was
to become the founder of centralized and centralizing domin-
ion that should endure for centuries, and fuse into imperial
unity the narrow nationalities of the ancient races that dwelt
around and near the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

 

207 RC] BATTLE OF THE METAURUS 91

Carthage was originally neither the most ancient nor the
most powerful of the numerous colonies which the Phoeni-
cians planted on the coast of Northern Africa. But her ad—
vantageous position, the excellence of her constitution (of
which, though ill-informed as to its details, we know that it
commanded the admiration of Aristotle), and the commercial
and political energy of her citizens gave her the ascendency
over Hippo, Utica, Leptis, and her other sister Phoenician
cities in those regions; and she ﬁnally reduced them to a con.
dition of dependency, similar to that which the subject allies
of Athens occupied relatively to that once imperial city. When
Tyre and Sidon and the other cities of Phoenicia itself sank
from independent republics into mere vassal states of the great
Asiatic monarchies, and obeyed by turns a Babylonian, a Per-
sian, and a Macedonian master, their power and their trafﬁc
rapidly declined; and Carthage succeeded to the important
maritime and commercial character which they had previ-
ously maintained. The Carthaginians did not seek to
compete with the Greeks on the northeastern shores of the
Mediterranean, or in the three inland seas which are con-
nected with it; but they maintained an active intercourse
with the Phoenicians, and through them with Lower and Cen-
tral Asia; and they, and they alone, after the decline and fall
of Tyre, navigated the waters of the Atlantic. They had the
monopoly of all the commerce of the world that was carried
on beyond the straits of Gibraltar. We have yet extant (in

a Greek translation) the narrative of the voyage of Hanno,
one of their admirals, along the western coast of Africa as

far as Sierra Leone. And in the Latin poem of Festus Avie-
nus frequent references are made to the records of the voyages
of another celebrated Carthaginian admiral, Himilco, who had
explored the northwestern coast of Europe. Our own islands
are mentioned by Himilco as the lands of the Hiberni and the
Albioni. It is indeed certain that the Carthaginians frequented
the Cornish coast (as the Phoenicians had done before them)
for the purpose of procuring tin; and there is every reason
to believe that they sailed as far as the coasts of the Baltic
for amber. When it is remembered that the mariner’s com-
pass was unknown in those ages, the boldness and skill of the
seamen of Carthage, and the enterprise of her merchants, may

92 DECISIVE BATTLES [207 B.C.

be paralleled with any achievements that the history of modern
navigation and commerce can supply.

In their Atlantic voyages along the African shores, the
Carthaginians followed the double object of trafﬁc and colo-
nization. The numerous settlements that were planted by
them along the coast from Morocco to Senegal provided for
the needy members of the constantly increasing population
of a great commercial capital; and also strengthened the
inﬂuence which Carthage exercised among the tribes of the
African coast. Besides her ﬂeets, her caravans gave her a
large and lucrative trade with the native Africans; nor must
we limit our belief of the extent of the Carthaginian trade
with the tribes of Central and Western Africa by the narrow-
ness of the commercial intercourse which civilized nations of
modern times have been able to create in those regions.

Although essentially a mercantile and seafaring people, the
Carthaginians by no means neglected agriculture. On the
contrary, the whole of their territory was cultivated like a
garden. The fertility of the soil repaid the skill and toil be-
stowed on it; and every invader, from Agathocles to Scipio
fEmilianus, was struck with admiration at the rich pasture-
lands carefully irrigated, the abundant harvests, the luxuriant
vineyards, the plantations of ﬁg and olive trees, the thriving
villages, the populous towns, and the splendid villas of the
wealthy Carthaginians, through which his march lay as long
as he was on Carthaginian ground.

The Carthaginians abandoned the ZEgean and the Pontus
to the Greeks, but they were by no means disposed to relin-
quish to those rivals the commerce and the dominion of the
coasts of the Mediterranean westward of Italy. For centuries
the Carthaginians strove to make themselves masters of the
islands that lie between Italy and Spain. They acquired the
Balearic Islands, where the principal harbor, Port Mahon, still
bears the name of the Carthaginian admiral. They succeeded
in reducing the greater part of Sardinia; but Sicily could never
be brought into their power. They repeatedly invaded that
island, and nearly overran it; but the resistance which was
opposed to them by the Syracusans, under Gelon, Dionysius,
Timoleon, and Agathocles, preserved the island from becom-
ing Punic, though many of its cities remained under the Car-

 

207 B.C.] BATTLE OF THE METAURUS 93

thaginian rule, until Rome ﬁnally settled the question to
whom Sicily was to belong by conquering it for herself.

With so many elements of success—with almost unbounded
wealth, with commercial and maritime activity, with a fertile
territory, with a capital city of almost impregnable strength,
with a constitution that insured for centuries the blessings of
social order, with an aristocracy singularly fertile in men of
the highest genius —— Carthage yet failed signally and calami-
tously in her contest for power with Rome. One of the im-
mediate causes of this may seem to have been the want of
ﬁrmness among her citizens, which made them term' ate the
ﬁrst Punic war by begging peace, sooner than en ure any
longer the hardships and burdens caused by a state of war-
fare, although their antagonists had suffered far more severely
than themselves. Another cause was the spirit of faction
among their leading men, which prevented Hannibal in the
second war from being properly reenforced and supported.
But there were also more general causes why Carthage proved
inferior to Rome. These were her position relatively to the
mass of the inhabitants of the country which she ruled, and
her habit of trusting to mercenary armies in her wars.

Our clearest information as to the different races of men in
and about Carthage is derived from Diodorus Siculus. That
historian enumerates four different races: ﬁrst, he mentions
the Phoenicians who dwelt in Carthage; next, he speaks of
the Liby-Phoenicians—these, he tells us, dwelt in many
of the maritime cities, and were connected by intermarriages
with the Phoenicians, which was the cause of their compound
name; thirdly, he mentions the Libyans, the bulk andthe
most ancient part of the population, hating the Carthaginians
intensely on account of the oppressiveness of their domina-
tion; lastly, he names the Numidians, the nomad tribes of the
frontier.

It is evident, from this description, that the native Libyans
were a subject class, without franchise orpolitical rights; and,
accordingly, we ﬁnd no instance speciﬁed in hlstory of a
Libyan holding political ofﬁce or military command. The
half-castes, the Liby-Phoenicians, seem to have been some-
times sent out as colonists ; but it may be inferred, from what
Diodorus says of their residence, that they had not the right

94 DECISIVE BATTLES [207 B.C.

of the citizenship of Carthage ; and only a solitary case occurs
of one of this race being entrusted with authority, and that,
too, not emanating from the home government. This is the
instance of the ofﬁcer sent by Hannibal to Sicily, after the
fall of Syracuse; whom Polybius calls Myttinus the Libyan,
but whom, from the fuller account in Livy, we ﬁnd to have
been a Liby-Phoenician; and it is expressly mentioned what
indignation was felt by the Carthaginian commanders in the
island that this half-caste should control their operations.

With respect to the composition of their armies, it is observ-
able that, though thirsting for extended empire, and though
some of the leading men became generals of the highest
order, the Carthaginians, as a people, were anything but per-
sonally warlike. As long as they could hire mercenaries to
ﬁght for them, they had little appetite for the irksome train-
ing, and they grudged the loss of valuable time which military
service would have entailed on themselves.

As Michelet remarks, “ The life of an industrious merchant,
of a Carthaginian, was too precious to be risked, as long as it
was possible to substitute advantageously for it that of a bar-
barian from Spain or Gaul. Carthage knew, and could tell
to a drachma, what the life of a man of each nation came to.
A Greek was worth more than a Campanian, a Campanian
worth more than a Gaul or a Spaniard. When once this
tariff of blood was correctly made out, Carthage began a war
as a mercantile speculation. She tried to make conquests in
the hope of getting new mines to work, or to open fresh mar-
kets for her exports. In one venture she could afford to
spend ﬁfty thousand mercenaries; in another, rather more.
If the returns were good, there was no regret felt for the
capital that had been lavished in the investment; more money
got more men, and all went on well.”

Armies composed of foreign mercenaries have, in all ages,
been as formidable to their employers as to the enemy against
whom they were directed. We know of one occasion (between
the ﬁrst and second Punic wars) when Carthage was brought
to the very brink of destruction by a revolt of her foreign
troops. Other mutinies of the same kind must from time to
time have occurred. Probably one of these was the cause of
the comparative weakness of Carthage at the time of the

 

207 B.C.] BATTLE OF THE METAURUS 95

Athenian expedition against Syracuse; so different from the
energy with which she attacked Gelon half a century earlier,
and Dionysius half a century later. And even when we con-
sider her armies with reference only to their efﬁciency in
warfare, we perceive at once the inferiority of such bands of
condottz'erz', brought together without any common bond of
origin, tactics, or cause, to the legions of Rome, which at the
time of the Punic wars were raised from the very ﬂower of a
hardy agricultural population, trained in the strictest disci-
pline, habituated to victory, and animated by the most resolute
patriotism. And this shows also the transcendency of the
genius of Hannibal, which could form such discordant ma-
terials into a compact organized force, and inspire them with
the spirit of patient discipline and loyalty to their chief; so
that they were true to him in his adverse as well as in his
prosperous fortunes; and throughout the checkered series of
his campaigns no panic rout ever disgraced a division under
his command; no mutiny, or even attempt at mutiny, was
ever known in his camp; and, ﬁnally, after ﬁfteen years of
Italian warfare, his men followed their old leader to Zama,
“ with no fear and little hope” ;1 and there, on that disastrous
ﬁeld, stood ﬁrm around him, his Old Guard, till Scipio’s
Numidian allies came up on their ﬂank, when at last, sur-
rounded and overpowered, the veteran battalions sealed their
devotion to their general with their blood.

“ But if Hannibal’s genius may be likened to the Homeric
god, who, in his hatred to the Trojans, rises from the deep to
rally the fainting Greeks, and to lead them against the enemy,
so the calm courage with which Hector met his more than
human adversary in his country’s cause is no unworthy image
of the unyielding magnanimity displayed by the aristocracy of
Rome. As Hannibal utterly eclipses Carthage, so, on the
contrary, Fabius, Marcellus, Claudius Nero, even Scipio him-
self, are as nothing when compared to the spirit, and wisdom,
and power of Rome. The senate, which voted its thanks to
its political enemy, Varro, after his disastrous defeat, ‘because
he had not despaired of the commonwealth,’ and which dis-
dained either to solicit, or to reprove, or to threaten, or in any
way to notice the twelve colonies which had refused their

customary supplies of men for the army, is far more to be

96 DECISIVE BATTLES [207 B.C.

honored than the conqueror of Zama. This we should the
more carefully bear in mind, because our tendency is to
admire individual greatness far more than national; and, as
no single Roman will bear comparison to Hannibal, we are
apt to murmur at the event of the contest, and to think that
the victory was awarded to the least worthy of the combatants.
On the contrary, never was the wisdom of God’s providence
more manifest than in the issue of the struggle between Rome
and Carthage. It was clearly for the good of mankind that
Hannibal should be conquered: his triumph would have stopped
the progress of the world. For great men can only act per-
manently by forming great nations; and no one man, even
though it were Hannibal himself, can in one generation effect
such a work. But where the nation has been merely en-
kindled for a while by a great man’s spirit, the light passes
away with him who communicated it; and the nation, when
he is gone, is like a dead body, to which magic power had,
for a moment, given unnatural life: when the charm has
ceased, the body is cold and stiff as before. He who grieves
over the battle of Zama should carry on his thoughts to a
period thirty years later, when Hannibal must, in the course
of nature, have been dead, and consider how the isolated
Phoenician city of Carthage was ﬁtted to receive and to con-
solidate the civilization of Greece, or by its laws and institu-
tions to bind together barbarians of every race and language
into an organized empire, and prepare them for becoming,
when that empire was dissolved, the free members of the
commonwealth of Christian Europe.” [Arnold]

It was in the spring of 207 B.C. that Hasdrubal, after skil-
fully disentangling himself from the Roman forces in Spain,
and after a march, conducted with great judgment and little
loss, through the interior of Gaul and the passes of the Alps,
appeared in the country that now is the north of Lombardy,
at the head of troops which he had partly brought out of
, Spain, and partly levied among the Gauls and Ligurians on
his way. At this time Hannibal, with his unconquered, and
seemingly unconquerable, army, had been eleven years in
Italy, executing with strenuous ferocity the vow of hatred to
Rome which had been sworn by him while yet a child at the
bidding of his father, Hamilcar; who, as he boasted, had

 

207 B.C.] BATTLE OF THE METAURUS 97

trained up his three sons, Hannibal, Hasdrubal, and Mago,
like three lion’s whelps, to prey upon the Romans. But
Hannibal’s latter campaigns had not been signalized by any
such great Victories as marked the ﬁrst years of his invasion
of Italy. The stern spirit of Roman resolution, ever highest
in disaster and danger, had neither bent nor despaired be-
neath the merciless blows which “the dire African” dealt her
in rapid succession at Trebia, at Thrasymene, and at Cannee.
Her population was thinned by repeated slaughter in the
ﬁeld; poverty and actual scarcity wore down the survivors,
through the fearful ravages which Hannibal’s cavalry spread
through their corn ﬁelds, their pasture-lands, and their vine-
yards; many of her allies went over to the invader’s side;
and new clouds of foreign war threatened her from Mace-
donia and Gaul. But Rome receded not. Rich and poor
among her citizens vied with each other in devotion to their
country. The wealthy placed their stores, and all placed
their lives, at the state’s disposal. And though Hannibal
could not be driven out of Italy, though every year brought
its sufferings and sacriﬁces, Rome felt that her constancy had
not been exerted in vain. If she was weakened by the con-
tinual strife, so was Hannibal also; and it was clear that the
unaided resources of his army were unequal to the task of
her destruction. The single deerhound could not pull down
the quarry which he had so furiously assailed. Rome not
only stood ﬁercely at bay, but had pressed back and gored
her antagonist, that still, however, watched her 1n act to
spring. She was weary, and bleeding at every pore; and
there seemed to be little hope of her escape, if the other
hound of old Hamilcar’s race should come up in time to aid
his brother in the death-grapple. . .
Hasdrubal had commanded the Carthaginian armies 1n
Spain for some time, with varying but generally unpropitious
fortune. He had not the full authority over the Punic forces
in that country which his brother and his father had prev1—
ously exercised. The faction at Carthage, which was at feud
with his family, succeeded in fettering and interfering w1th
his power; and other generals were from time to tlme sent
into Spain, whose errors and misconduct caused the reverses

that Hasdrubal met with. This is expressly attested by the
7

98 DECISIVE BATTLES [207 B.C.

Greek historian Polybius, who was the intimate friend of the
younger Africanus and drew his information respecting
the second Punic war from the best possible authorities.
Livy gives a long narrative of campaigns between the Roman
commanders in Spain and Hasdrubal, which is so palpably
deformed by ﬁctions and exaggerations as to be hardly
deserving of attention.

It is clear that in the year 208 B.C., at least, Hasdrubal out-
maneuvered Publius Scipio, who held the command of the
Roman forces in Spain, and whose object was to prevent
him from passing the Pyrenees and marching upon Italy.
Scipio expected that Hasdrubal would attempt the nearest
route, along the coast of the Mediterranean; and he there-
fore carefully fortiﬁed and guarded the passes of the eastern
Pyrenees. But Hasdrubal passed these mountains near their
western extremity; and then, with a considerable force of
Spanish infantry, with a small number of African troops,
with some elephants and much treasure, he marched, not
directly towards the coast of the Mediterranean, but in a north-
eastern line towards the center of Gaul. He halted for the
winter in the territory of the Arverni, the modern Auvergne;
and conciliated or purchased the good-will of the Gauls in
that region so far that he not only found friendly winter
quarters among them, but great numbers of them enlisted
under him, and on the approach of spring marched with him ,
to invade Italy.

By thus entering Gaul at the southwest, and avoiding its
southern maritime districts, Hasdrubal kept the Romans in
complete ignorance of his precise operations and movements
in that country. All that they knew was that Hasdrubal had
bafﬂed Scipio’s attempts to keep him in Spain; that he had
crossed the Pyrenees with soldiers, elephants, and money, and
that he was raising fresh forces among the Gauls. The spring
was sure to bring him into Italy ; and then would come the real
tempest of the war, when from the north and from the south
the two Carthaginian armies, each under a son of the Thunder-
bolt,2 were to gather together around the seven hills of Rome.

In this emergency the Romans looked among themselves
earnestly and anxiously for leaders ﬁt to meet the perils of the
coming campaign.

 

207 3.0] BATTLE OF THE METAURUS 99

The senate recommended the people to elect as one of their
consuls Caius Claudius Nero, a patrician of one of the fami-
lies of the great Claudian house. Nero had served during
the preceding years of the war, both against Hannibal in
Italy and against Hasdrubal in Spain; but it is remarkable
that the histories which we possess record no successes as
having been achieved by him either before or after his great
campaign of the Metaurus. It proves much for the sagacity
of the leading men of the senate that they recognized in
Nero the energy and spirit which were required at this crisis,
and it is equally creditable to the patriotism of the people
that they followed the advice of the senate by electing a
general who had no showy exploits to recommend him to
their choice.

It was a matter of greater difﬁculty to ﬁnd a second consul.
The laws required that one consul should be a plebeian; and
the plebeian nobility had been fearfully thinned by the events
of the war. While the senators anxiously deliberated among
themselves what ﬁt colleague for Nero could be nominated
at the coming comitia, and sorrowfully recalled the names of
Marcellus, Gracchus, and other plebeian generals who were
no more, one taciturn and moody old man sat in sullen apathy
among the conscript fathers. This was Marcus Livius, who
had been consul in the year before the beginning of this war,
and had then gained a victory over the Illyrians. After his
consulship he had been impeached before the people on a
charge of peculation and unfair division of the Spoils among
his soldiers. The verdict was unjustly given against him;
and the sense of this wrong, and of the indignity thus put
upon him, had rankled unceasingly in the bosom of Livius,
so that for eight years after his trial he had lived in seclusmn
at his country seat, taking no part in any affairs of state.
Latterly the censors had compelled him to come to Rome
and resume his place in the senate, where he used to_ Sit
gloomily apart, giving only a silent vote. At last an unjust
accusation against one of his near kinsmenv made h1m break
silence; and he harangued the house in words of weight and
sense, which drew attention to him, and taught the senators
that a strong spirit dwelt beneath that unimposing exterior.
N ow, while they were debating on what noble of a plebelan

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IOO DECISIVE BATTLES [207 B.C.

house was ﬁt to assume the perilous honors of the consulate,
some of the elder of them looked on Marcus Livius, and re-
membered that in the very last triumph which had been
celebrated in the streets of Rome this grim old man had sat
in the car of victory ; and that he had offered the last grand
thanksgiving sacriﬁce for the success of the Roman arms
that had bled before Capitoline Jove. There had been no
triumphs since Hannibal came into Italy.3 The Illyrian
campaign of Livius was the last that had been so honored;
perhaps it might be destined for him now to renew the long-
interrupted series. The senators resolved that Livius should
be put in nomination as consul with Nero; the people were
willing to elect him; the only opposition came from himself.
He taunted them with their inconsistency in honoring a man
they had convicted of a base crime. “If I am innocent,”
said he, “why did you place such a stain on me? If I am
guilty, why am I more ﬁt for a second consulship than I was
for my ﬁrst one?” The other senators remonstrated with
him, urging the example of the great Camillus, who, after an
unjust condemnation on a similar charge, both served and
saved his country. At last Livius ceased to object; and
Caius Claudius Nero and Marcus Livius were chosen consuls
of Rome.

A quarrel had long existed between the two consuls, and
the senators strove to effect a reconciliation between them
before the campaign. Here again Livius for a long time
obstinately resisted the wish of his fellow senators. He said
it was best for the state that he and Nero should continue to
hate one another. Each would do his duty better when he
knew that he was watched by an enemy in the person of his
own colleague. At last the entreaties of the senators pre-
vailed, and Livius consented to forego the feud, and to
cooperate with Nero in preparing for the coming struggle.

As soon as the winter snows were thawed, Hasdrubal com-
menced his march from Auvergne to the Alps. He experi-
enced none of the difﬁculties which his brother had met with
from the mountain tribes. Hannibal’s army had been the
ﬁrst body of regular troops that had ever traversed the
regions; and, as wild animals assail a traveler, the natives
rose against it instinctively, in imagined defense of their own

 

207 B.C.] BATTLE OF THE METAURUS IOI

habitations, which they supposed to be the objects of Cartha-
ginian ambition. But the fame of the war with which Italy
had now been convulsed for eleven years had penetrated into
the Alpine passes; and the mountaineers understood that a
mighty city, southward of the Alps, was to be attacked by the
troops whom they saw marching among them. They not only
opposed no resistance to the passage of Hasdrubal, but many
of them, out of the love of enterprise and plunder, or allured
by the high pay that he offered, took service with him; and
thus he advanced upon Italy with an army that gathered
strength at every league. It is said, also, that some of the
most important engineering works which Hannibal had con-
structed were found by Hasdrubal still in existence, and ma-
terially favored the speed of his advance. He thus emerged
into Italy from the Alpine valleys much sooner than had been
anticipated. Many warriors of the Ligurian tribes joined
him; and, crossing the river Po, he marched down its south-
ern bank to the city of Placentia, which he wished to secure
as a base for future operations. Placentia resisted him as
bravely as it had resisted Hannibal eleven years before; and
for some time Hasdrubal was occupied with a fruitless siege
before its walls.

Six armies were levied for the defense of Italy when the
long-dreaded approach of Hasdrubal was announced. Sev-
enty thousand Romans served in the ﬁfteen legions of Wthh,
with an equal number of Italian allies, those armies and the
garrisons were composed. Upwards of thirty thousand more
Romans were serving in Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain. The
whole number of Roman citizens of an age ﬁt for military
duty scarcely exceeded a hundred and thirty thousand. The
census taken before the war had shown a total of two hun-
dred and seventy thousand, which had been diminished by
more than half during twelve years. These numbers are
fearfully emphatic of the extremity to which Rome was re-
duced, and of her gigantic efforts in that great agony of her
fate. Not merely men, but money and military stores, were
drained to the utmost; and if the armies of that year should
be swept off by a repetition of the slaughters of .Thrasymene
and Cannae, all felt that Rome would cease to ex1st. Even if
the campaign were to be marked by no decisive success on

I 02 DECISIVE BATTLES [207 B.C.

either side, her ruin seemed certain. In South Italy, Hanni-
bal had either detached Rome’s allies from her, or had impov-
erished them by the ravages of his army. If Hasdrubal could
have done the same in Upper Italy, if Etruria, Umbria, and
Northern Latium had either revolted or been laid waste,
Rome must have sunk beneath sheer starvation; for the
hostile or desolated territory would have yielded no supplies
of corn for her population; and money to purchase it from
abroad there was none. Instant victory was a matter of life
and death. Three of her six armies were ordered to the
north, but the ﬁrst of these was required to overawe the dis-
affected Etruscans. The second army of the north was
pushed forward, under Porcius, the pretor, to meet and keep
in check the advanced troops of Hasdrubal; while the third,
the grand army of the north, which was to be under the im-
mediate command of the consul Livius, who had the chief
command in all North Italy, advanced more slowly in its
support. There were similarly three armies in the south,
under the orders of the other consul, Claudius Nero.

The lot had decided that Livius was to be opposed to Has-
drubal, and that Nero should face Hannibal. And “when
all was ordered as themselves thought best, the two consuls
went forth of the city, each his several way. The people of
Rome were now quite otherwise affected than they had been _
when L. [Emilius Paulus and C. Terentius Varro were sent
against Hannibal. They did no longer take upon them to
direct their generals, or bid them despatch, and win the vic-
tory betimes; but rather they stood in fear lest all diligence,
wisdom, and valor should prove too little. For since few
years had passed wherein some one of their generals had not
been slain, and since it was manifest that if either of these
present consuls were defeated or put to the worst, the two
Carthaginians would forthwith join and make short work
with the other, it seemed a greater happiness than could be
‘ expected that each of them should return home victor, and
come off with honor from such mighty opposition as he was
like to ﬁnd. With extreme difﬁculty had Rome held up her
head ever since the battle of Cannae; though it were so that
Hannibal alone, with little help from Carthage, had continued
the war in Italy. But there was now arrived another son of

 

207 13.0] BATTLE OF THE METAURUS 103

Amilcar; and one that, in his present expedition, had seemed a
man of more sufﬁciency than Hannibal himself. For, whereas
in that long and dangerous march through barbarous nations,
over great rivers and mountains that were thought unpassa-
ble, Hannibal had lost a great part of his army, this Asdru-
bal, in the same places, had multiplied his numbers; and,
gathering the people that he found in the way, descended
from the Alps like a rolling snowball, far greater than he
came over the Pyrenees at his ﬁrst setting out of Spain.
These considerations, and the like, of which fear presented
many unto them, caused the people of Rome to wait upon
their consuls out of the town, like a pensive train of mourn-
ers ;‘ thinking upon Marcellus and Crispinus, upon whom, in
the like sort, they had given attendance the last year, but
saw neither of them return alive from a less dangerous war.
Particularly old Q. Fabius gave his accustomed advice to
M. Livius, that he should abstain from giving or taking battle,
until he well understood the enemies’ condition. But the con-
sul made him a froward answer, and said that he would ﬁght
the very ﬁrst day, for that he thought it long till he should
either recover his honorby victory, or, by seeing the over-
throw of his own unjust citizens, satisfy himself with the joy
of a great, though not an honest, revenge. But his meaning
was better than his words.” [Raleigh]

Hannibal at this period occupied with his veteran but much-
reduced forces the extreme south of Italy. It had not been
expected either by friend or foe that Hasdrubal would effect
his passage of the Alps so early in the year as actually
occurred. And even when Hannibal learned that his brother
was in Italy, and had advanced as far as Placentia, he was
obliged to pause for further intelligence, before he himself
commenced active operations, as he could not tell whether his
brother might not be invited into Etruria, to aid the party
there that was disaffected to Rome, or whether he would
march down by the Adriatic Sea. Hannibal led his troops
out of their Winter quarters in Bruttium, and marched north-
ward as far as Canusium. Nero had his headquarters near
Venusia, with an army which he had increased to forty thou-
sand foot and two thousand ﬁve hundred horse, by incorpo-
irating under his own command some of the legions which

104 DECISIVE BATTLES [207 B.C.

had been intended to act under other generals in the south.
There was another Roman army twenty thousand strong,
south of Hannibal, at Tarentum. The strength of that city
secured this Roman force from any attack by Hannibal, and
it was a serious matter to march northward and leave it in his
rear, free to act against all his depots and allies in the
friendly part of Italy, which for the last two or three cam-
paigns had served him for a base of his operations. More
over, Nero’s army was so strong that Hannibal could not
concentrate troops enough to assume the offensive against it
without weakening his garrisons, and relinquishing, at least
for a time, his grasp upon the southern provinces. To do
this before he was certainly informed of his brother’s opera-
tions would have been a useless sacriﬁce; as Nero could
retreat before him upon the other Roman armies near the
capital, and Hannibal knew by experience that a mere
advance of his army upon the walls of Rome would have no
effect on the fortunes of the war. In the hope, probably, of
inducing Nero to follow him, and of gaining an opportunity
of outmaneuvering the Roman consul and attacking him on
his march, Hannibal moved into Lucania, and then back into
Apulia ; he again marched down into Bruttium, and strength-
ened his army by a levy of recruits in that district. Nero
followed him, but gave him no chance of assailing him at a
disadvantage. Some partial encounters seem to have taken
place; but the consul could not prevent Hannibal’s junction
with his Bruttian levies, nor could Hannibal gain an oppor-
tunity of surprising and crushing the consul.4 Hannibal
returned to his former headquarters at Canusium, and halted
there in expectation of further tidings of his brother’s move-
ments. Nero also resumed his former position in observation
of the Carthaginian army.

Meanwhile, Hasdrubal had raised the siege of Placentia,
and was advancing towards Ariminum on the Adriatic, and
~driving before him the Roman army under Porcius. Nor
when the consul Livius had come up, and united the second
and third armies of the north, could he make head against
the invaders. The Romans still fell back before Hasdrubal,
beyond Ariminum, beyond the Metaurus, and as far as the
little town of Sena, to the southeast of that river. Hasdrubal

 

207 B.C.] BATTLE or THE METAURUS 105

was not unmindful of the necessity of acting in concert with his
brother. He sent messengers to Hannibal to announce his
own line of march, and to propose that they should unite their
armies in South ,Umbria, and then wheel round against Rome.
Those messengers traversed the greater part of Italy in safety ;
but, when close to the object of their mission, were captured
by a Roman detachment; and Hasdrubal’s letter, detailing his
whole plan of the campaign, was laid, not in his brother’s
hands, but in those of the commander of the Roman armies
of the south. Nero saw at once the full importance of the
Crisis. The two sons of Hamilcar were now within two hun-
dred miles of each other, and if Rome were to be saved, the
brothers must never meet alive. Nero instantly ordered seven
thousand picked men, a thousand being cavalry, to hold them-
selves in readiness for a secret expedition against one of Han-
nibal’s garrisons; and as soon as night had set in, he hurried
forward on his bold enterprise; but he quickly left the south-
ern road towards Lucania, and, wheeling round, pressed
northward with the utmost rapidity towards Picenum. He
had during the preceding afternoon sent messengers to Rome,
who were to lay Hasdrubal’s letters before the senate. There
was a law forbidding a consul to make war or to march his
army beyond the limits of the province assigned to him; but
in such an emergency Nero did not wait for the permission
of the senate to execute his project, but informed them that
he was already on his march to join Livius against Hasdrubal.
He advised them to send the two legions which formed the
home garrison on to Narnia, so as to defend that pass of the
Flaminian road against Hasdrubal, in case he should march
upon Rome before the conSular armies could attack him.
They were to supply the place of these two legions at Rome
by a levy e72 mama in the city, and by ordering up the reserve
legion from Capua. These were his communications to the
senate. He also sent horsemen forward along his line of
march, with orders to the local authorities to bring stores of
provisions and refreshments of every kind to the road51de,
and to have relays of carriages ready for the conveyance of
the wearied soldiers. Such were the precautions which he
took for accelerating his march; and when he had advanced

some little distance from his camp, he brieﬂy informed his

106 DECISIVE BATTLES [207 BC.

soldiers of the real object of their expedition. He told them
that there never was a design more seemingly audacious, and
more really safe. He said he was leading them to a certain
victory, for his colleague had an army large enough to balance
the enemy already, so that i/zez'r swords would decisively turn
the scale. The very rumor that a fresh consul and a fresh
army had come up, when heard on the battle-ﬁeld (and he
would take care that they should not be heard of before they
were seen and felt), would settle the campaign. They would
have all the credit of the victory, and of having dealt the ﬁnal
decisive blow. He appealed to the enthusiastic reception
which they had already met with on their line of march as a
proof and an omen of their good fortune. And, indeed, their
whole path was amid the vows and prayers and praises of
their countrymen. The entire population of the districts
through which they passed ﬂocked to the roadside to see and
bless the deliverers of their country. Food, drink, and refresh-
ments of every kind were eagerly pressed on their acceptance.
Each peasant thought a favor was conferred on him if one
of Nero’s chosen band would accept aught at his hands. The
soldiers caught the full spirit of their leader. Night and day
they marched forward, taking their hurried meals in the ranks,
and resting by relays in the wagons which the zeal of the

country people provided, and which followed in the rear of -

the column.

Meanwhile, at Rome, the news of Nero’s expedition had
caused the greatest excitement and alarm. All men felt the
full audacity of the enterprise, but hesitated what epithet to
apply to it. It was evident that Nero’s conduct would be
judged of by the event—that most unfair criterion, as Livy
truly terms it. People reasoned on the perilous state in which
Nero had left the rest of his army, without a general, and
deprived of the core of its strength, in the vicinity of the
terrible Hannibal. They speculated on how long it would
' take Hannibal to pursue and overtake Nero himself and his
expeditionary force. They talked over the former disasters
of the war, and the fall of both the consuls of the last year.
All these calamities had come on them while they had only
one Carthaginian general and army to deal with in Italy.
Now they had two Punic wars at one time. They had two

 

A- a -. . M-m.mu_\

207 B.C.] BATTLE OF THE METAURUS 107

Carthaginian armies ; they had almost two Hannibals in Italy.
Hasdrubal was sprung from the same father; trained up in
the same hostility to Rome ; equally practised in battle against
its legions; and, if the comparative speed and success with
which he had crossed the Alps was a fair test, he was even
a better general than his brother. With fear for their inter-
preter of every rumor, they exaggerated the strength of their
enemy’s forces in every quarter, and criticized and distrusted
their own.

Fortunately for Rome, while she was thus a prey to terror
and anxiety, her consul’s nerves were strong, and he reso-
lutely urged on his march towards Sena, where his colleague,
Livius, and the pretor Porcius were encamped; Hasdrubal’s
army being in position about half a mile to the north. Nero
had sent couriers forward to apprise his colleague of his proj-
ect and of his approach; and by the advice of Livius, Nero
so timed his ﬁnal march as to reach the camp at Sena by
night. According to a previous arrangement, Nero’s men
were received silently into the tents of their comrades, each
according to his rank. By these means there was no enlarge-
ment of the camp that could betray to Hasdrubal the accession
of force which the Romans had received. This was consid-
erable, as Nero’s numbers had been increased on the march
by the volunteers, who offered themselves in crowds, and from
whom he selected the most promising men, and especially
the veterans of former campaigns. A council of war was
held on the morning after his arrival, in which some advised
that time‘should be given for Nero’s men to refresh them—
selves, after the fatigue of such a march. But Nero vehe-
mently opposed all delay. “The ofﬁcer,” said he, “who is
for giving time for my men here to rest themselves is for
giving time to Hannibal to attack my men, whom I have left
in the camp in Apulia. He is for giving time to Hannibal
and Hasdrubal to discover my march, and to maneuver for
a junction with each other in Cisalpine Gaul at their leisure.
We must ﬁght instantly, while both the foe here and the foe
in the south are ignorant of our movements. We must destroy
this Hasdrubal, and I must be back in Apulia before Hanni-
bal awakes from his torpor.” Nero’s advice prevailed. It
was resolved to ﬁght directly; and before the consuls and

108 DECISIVE BATTLES [207 B.C.

pretor left the tent of Livius, the red ensign, which was the
signal to prepare for immediate action, was hoisted, and the
Romans forthwith drew up in battle array outside the camp.

Hasdrubal had been anxious to bring Livius and Porcius
to battle, though he had not judged it expedient to attack
them in their lines. And now, on hearing that the Romans
offered battle, he also drew up his men, and advanced towards
them. No spy or deserter had informed him of Nero’s arrival;
nor had he received any direct information that he had more
than his old enemies to deal with. But as he rode forward
to reconnoiter the Roman line, he thought that their numbers
seemed to have increased, and that the armor of some of them
was unusually dull and stained. He noticed also that the
horses of some of the cavalry appeared to be rough and out
of condition, as if they had just come from a succession of
forced marches. So also, though, owing to the precaution
of Livius, the Roman camp showed no change of size, it had
not escaped the quick ear of the Carthaginian general that
the trumpet which gave the signal to the Roman legions
sounded that morning once oftener than usual, as if directing
the troops of some additional superior ofﬁcer. Hasdrubal,
from his Spanish campaigns, was well acquainted with all
the sounds and signals of Roman war; and, from all that he
heard and saw, he felt convinced that both the Roman consuls
were before him. In doubt and difﬁculty as to what might
have taken place between the armies of the south, and prob-
ably hoping that Hannibal also was approaching, Hasdrubal
determined to avoid an encounter with the combined Roman
forces, and to endeavor to retreat upon Insubrian Gaul, where
he would be in a friendly country, and could endeavor to
reopen his communications with his brother. He therefore
led his troops back into their camp; and, as the Romans did
not venture on an assault upon his entrenchments, and Has-
drubal did not choose to commence his retreat in their sight,
~ the day passed away in inaction. At the ﬁrst watch of the
night, Hasdrubal led his men silently out of their camp, and
moved northwards towards the Metaurus, in the hope of
placing that river between himself and the Romans before
his retreat was discovered. His guides betrayed him; and
having purposely led him away from the part of the river

 

207 B.C.] BATTLE OF THE METAURUS 109

that was fordable, they made their escape in the dark, and
left Hasdrubal and his army wandering in confusion along
the steep bank, and seeking in vain for a spot Where the
stream could be safely crossed. At last they halted; and
when day dawned on them, Hasdrubal found that great num-
bers of his men, in their fatigue and impatience, had lost all
discipline and subordination, and that many of his Gallic aux-
iliaries had got drunk, and were lying helpless in their quarters.
The Roman cavalry was soon seen coming up in pursuit, fol-
lowed at no great distance by the legions, which marched
in readiness for an instant engagement. It was hopeless for
Hasdrubal to think of continuing his retreat before them.
The prospect of immediate battle might recall the disordered
part of his troops to a sense of duty, and revive the instinct
of discipline. He therefore ordered his men to prepare for
action instantly, and made the best arrangement of them that
the nature of the ground would permit.

Heeren has well described the general appearance of a
Carthaginian army. He says: “ It was an assemblage of the
most opposite races of the human species, from the farthest
parts of the globe. Hordes of half-naked Gauls were ranged
next to companies of white-clothed Iberians, and savage Ligu—
rians next to the far—traveled Nasamones and Lotophagi.
Carthaginians and Phoenici-Africans formed the center; while
innumerable troops of Numidian horsemen, taken from all the
tribes of the desert, swarmed about on unsaddled horses,
and formed the wings. The van was composed of Balearic
slingers; and a line of colossal elephants, with their Ethiopian
guides, formed, as it were, a chain of moving fortresses before
the whole army.” Such were the usual materials and arrange-
ments of the hosts that fought for Carthage ; but the troops
under Hasdrubal were not in all respects thus constituted or
thus stationed. He seems to have been especially deﬁcient in
cavalry, and he had few African troops, though some Cartha-
ginians of high rank were with him. His veteran Spanish
infantry, armed with helmets and shields, and short cut-and-
thrust swords, were the best part of his army. These, and
his few Africans, he drew up on his right wing, under his
own personal command. In the center he placed his Ligurian
infantry, and on the left wing he placed or retained the Gauls,

I IO DECISIVE BATTLES [207 B.C.

who were armed with long javelins and with huge broadswords
and targets. The rugged nature of the ground in front and
on the ﬂank of this part of his line made him hope that the
Roman right wing would be unable to come to close quarters
with these unserviceable barbarians, before he could make
some impression with his Spanish veterans on the Roman
left. This was the only chance that he had of victory or
safety, and he seems to have done everything that good gen-
eralship could do to secure it. He placed his elephants in
advance of his center and right wing. He had caused the
driver of each of them to be provided With a sharp iron
spike and a mallet; and had given orders that every beast
that became unmanageable, and ran back upon his own ranks,
should be instantly killed, by driving the spike into the verte‘
bra at the junction of the head and the spine. Hasdrubal’s
elephants were ten in number. We have no trustworthy
information as to the amount of his infantry, but it is quite .
clear that he was greatly outnumbered by the combined Roman
forces.

The tactic of the‘ Roman legions had not yet acquired the
perfection which it received from the military genius of
Marius,5 and which we read of in the ﬁrst chapter of Gibbon.
We possess in that great work an account of the Roman
legions at the end of the commonwealth, and during the early
ages of the empire, which those alone can adequately admire
who have attempted a similar description. We have also, in
the sixth and seventeenth books of Polybius an elaborate dis-
cussion on the military system of the Romans in his time,
which was not far distant from the time of the battle of the
Metaurus. But the subject is beset with difﬁculties; and in-
stead of entering into minute but inconclusive details, I would
refer to Gibbon’s ﬁrst chapter, as serving for a general de-
scription of the Roman army in its period of perfection, and
remark that the training and armor which the whole legion
received in the time of Augustus were, two centuries earlier,
only partially introduced. Two divisions of troops, called
Hastati and Principes, formed the bulk of each Roman legion
in the second Punic war. Each of these divisions was twelve
hundred strong. The Hastatus and the Princeps legionary
bore a breastplate or coat of mail, brazen greaves, and a.

 

\

207 B.C.] BATTLE OF THE METAURUS III

brazen helmet, with a lofty, upright crest of scarlet or black
feathers. He had a large oblong shield; and, as weapons of
offense, two javelins, one of which was light and slender, but
the other was a strong and massive weapon, with a shaft about
four feet long, and an iron head of equal length. The sword
was carried on the right thigh, and was a short cut-and-thrust
weapon, like that which was used by the Spaniards. Thus
armed, the Hastati formed the front division of the legion,
and the Principes the second. Each division was drawn up
about ten deep ; a space of three feet being allowed between
the ﬁles as well as the ranks, so as to give each legionary
ample room for the use of his javelins and of his sword and
shield. The men in the second rank did not stand immedi-
ately behind those in the ﬁrst rank, but the ﬁles were alternate,
like the position of the men on a draught-board. This was
termed the quincunx order. Niebuhr considers that this
arrangement enabled the legion to keep up a shower of
javelins on the enemy for some considerable time. He says:
“ When the ﬁrst line had hurled its pila, it probably stepped
back between those who stood behind it, who with two steps
forward restored the front nearly to its ﬁrst position; a move-
ment which, on account of the arrangement of the quincunx,
could be executed without losing a moment. Thus one line
succeeded the other in the front till it was time to draw the
swords; nay, when it was found expedient, the lines which
had already been in the front might repeat this change, since
the stores of pila were surely not conﬁned to the two which
each soldier took with him into battle.

“ The same change must have taken place in ﬁghting with
the sword; which, when the same tactic was adopted on both
sides, was anything but a confused mélée; on the contrary, it
was a series of single combats.” He adds that a military
man of experience had been consulted by him on the subject,
and had given it as his opinion “that the change of the lines
as described above was by no means impracticable; and in
the absence of the deafening noise of gunpowder, it cannot
have had even any difﬁculty with trained troops.”

The third division of the legion was six hundred strong, and
acted as a reserve. It was always composed of veteran sol-
diers, who were called the Triarii. Their arms were the

I 12 DECISIVE BATTLES [207 B.C.

same as those of the Principes and Hastati; except that each
Triarian carried a spear instead of javelins. The rest of the
legion consisted of light-armed troops, who acted as skirmish-
ers. The cavalry of each legion was at this period about
three hundred strong. The Italian allies, who were attached
to the legion, seem to have been similarly armed and equipped,
but their numerical proportion of cavalry was much larger.

Such was the nature of the forces that advanced on the
Roman side to the battle of the Metaurus. Nero commanded
the right wing, Livius the left, and the pretor Porcius had the
command of the center. “ Both Romans and Carthaginians
well understood how much depended upon the fortune of this
day, and how little hope of safety there was for the van-
quished. Only the Romans herein seemed to have had the
better in conceit and opinion, that they were to ﬁght with men
desirous to have ﬂed from them. And according to this pre-
sumption came Livius the consul, with a proud bravery, to
give charge on the Spaniards and Africans, by whom he
was so sharply entertained that victory seemed very doubtful.
The Africans and Spaniards were stout soldiers, and well
acquainted with the manner of the Roman ﬁght. The Ligu~
rians, also, were a hardy nation, and not accustomed to give
ground; which they needed the less, or were able now to
do, being placed in the midst. Livius, therefore, and Porcius
found great opposition; and, with great slaughter on both
sides, prevailed little or nothing. Besides other difﬁculties,
they were exceedingly troubled by the elephants, that brake
their ﬁrst ranks, and put them in such disorder as the Roman
ensigns were driven to fall back; all this while Claudius Nero,
laboring in vain against a steep hill, was unable to come to
blows with the Gauls that stood opposite him, but out of
danger. This made Hasdrubal the more conﬁdent, who, see-
ing his own left wing safe, did the more boldly and ﬁercely
make impression on the other side upon the left wing of the
~Romans.” [Raleigh]

But at last Nero, who found that Hasdrubal refused his left
wing, and who could not overcome the difﬁculties of the ground
in the quarter assigned to him, decided the battle by another
stroke of that military genius which had inSpired his march.
Wheeling a brigade of his best men round the rear of the rest

 

207 B.C.] BATTLE OF THE METAURUS 113

of the Roman army, Nero ﬁercely charged the ﬂank of the
Spaniards and Africans. The charge was as successful as it
was sudden. Rolled back in disorder upon each other, and
overwhelmed by “numbers, the Spaniards and Ligurians died,
ﬁghting gallantly to the last. The Gauls, who had taken little
or no part in the strife of the day, were then surrounded, and
butchered almost without resistance. Hasdrubal, after having,
by the confession of his enemies, done all that a general could
do, when he saw that the victory was irreparably lost, scorn-
ing to survive the gallant host which he had led, and to grat-
ify, as a captive, Roman cruelty and pride, spurred his horse
into the midst of a Roman cohort; where, sword in hand, he
met the death that was worthy of the son of Hamilcar and
the brother of Hannibal.

Success the most complete had crowned Nero’s enterprise.
Returning as rapidly as he had advanced, he was again facing
the inactive enemies in the south before they even knew of his
march. But he brought with him a ghastly trophy of what he
had done. In the true spirit of that savage brutality which
deformed the Roman national character, Nero ordered Has-
drubal’s head to be ﬂung into his brother’s camp. Eleven
years had passed since Hannibal had last gazed on those
features. The sons of Hamilcar had then planned their sys-
tem of warfare against Rome, which they had so nearly brought
to successful accomplishment. Year after year had Hannibal
been struggling in Italy, in the hope of one day hailing the
arrival of him whom he had left in Spain, and of seeing his
brother’s eye ﬂash with affection and pride at the junction of
their irresistible hosts. He now saw that eye glazed in death,
and, in the agony of his heart, the great Carthaginian groaned
aloud that he recognized his country’s destiny.

Rome was almost delirious with joy: so agonizing had been
the suspense with which the battle’s verdict on that great issue
of a nation’s life and death had been awaited; so overpower-
ing was the sudden reaction to the consciousness of security
and to the full glow of glory and success. From the time
when it had been known at Rome that the armies were in
presence of each other, the people had never ceased to throng
the forum, the conscript fathers had been in permanent 51t-
ting at the senate-house. Ever and anon a fearful whisper

8

I 14 ' DECISIVE BATTLES [207 B.C.

crept among the crowd of a second Cannae won by a second
Hannibal. Then came truer rumors that the day was Rome’s;
but the people were sick at heart, and heeded them not. The
shrines were thronged with trembling women, who seemed to
weary Heaven with prayers to shield them from the brutal
Gaul and the savage African. Presently the reports of good
fortune assumed a more deﬁnite form. It was said that two
Narnian horsemen had ridden from the east into the Roman
camp of observation in Umbria, and had brought tidings of
the utter slaughter of the foe. Such news seemed too good
to be true. Men tortured their neighbors and themselves by
demonstrating its improbability and by ingeniously criticizing
its evidence. Soon, however, a letter came from Lucius Man-
lius Acidinus, who commanded in Umbria, and who announced
the arrival of the Narnian horsemen in his camp, and the intel-
ligence which they brought thither. The letter was ﬁrst laid
before the senate, and then before the assembly of the people.
The excitement grew more and more vehement. The letter
was read and reread aloud to thousands. It conﬁrmed the
previous rumor. But even this was insufﬁcient to allay the
feverish anxiety that thrilled through every breast in Rome.
The letter might be a forgery: the Narnian horsemen might
be traitors or impostors. “We must see ofﬁcers from the army _
that fought, or hear despatches from the consuls themselves,
and then only will we believe.” Such was the public senti-
ment, though some of more hopeful nature already permitted
themselves a foretaste of joy. At length came news that ofﬁ-
cers who really had been in the battle were near at hand.
Forthwith the whole city poured forth to meet them, each
person coveting to be the ﬁrst to receive with his own eyes
and ears convincing proofs of the reality of such a deliver-
ance. One vast throng of human beings ﬁlled the road from
Rome to the Milvian bridge. The three ofﬁcers, Lucius Vetu~
rius Pollio, Publius Licinius Varus, and Quintus Caecilius Me-
tellus, came riding on, making their way slowly through the
living sea around them. As they advanced, each told the
successive waves of eager questioners that Rome was victori-
ous. “ We have destroyed Hasdrubal and his army, our
legions are safe, and our consuls are unhurt.” Each happy
listener who caught the welcome sounds from their lips retired

 

207 3.c.] BATTLE OF THE METAURUS 115

to communicate his own joy to others, and became himself the
center of an anxious and inquiring group. When the ofﬁcers
had, with much/difﬁculty, reached the senate-house, and the
crowd was with still greater difﬁculty put back from entering
and mingling with the conscript fathers, the despatches of
Livius and Nero were produced and read aloud. From the
senate-house the ofﬁcers proceeded to the public assembly,
where the despatches were read again; and then the senior
ofﬁcer, Lucius Veturius, gave in his own words a fuller detail
of how went the ﬁght. When he had done speaking to the
people, a universal shout of rapture rent the air. The vast
assembly then separated: some hastening to the temples to
ﬁnd in devotion a vent for the overﬂowing excitement of their
hearts; others seeking their homes to gladden their wives and
children with the good news, and to feast their own eyes with
the sight of the loved ones, who now, at last, were safe from
outrage and slaughter. The senate ordained a thanksgiving
of three days for the great deliverance which had been vouch-
safed to Rome; and throughout that period the temples were
incessantly crowded with exulting worshipers; and the ma—
trons, with their children round them, in their gayest attire,
and with joyous aspects and voices, offered grateful praises to
the immortal gods, as if all apprehension of evil were over,
and the war were already ended.

With the revival of conﬁdence came also the revival of ac-
tivity in trafﬁc and commerce, and in all the busy intercourse
of daily life. A numbing load was taken off each heart and
brain, and once more men bought and sold, and formed their
plans freely, as had been done before the dire Carthaginians
came into Italy. Hannibal was, certainly, still in the land;
but all felt that his power to destroy was broken, and that the
crisis of the war fever was past. The Metaurus, indeed, had
not only determined the event of the strife between Rome
"and Carthage, but it had insured to Rome two centuries more
“of almost unchanged conquest. Hannibal did actually, with
almost superhuman skill, retain his hold on Southern Italy

for a few years longer; but the imperial city and her allies
were no longer in danger from his arms, and, after Hannlbal’s

downfall, the great military republic of the ancient world
met in her career of conquest no other worthy competitor.

I 16 DECISIVE BATTLES [207 ac.

Byron has termed Nero’s march “ unequaled," and in the
magnitude of its consequences it is so. Viewed only as a
military exploit, it remains unparalleled, save by Marlborough’s
bold march from Flanders to the Danube, in the campaign of
Blenheim, and perhaps also by the Archduke Charles’s lateral
march in 1796, by which he overwhelmed the French under
Jourdain, and then, driving Moreau through the Black Forest
and across the Rhine, for a while freed Germany from her
invaders.

NOTES

1 “We advanced to Waterloo as the Greeks did to T hermopylae; all of
us without fear, and most of us without hope.”—Speeclz of General Fay.

2 Hamilcar was surnamed Barca, which means the Thunderbolt. Sultan
Bajazet had the similar surname of Yilderim.

3 Marcellus had received only an ovation for the conquest of Syracuse.

4 The annalists whom Livy copied spoke of N ero’s gaining repeated vic-
tories over Hannibal, and killing and taking his men by tens of thousands.
The falsehood of all this is self-evident. If Nero could thus always beat
Hannibal, the Romans would not have been in such an agony of dread
about Hasdrubal as all writers describe. Indeed, we have the express tes-
timony of Polybius that such statements as we read in Livy of Marcellus,
Nero, and others gaining victories over Hannibal in Italy must be all fabri-
cations of Roman vanity. Polybius states that Hannibal was never defeated
before the battle of Zama; and in another passage he mentions that after
the defeats which Hannibal inﬂicted on the Romans in the early years of

the war, they no longer dared face his army in a pitched battle on a fair -

ﬁeld, and yet they resolutely maintained the war. He rightly explains this
by referring to the superiority of Hannibal’s cavalry, the arm which gained
him all his victories. By keeping within fortiﬁed lines, or close to the sides
of the mountains when Hannibal approached them, the Romans rendered
his cavalry ineffective; and a glance at the geography of Italy will show
how an army can traverse the greater part of that country without venturing
far from the high grounds.

5 Most probably during the period Of his prolonged consulship, from 104
B.C. to 101 B.C., while he was training his army against the Cimbri and the
Teutones.

SYNOPSIS OF EVENTS BETWEEN THE BATTLE OF THE ME-
TAURUS, 207 B.C., AND ARMINIUS’s VICTORY OVER THE
ROMAN LEGIONS UNDER VARUS, 9 A.D.

205 to 201 B.C. Scipio is made consul, and carries the war
into Africa. He gains several victories there, and the Car-
thaginians recall Hannibal from Italy to oppose him. Battle
of Zama in 201: Hannibal is defeated, and Carthage sues

 

207 d.C.] BATTLE OF THE METAURUS 117

for peace. End of the second Punic war, leaving Rome con-
ﬁrmed in the dominion of Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica,
and also mistress of great part of Spain, and virtually pre-
dominant in North Africa.

200. Rome makes war upon Philip, king of Macedonia. She
pretends to take the Greek cities of the Achaean League and
the [Etolians under her protection as allies. Philip is defeated
by the proconsul Flaminius at Cynoscephalae, I98, and begs
for peace. The Macedonian inﬂuence is now completely de-
stroyed in Greece, and the Roman established in its stead,
though Rome nominally acknowledges the independence of
the Greek cities.

194. Rome makes war upon Antiochus, king of Syria. He
is completely defeated at the battle of Magnesia, 192, and is
glad to accept peace on conditions which leave him depend-
ent upon Rome.

200 to 190. “Thus, within the short space of ten years,
was laid the foundation of the Roman authority in the East,‘
and the general state of affairs entirely changed. If Rome
was not yet the ruler, she was at least the arbitress of the
world from the Atlantic to the Euphrates. The power of the
three principal states was so completely humbled that they
durst not, without the permission of Rome, begin any new
war; the fourth, Egypt, had already, in the year 201, placed
herself under the guardianship of Rome; and the lesser
powers followed of themselves, esteeming it an honor to be
called the allies of Rome. With this name the nations were
lulled into security, and brought under the Roman yoke; the
new political system of Rome was founded and strengthened
partly by exciting and supporting the weaker states against
the stronger, however unjust the cause of the former might
be, and partly by factions Which she found means to raise in
every state, even the smallest.” [Heeren]

I72. War renewed between Macedon and Rome. Decisive
defeat of Perses, the Macedonian king, by Paulus fEmilius at
Pydna, 168. Destruction of the Macedonian monarchy.

I 50. Rome oppresses the Carthaginians till they are driven
to take up arms, and the third Punic war begins. Carthage
is taken and destroyed by Scipio jEmilianus, I46, and the

Carthaginian territory is made a Roman provmce.

I 18 DECISIVE BATTLES [207 B.C.

146. In the same year in which Carthage falls, Corinth is
stormed by the Roman army under Mummius. The Achaean
League had been goaded into hostilities with Rome by means
similar to those employed against Carthage. The greater
part of Southern Greece is made a Roman province, under
the name of Achaia.

I 33. Numantium is destroyed by Scipio Emilianus. “ The
war against the Spaniards, who, of all the nations subdued
by the Romans, defended their liberty with the greatest
obstinacy, began in the year 200, six years after the total
expulsion of the Carthaginians from their country, 206. It
was exceedingly obstinate, partly from the natural state of
the country, which was thickly populated, and where every
place became a fortress; partly from the courage of the
inhabitants; but at last all, owing to the peculiar policy of
the Romans, who yielded to employ their allies to subdue
other nations. This war continued, almost without interrup—
tion, from the year 200 to I 33, and was for the most part
carried on at the same time in Hispania Citerior, where the
Celtiberi were the most formidable adversaries, and in His-
pania Ulterior, where the Lusitani were equally powerful.
Hostilities were at the highest pitch in 195, under Cato, who
reduced Hispania Citerior to a state of tranquillity in 185—179,

when the Celtiberi were attacked in their native territory; .

and 15 5—150, when the Romans in both provinces were so
often beaten that nothing was more dreaded by the soldiers
at home than to be sent there. The cxtortions and perﬁdy
of Servius Galba placed Viriathus, in the year 146, at the
head of his nations, the Lusitani: the war, however, soon
extended itself to Hispania Citerior, where many nations, par—
ticularly the Numantines, took up arms against Rome, I43.
Viriathus, sometimes victorious and sometimes defeated, was
never more formidable than in the moment of defeat; because
he knew how to take advantage of his knowledge of the coun-
‘ try and of the dispositions of his countrymen. After his
murder, caused by the treachery of Saepio, I40, Lusitania was
subdued; but the Numantine war became still more violent,
and the Numantines compelled the consul Mancinus to a dis.
advantageous treaty, I3 7. When Scipio, in the year 13 3, put
an end to this war, Spain was certainly tranquil; the north-

 

207 B.C.J BATTLE OF THE METAURUS :19

em parts, however, were still unsubdued, though the Romans
penetrated as far as Galatia.” [Heeren]

I 34. Commencement of the revolutionary century at Rome,
5.6. from the time of the excitement produced by the at—
tempts made by the Gracchi to reform the commonwealth
to the battle of ‘Actium, 31 B.C., which established Octavianus
Caesar as sole master of the Roman world. Throughout this
period Rome was engaged in important foreign wars, most of
which procured large accessions to her territory.

118 to 106. The Jugurthine war. Numidia is conquered
and made a Roman province.

113 to 101. The great and terrible war of the Cimbri and
Teutones against Rome. These nations of northern warriors
slaughter several Roman armies in Gaul, and in 102 attempt
to penetrate into Italy. The military genius of Marius here
saves his country; he defeats the Teutones near Aix, in Pro-
vence; and in the following year he destroys the army of the
Cimbri, who had passed the Alps, near Vercellae.

91 to 88. The war of the Italian allies against Rome. This
was caused by the refusal of Rome to concede to them the
rights of Roman citizenship. After a sanguine struggle, Rome
gradually grants it.

89 to 85. First war of the Romans against Mithridates the
Great, king of Pontus, who had overrun Asia Minor, Mace-
donia, and Greece. Sylla defeats his armies, and forces him
to withdraw his forces from Europe. Sylla returns to Rome
to carry on the civil war against the son and partisans of
Marius. He makes himself dictator.

74 to 64. The last Mithridatic wars. Lucullus, and after
him Pompeius, command against the great king of Pontus,
who at last is poisoned by his son, while designing to raise
the warlike tribes of the Danube against Rome, and to invade
Italy from the northeast. Great Asiatic conquests of the
Romans. Besides the ancient province of Pergamus, the
maritime countries of Bithynia, and nearly all Paphlagonia
and Pontus, are formed into a Roman province, under the
name of Bithynia; while on the southern coast Cilicia and
Pamphylia form another, under the name of Cilicia; Phoenicia
and Syria compose a third, under the name of Syria. On the
other hand, Great Armenia is left to Tigranes, Cappadocia to

120 DECISIVE BATTLES [207 B.C.

Ariobarzanes, the Bosphorus to Pharnaces, Judaea to Hyrca~
nus; and some other small states are also given to petty
princes, all of whom remain dependent on Rome.

58 to 50. Caesar conquers Gaul.

54. Crassus attacks the Parthians with a Roman army, but
is overthrown and killed at Carrhae in Mesopotamia. His
lieutenant Cassius collects the wrecks of the army, and pre-
vents the Parthians from conquering Syria.

49 to 45. The civil war between Caesar and the Pompeian
party. Caesar drives Pompeius out of Italy, conquers his
enemy’s forces in Spain, and then passes into Greece, where
Pompeius and the other aristocratic chiefs had assembled a
large army. Caesar gives them a decisive defeat at the great
battle of Pharsalia. Pompeius ﬂies for refuge to Alexandria,
where he is assassinated. Caesar, who had followed him
thither, is involved in a war with the Egyptians, in which he
is ﬁnally victorious. The celebrated Cleopatra is made queen
of Egypt. Caesar next marches into Pontus, and defeats the
son of Mithridates, who had taken part in the war against
him. He then proceeds to the Roman province of Africa,
where some of the Pompeian chiefs had established them-
selves, aided by Juba, a native prince. He overthrows them
at the battle of Thapsus. He is again obliged to lead an
army into Spain, where the sons of Pompeius had collected
the wrecks of their father’s party. He crushes the last of his
enemies at the battle of Munda. Under the title of dictator,
he is sole master of the Roman world.

44. Caesar is killed in the senate-house; the civil wars are
soon renewed, Brutus and Cassius being at the head of the
aristocratic party, and the party of Caesar being led by Mark
Antony and Octavianus Caesar, afterwards Augustus.

42. Defeat and death of Brutus and Cassius at Philippi.

Dissensions soon break out between Octavianus Caesar and
Antony.
‘ 31. Antony is completely defeated by Octavianus Caesar
at Actium. He ﬂies to Egypt with Cleopatra. Octavianus
pursues him. Antony and Cleopatra kill themselves. Egypt
becomes a Roman province, and Octavianus Caesar is left
undisputed master of Rome, and all that is Rome’s.

The forty-fourth year of the reign of Augustus, and the

 

207 B.C.] BATTLE OF THE METAURUS 121

ﬁrst year of the 195th Olympiad, is commonly assigned as the
date of the Nativity of our Lord. There is much of the beauty
of holiness in the remarks with which the American historian
Eliot closes his survey of the conquering career and civil
downfall of the Roman commonwealth: —

“So far as humility amongst men was necessary for the
preparation of a truer freedom than could ever be known
under heathenism, the part of Rome, however dreadful, was
yet sublime. It was not to unite, to discipline, or to fortify
humanity, but to enervate, to loosen, and to scatter its forces,
that the people whose history we have read were allowed to
conquer the earth, and were then themselves reduced to deep
submission. Every good labor of theirs that failed was, by
reason of what we esteem its failure, a step gained nearer to
the end of the well-nigh universal evil that prevailed; while
every bad achievement that may seem to us to have succeeded,
temporarily or lastingly, with them was equally, by reason of
its success, a progress towards the good of which the coming
would have been longed and prayed for could it have been
comprehended. Alike in the virtues and in the vices of
antiquity, we may read the progress towards its humiliation.1
Yet, on the other hand, it must not seem, at the last, that the
disposition of the Romans or of mankind to submission was
secured solely through the errors and the apparently ineffec-
tual toils which we have traced back to these times of old.
Desires too true to have been wasted, and strivings too
humane to have been unproductive, though all were over-
shadowed by passing wrongs, still gleam as if in anticipation
Or in preparation of the advancing day.

“At length, when it had been proved by ages of conﬂict
and loss that no lasting joy and no abiding truth could be
procured through the power, the freedom, or the faith of
mankind, the angels sang their song in which the glory of
God and the good-will of men were together blended. The
universe was wrapped in momentary tranquillity, and ‘ peace-
ful was the night’ above the manger at Bethlehem. We may
believe that when the morning came, the ignorance, the con-
fusion, and the servitude of humanity had left their darkest
forms amongst the midnight clouds. It was still, indeed,
beyond the power of man to lay hold securely of the charity

122 DECISIVE BATTLES [207 B.C.

and the regeneration that were henceforth to be his law; and
the indeﬁnable terrors of the future, whether seen from the
West or from the East, were not at once to be dispelled.
But before the death of the Emperor Augustus, in the midst
of his fallen subjects, the business of the Father had already
been begun in the temple at Jerusalem; and, near by, the
Son was increasing in wisdom and in stature, and in favor
with God and man.”

1 NOTE. — “The Christian revelation,” says Leland, in his truly admirable
work on the subject, “ was made to the world at a time when it was most
wanted; when the darkness and corruption of mankind were arrived at the
height. . . . If it had been published much sooner, and before there had
been a full trial made of what was to be expected from- human wisdom and
philosophy, the great need men stood in of such an extraordinary and divine
dispensation would not have been so apparent.”

 

CHAPTER V

Victory of Armz'm'u: over tlze Roman Legions under Varus, 9 A.D.

“ Hac clade factum, ut Imperium quod in littore oceani non steterat, in
ripa Rheni ﬂuminis staret.”——FLORUS.

minister can never obscure his achievements in the

world of letters, we are indebted for the most pro-
found and most eloquent estimate that we possess of the
importance of the Germanic element in European civiliza~
tion, and of the extent to which the human race is indebted
to those brave warriors who long were the unconquered
antagonists, and ﬁnally became the conquerors, of Imperial
Rome.

Twenty-three eventful years have passed away since M.
Guizot delivered from the chair of modern history at Paris
his course of lectures on the History of Civilization in Europe.
During those years the spirit of earnest inquiry into the germs
and early developments of existing institutions has become
more and more active and universal; and the merited celeb-
rity of M. Guizot’s work has proportionally increased. Its
admirable analysis of the complex political and social organi-
zations of which the modern civilized world is made up must
have led thousands to trace with keener interest the great
crises of times past, by which the characteristics of the pres-
ent were determined. The narrative of one of these great
crises, of the epoch 9 A.D., when Germany took up arms for
her independence against Roman invasion, has for us this
special attraction—that it forms part of our own national
history. Had Arminius been supine or unsuccessful, our
Germanic ancestors would have been enslaved or extermi-
nated in their original seats along the Eyder and the Elbe;

this island would never have borne the name of England, and
123

r I ‘O a truly illustrious Frenchman, whose reverses as a

124 DECISIVE BATTLES [9 AD.

“ we, this great English nation, whose race and language are
now overrunning the earth, from one end of it to the other,”
[Arnold] would have been utterly cut off from existence. .

Arnold may, indeed, go too far in holding that we are
wholly unconnected in race with the Romans and Britons
who inhabited this country before the coming over of the
Saxons; that, “nationally speaking, the history of Caesar’s
invasion has no more to do with us than the natural history
of the animals which then inhabited our forests.” There
seems ample evidence to prove that the Romanized Celts,
whom our Teutonic forefathers found here, inﬂuenced mate-
rially the character of our nation. But the main stream of
our people was and is Germanic. Our language alone deci-
sively proves this. Arminius is far more truly one of our
national heroes than Caractacus: and it was our own pri-
meval fatherland that the brave German rescued when he
slaughtered the Roman legions eighteen centuries ago in the
marshy glens between the Lippe and the Ems.

Dark and disheartening, even to heroic spirits, must have
seemed the prospects of Germany when Arminius planned
the general rising of his countrymen against Rome. Half
the land was occupied by Roman garrisons; and, what was
worse, many of the Germans seemed patiently acquiescent
in their state of bondage. The braver portion, whose patri-
otism could be relied on, was ill-armed and undisciplined;
while the enemy’s troops consisted of veterans in the highest
state of equipment and training, familiarized with victory,
and commanded by ofﬁcers of» proved skill and valor. The
resources of Rome seemed boundless; her tenacity of pur-
pose was believed to be invincible. There was no hope of
foreign sympathy or aid; for the self-governing powers that
had ﬁlled the old world had bent one after another before
the rising power of Rome, and had vanished. The earth
seemed left‘void of independent nations.

The German Chieftain knew well the gigantic power of
the oppressor. Arminius was no rude savage, ﬁghting out
of mere animal instinct, or in ignorance of the might of his
adversary. He was familiar with the Roman language and
civilization; he had served in the Roman armies; he had
been admitted to the Roman citizenship, and raised to the

9 A.D.] ARMINIUS 125

dignity of the equestrian order. It was part of the subtle
policy of Rome to confer rank and privileges on the youth
of the leading families in the nations which she wished to
enslave. Among other young German Chieftains, Arminius
and his brother,’ who were the heads of the noblest house in
the tribe of the Cherusci, had been selected as ﬁt objects for
the exercise of this insidious system. Roman reﬁnements
and dignities succeeded in denationalizing the brother, who
assumed the Roman name of Flavius, and adhered to Rome
throughout all her wars against his country. Arminius
remained unbought by honors or wealth, uncorrupted by
reﬁnement or luxury. He aspired to and obtained from
Roman enmity a higher title than ever could have been
given him by Roman favor. It is in the page of Rome’s
greatest historian that his name has come down to us with
the proud addition of “ Liberator haud dubie Germanim.”

Often must the young Chieftain, while meditating the
exploit which has thus immortalized him, have anxiously
revolved in his mind the fate of the many great men who
had been crushed in the attempt which he was about to
renew—the attempt to stay the chariot—wheels of triumphant
Rome. Could he hope to succeed where Hannibal and
Mithridates had perished? What had been the doom of
Viriathus? and What warning against vain valor was written
on the desolate site where Numantia once had ﬂourished?
Nor was a caution wanting in scenes nearer home and in
more recent times. The Gauls had fruitlessly struggled for
eight years against Caesar; and the gallant Vercingetorix,
who in the last year of the war had roused all his country-
men to insurrection, who had cut off Roman detachments,
and brought Caesar himself to the extreme of peril at Alesia
——he, too, had ﬁnally succumbed, had been led captive in
Caesar’s triumph, and had then been butchered in cold blood
in a Roman dungeon.

It was true that Rome was no longer the great military
republic which for so many ages had shattered the kingdoms
of the world. Her system of government was changed;
and, after a century of revolution and civil war, she had
placed herself under the despotism of a single ruler. But
the discipline of her troops was yet unimpa1red, and her war-

126 DECISIVE BATTLES [9 A.D.

like spirit seemed unabated. The ﬁrst years of the empire '“

had been signalized by conquests as valuable as any gained
by the republic in a corresponding period. It is a great fal-
lacy, though apparently sanctioned by great authorities, to
suppose that the foreign policy pursued by Augustus was
paciﬁc. He certainly recommended such a policy to his suc-
cessors, either from timidity or from jealousy of their fame
outshining his own; but he himself, until Arminius broke his
spirit, had followed a very different course. Besides his Span-
ish wars, his generals, in a series of principally aggressive cam-
paigns, had extended the Roman frontier from the Alps to
the Danube; and had reduced into subjection the large and
important countries that now form the territories of all Aus—
tria south of that river, and of East Switzerland, Lower
Wiirtemberg, Bavaria, the Valtelline, and the Tyrol. While
the progress of the Roman arms thus pressed the Germans

from the south, still more formidable inroads had been made

by the imperial legions in the west. Roman armies, moving
from the province of Gaul, established a chain of fortresses
along the right as well as the left bank of the Rhine, and, in
a‘series of victorious campaigns, advanced their eagles as far
as the Elbe, which now seemed added to the list of vassal
rivers—to the Nile, the Rhine, the Rhone, the Danube, the
Tagus, the Seine, and many more-—that acknowledged the
supremacy of the Tiber. Roman ﬂeets also, sailing from
the harbors of Gaul along the German coasts and up the
estuaries, cooperated with the land forces of the empire, and
seemed to display, even more decisively than her armies, her
overwhelming superiority over the rude Germanic tribes.
Throughout the territory thus invaded the Romans had, with
their usual military skill, established chains of fortiﬁed posts;
and a powerful army of occupation was kept on foot, ready
to move instantly on any spot Where a popular outbreak
might be attempted.

' Vast, however, and admirably organized as the fabric of
Roman power appeared on the frontiers and in the prov-
inces, there was rottenness at the core. In Rome’s unceas—
ing hostilities with foreign foes, and, still more, in her long
series of desolating civil wars, the free middle classes of
Italy had almost Wholly disappeared. Above the position

9 A.D.] ‘ ARMINIUS 127

which they had occupied, an oligarchy of wealth had reared
itself; beneath that position a degraded mass of poverty
and misery was fermenting. Slaves, the chance sweepings
of every conquered country, shoals of Africans, Sardinians,
Asiatics, Illyrians, and others, made up the bulk of the pop-
ulation of the Italian peninsula. The foulest proﬂigacy of
manners was general in all ranks. In universal weariness
of revolution and civil war, and in consciousness of being
too debased for self-government, the nation had submitted
itself to the absolute authority of Augustus. Adulation was
now the chief function of the senate; and the gifts of genius
and accomplishments of art were devoted to the elaboration
of eloquently false panegyrics upon the prince and his fav-
orite courtiers. With bitter indignation must the German
Chieftain have beheld all this, and contrasted with it the
rough worth of his own countrymen—their bravery, their
ﬁdelity to their word, their manly independence of spirit,
their love of their national free institutions, and their loath-
ing of every pollution and meanness. Above all, he must
have thought of the domestic virtues that hallowed a Ger-
man home; of the respect there shown to the female char-
acter, and of the pure affection by which that respect was
repaid. His soul must have burned within him at the con-
templation of such a race yielding to these debased Italians.

Still, to persuade the Germans to combine, in spite of their
frequent feuds among themselves, in one sudden outbreak

against Rome; to keep the scheme concealed from the

Romans until the hour for action had arrived; and then,
Without possessing a single walled town, without military
stores, without training, to teach his insurgent countrymen
to defeat veteran armies and storm fortiﬁcations, seemed so
perilous an enterprise that probably Arminius would have
receded from it, had not a stronger feeling even than patri-
otism urged him on. Among the Germans of high rank who
had most readily submitted to the invaders and become zeal-
ous partisans of Roman authority, was a Chieftain named
Segestes. His daughter, Thusnelda, was preeminent among
the noble maidens of Germany. Arminius had sought her
hand in marriage; but Segestes, who probably discerned the
young chief’s disaffection to Rome, forbade his suit, and

128 DECISIVE BATTLES [9 A.D.

strove to preclude all communication between him and his
daughter. Thusnelda, however, sympathized far more with
the heroic spirit of her lover than with the time-serving pol-
icy of her father. An elopement bafﬂed the precautions of
Segestes; who, disappointed in his hope of preventing the

marriage, accused Arminius, before the Roman governor, of ‘

having carried off his daughter, and of planning treason
against Rome. Thus assailed, and dreading to see his bride
torn from him by the ofﬁcials of the foreign oppressor,
Arminius delayed no longer, but bent all his energies to
organize and execute a general insurrection of the great
mass of his countrymen, who hitherto had submitted in sul.
len inertness to the Roman dominion.

A change of governors had recently taken place, which,
while it materially favored the ultimate success of the insur-
gents, served, by the immediate aggravation of the Roman
oppressions which it produced, to make the native popula-
tion more universally eager to take arms. Tiberius, who was
afterwards emperor, had lately been recalled from the com-
mand in Germany, and sent into Pannonia to put down a
dangerous revolt which had broken out against the Romans
in that province. The German patriots were thus delivered
from the stern supervision of one of the most suspicious of
mankind, and were also relieved from having to contend
against the high military talents of a veteran commander,
who thoroughly understood their national character and the
nature of the country, which he himself had principally sub-
dued. In the room of Tiberius, Augustus sent into Germany
Quintilius Varus, who had lately returned from the procon-
sulate of Syria. Varus was a true representative of the
higher classes of the Romans; among whom a general taste
for literature, a keen susceptibility to all intellectual gratiﬁca-
tions, a minute acquaintance with the principles and practice

of their own national jurisprudence, a careful training in the '

‘ schools of the rhetoricians, and a fondness for either partak-
ing in or watching the intellectual strife of forensic oratory,
had become generally diffused; without, however, having
humanized the old Roman spirit of cruel indifference for
human feelings and human sufferings, and without acting as
the least check on unprincipled avarice and ambition, or on

9 A.D.] ARMINIUS 129

habitual and gross proﬂigacy. , Accustomed to govern the
depraved and debased natives of Syria, a country where
courage in man and virtue in woman had for centuries been

_ .v unknown, Varus thought that he might gratify his licentious

 

‘ and rapacious passions with equal impunity among the high-
minded sons and pure-spirited daughters of Germany. When
the general of an army sets the example of outrages of this
description, he is soon faithfully imitated by his ofﬁcers, and
surpassed by his still more brutal soldiery. The Romans
now habitually indulged in those violations of the sanctity
of the domestic shrine, and those insults upon honor and
modesty, by which far less gallant spirits than those of our
Teutonic ancestors have often been maddened into insur-
rection.1

Arminius found among the other German chiefs many who
sympathized with him in his indignation at their country’s
debasement, and many whom private wrongs had stung yet
more deeply. There was little difﬁculty in collecting bold.
leaders for an attack on the oppressors, and little fear of the
population not rising readily at those leaders’ call. But to
declare open war against Rome, and to encounter Varus’s
army in a pitched battle, would have been merely rushing upon
certain destruction. Varus had three legions under him, a
force which, after allowing for detachments, cannot be esti-
mated at less than fourteen thousand Roman infantry. He
had also eight or nine hundred Roman cavalry, and at least
an equal number of horse and foot sent from the allied states,
or raised among those provincials who had not received the
Roman franchise.

It was not merely the number, but the quality of this force
that made it formidable; and however contemptible Varus
might be as a general, Arminius well knew how admirably
the Roman armies were organized and ofﬁcered, and how
perfectly the legionaries understood every maneuver and
every duty which the varying emergencies of a stricken ﬁeld
might require. Stratagem was, therefore, indispensable; and
it was necessary to blind Varus to his schemes until a favor-
able opportunity should arrive for striking a decisive blow.

For this purpose the German confederates frequented the
headquarters of Varus, which seem to have been near the cen-

9

I30 . DECISIVE BATTLES [9 A.D.

ter of the modern country of Westphalia, where the Roman
general conducted himself with all the arrogant security of
the governor of a perfectly submissive province. There
Varus gratiﬁed at once his vanity, his rhetorical taste, and
his avarice, by holding courts, to which he summoned the
Germans for the settlement of all their disputes, while a bar
of Roman advocates attended to argue the cases before the
tribunal of the proconsul, who did not omit the opportunity
of exacting court fees and accepting bribes. Varus trusted
implicitly to the respect which the Germans pretended to pay
to his abilities as a judge, and to the interest which they
affected to take in the forensic eloquence of their conquerors.
Meanwhile a succession of heavy rains rendered the country
more difﬁcult for the operations of regular troops; and Ar-
minius, seeing that the infatuation of Varus was complete,
secretly directed the tribes near the Weser and the Ems to
take up arms in open revolt against the Romans. This was
represented to Varus as an occasion which required his
prompt attendance at the spot; but he was kept in studied
ignorance of its being part of a concerted national rising;
and he still looked on Arminius as his submissive vassal,
whose aid he might rely on in facilitating the march of his
troops against the rebels, and in extinguishing the local dis-
turbance. He therefore set his army in motion, and marched g
eastward in a line parallel to the course of the Lippe. For
some distance his route lay along a level plain; but on arriv-
ing at the tract between the curve of the upper part of that
stream and the sources of the Ems, the country assumes a
very different character; and here, in the territory of the
modern little principality of Lippe, it was that Arminius had
ﬁxed the scene of his enterprise.

A woody and hilly region intervenes between the heads of
the two rivers, and forms the watershed of their streams.
This region still retains the name (Teutoberger Wald—
‘ T eutobergz'ensz's saltus) which it bore in the days of Arminius.
The nature of the ground has probably also remained unal-
tered. The eastern part of it, round Detmoldt, the present
capital of the principality of Lippe, is described by a modern
German scholar, Dr. Plate, as being “ a table-land intersected
by numerous deep and narrow valleys, which in some places

 

9 A.D.] ARMINIUS I 3 I

form small plains, surrounded by steep mountains and rocks,
and only accessible by narrow deﬁles. All the valleys are
traversed by rapid streams, shallow in the dry season, but
subject to sudden swellings in autumn and winter. The vast
forests which cover the summits and slopes of the hills con-
sist chieﬂy of oak; there is little underwood, and both men
and horse would move with ease in the forests if the ground
were not broken by gullies or rendered impracticable by
fallen trees.” This is the district to which Varus is supposed
to have marched; and Dr. Plate adds that “the names of
several localities on and near that Spot seem to indicate that
a great battle had once been fought there. We ﬁnd the
names ‘das Winnefeld’ (the ﬁeld of victory), ‘die Knochen-
bahn’ (the bone-lane), ‘die Knochenleke’ (the bone-brook),
‘ der Mordkessel’ (the kettle of slaughter), and others.”

Contrary to the usual strict principles of Roman discipline,
Varus had suffered his army to be accompanied and impeded
by an immense train of baggage wagons and by a rabble of
camp—followers, as if his troops had been merely changing
their quarters in a friendly country. When the long array
quitted the ﬁrm level ground and began to wind its way
among the woods, the marshes, and the ravines, the diﬂi-
culties of the march, even without the intervention of an
armed foe, became fearfully apparent. In many places the
soil, sodden with rain, was impracticable for cavalry and even
for infantry, until trees had been felled, and a rude causeway
formed through the morass.

The duties of the engineer were familiar to all who served
in the Roman armies. But the crowd and confusion of the
columns embarrassed the working parties of the soldiery, and
in the midst of their toil and disorder the word was Suddenly
passed through their ranks that the rear-guard was attacked
by the barbarians. Varus resolved on pressing forward; but
a heavy discharge of missiles from the woods on either ﬂank
taught him how serious was the peril, and he saw the best
men falling round him without the opportunity of retaliation;
for his light-armed auxiliaries, who were principally of Ger-
manic race, now rapidly deserted, and it was impossible to
deploy the legionaries on such broken ground for a charge
against the enemy. Choosing one of the most open and ﬁrm

132 DECISIVE BATTLES [9 A.D.

spots which they could force their way to, the Romans halted
for the night; and, faithful to their national discipline and
tactics, formed their camp amid the harassing attacks of the
rapidly thronging foes, with the elaborate toil and systematic
skill the traces of which are impressed permanently on the
soil of so many European countries, attesting the presence
in the olden time of the imperial eagles.

On the morrow the Romans renewed their march, the
veteran ofﬁcers who served under Varus now probably direct~
ing the operations, and hoping to ﬁnd the Germans drawn up
to meet them, in which case they relied on their own supe-
rior discipline and tactics for such a victory as should reassure
the supremacy of Rome. But Arminius was far too sage a
commander to lead on his followers, with their unwieldy
broadswords and inefﬁcient defensive armor, against the R0-
man legionaries, fully armed with helmet, cuirass, greaves,
and shield ; who were skilled to commence the conﬂict with a
murderous volley of heavy javelins, hurled upon the foe when
a few yards distant, and then, with their short cut-and-thrust
swords, to hew their way through all opposition; preserving
the utmost steadiness and coolness, and obeying each word
of command in the midst of strife and slaughter with the.
same precision and alertness as if upon parade. Arminius
suffered the Romans to march out from their camp, to form ‘
ﬁrst in line for action, and then in column for marching, with-
out the show of opposition. For some distance Varus was
allowed to move on, only harassed by slight skirmishes, but
struggling with difﬁculty through the broken ground, the
toil and distress of his men being aggravated by heavy tor-
rents of rain, which burst upon the devoted legions as if the
angry gods of Germany were pouring out the vials of their
wrath upon the invaders. After some little time their van
approached a ridge of high woody ground, which is one of
~ the offshoots of the great Hercynian forest, and is situated
between the modern villages of Driburg and Bielefeld.
Arminius had caused barricades of hewn trees to be formed
here, so as to add to the natural difﬁculties of the passage.
Fatigue and discouragement now began to betray themselves
in the Roman ranks. Their line became less steady; bag-
gage wagons were abandoned from the impossibility of forc-

 

v'ffff’.’ '7

 

9 A.D.] ARMINIUS x 3 3

ing them along; and, as this happened, many soldiers left
their ranks and crowded round the wagons to secure the most
valuable portions of their property; each was busy about his
own affairs, and purposely slow in hearing the word of com-
mand from his ofﬁcers. Arminius now gave the signal for a
general attack. The ﬁerce shouts of the Germans pealed
through the gloom of the forests, and in thronging multitudes
they assailed the ﬂanks of the invaders, pouring in clouds of
darts on the encumbered legionaries, as they struggled up
the glens or ﬂoundered in the morasses, and watching every
opportunity of charging through the intervals of the dis-
jointed column, and so cutting off the communication between
itsseveral brigades. Arminius, with a chosen band of per-
sonal retainers round him, cheered on his countrymen by
voice and example. He and his men aimed their weapons
particularly at the horses of the Roman cavalry. The
wounded animals, slipping about in the mire and their own
blood, threw their riders, and plunged among the ranks of
the legions, disordering all round them. Varus now ordered
the troops to be countermarched, in the hope of reaching the
nearest Roman garrison on the Lippe.2 But retreat was now
as impracticable as advance; and the falling back of the
Romans only augmented the courage of their assailants, and
caused ﬁercer and more frequent charges on the ﬂanks of the
disheartened army. The Roman ofﬁcer who commanded the
cavalry, Numonius Vala, rode off with his squadrons, in
the vain hope of escaping by thus abandoning his comrades.
Unable to keep together, or force their way across the woods
and swamps, the horsemen were overpowered in detail and
slaughtered to the last man. The Roman infantry still held
together and resisted, but more through the instinct of disci-
pline and bravery than from any hope of success or escape.
Varus, after being severely wounded in a charge of the Ger-
mans against his part of the column, committed suicide to
avoid falling into the hands of those whom he had exasper-
ated by his oppressions. One of the lieutenant-generals of
the army fell ﬁghting; the other surrendered to the enemy.
But mercy to a fallen foe had never been a Roman virtue,
and those among her legions who now laid down their arms
in hope of quarter drank deep of the cup of suffering which

r 34 DECISIVE BATTLES [9 AD.

Rome had held to the lips of many a brave 'but unfortunate
enemy. The infuriated Germans slaughtered their oppress-
ors with deliberate ferocity; and those prisoners who were
not hewn to pieces on the spot were only preserved to perish
by a more cruel death in cold blood.

The bulk of the Roman army fought steadily and stub-
bornly, frequently repelling the masses of the assailants, but
gradually losing the compactness of their array, and becom-
ing weaker and weaker beneath the incessant shower of darts
and the reiterated assaults of the vigorous and unencumbered
Germans. At last, in a series of desperate attacks the column
was pierced through and through, two of the eagles captured,
and the Roman host, which on the yester-morning had marched
forth in such pride and might, now broken up into confused
fragments, either fell ﬁghting beneath the overpowering num-
bers of the enemy, or perished in the swamps and woods in
unavailing efforts at ﬂight. Few, very few, ever saw again
the left bank of the Rhine. One body of brave veterans,
arraying themselves in a ring on a little mound, beat off every
charge of the Germans, and prolonged their honorable resist-
ance to the close of that dreadful day. The traces of a feeble
attempt at forming a ditch and mound attested in after-years
the spot where the last of the Romans passed their night of
suffering and despair. But on the morrow this remnant also,
worn out with hunger, wounds, and toil, was charged by the
victorious Germans, and either massacred on the spot, or
offered up in fearful rites at the altars of the deities 0f the
old mythology of the north.

A gorge in the mountain ridge, through which runs the
modern road between Paderborn and Pyrmont, leads from
the spot Where the heat of the battle raged to the Exter~
steine, a cluster of bold and grotesque rocks of sandstone,
near which is a small sheet of water, overshadowed by a grove
of aged trees. According to local tradition, this was one of
the sacred groves of the ancient Germans, and it was here
that the Roman captives were slain in sacriﬁce by the victori-
ous warriors of Arminius.

Never was victory more decisive, never was the liberation
of an oppressed people more instantaneous and complete.
Throughout Germany the Roman garrisons were assailed and

 

9 .44).] ARMINIUS I 3 5

cut off; and within a few weeks after Varus had fallen, the
German soil was freed from the foot of an invader.

At Rome, the tidings of the battle were received with an
agony of terror, the descriptions of which we should deem
exaggerated did they not come from Roman historians them-
selves. These passages in the Roman writers not only tell
emphatically how great was the awe which the Romans felt
of the prowess of the Germans, if their various tribes could
be brought to reunite for a common purpose,3 but also they
reveal how weakened and debased the population of Italy had
become. Dion Cassius says : “ Then Augustus, when he heard
the calamity of Varus, rent his garments, and was in great
afﬂiction for the troops he had lost, and for terror respecting
the Germans and the Gauls. And his chief alarm was, that
he expected them to push on against Italy and Rome: and
there remained no Roman youth ﬁt for military duty, that
were worth speaking of, and the allied populations that were
at all serviceable had been wasted away. Yet he prepared for
the emergency as well as his means allowed; and when none
of the citizens of military age were willing to enlist he made
them cast lots, and punished by conﬁscation of goods and dis-
franchisement every ﬁfth man among those under thirty-ﬁve,
and every tenth man of those above that age. At last, when
he found that not even thus could he make many come for-
ward, he put some of them to death. So he made a con-
scription of discharged veterans and emancipated slaves, and,
collecting as large a force as he could, sent it, under Tiberius,
with all speed into Germany.”

, Dion mentions also a number of terriﬁc portents that were
believed to have occurred at the time; and the narration of
which is not immaterial, as it shows the state of the public
mind, when such things were so believed in and so inter-
preted. The summits of the Alps were said to have fallen,
and three columns of ﬁre to have blazed up from them. In
the Campus Martius, the temple of the War-god, from whom
the founder of Rome had sprung, was struck by a thunder-
bolt. The nightly heavens glowed several times, as if on ﬁre.
Many comets blazed forth together; and ﬁery meteors, shaped
like spears, had shot from the northern quarter of the sky
down into the Roman camps. It was said, too, that a statue

136 DECISIVE BATTLES [9 A.D.

of Victory, which had stood at a place on the frontier, point-
ing the way towards Germany, had of its own accord turned
round, and now pointed to Italy. These and other prodigies
were believed by the multitude to accompany the slaughter of
Varus’s legions, and to manifest the anger of the gods against
Rome. Augustus himself was not free from superstition; but
on this occasion no supernatural terrors were needed to increase
the alarm and grief that he felt; and which made him, even
for months after the news of the battle had arrived, often
beat his head against the wall, and exclaim, “ Quintilius
Varus, give me back my legions!” We learn this from his
biographer, Suetonius ; and, indeed, every ancient writer who
alludes to the overthrow of Varus attests the importance of
the blow against the Roman power, and the bitterness With
which it was felt.

The Germans did not pursue their victory beyond their own
territory. But that victory secured at once and forever the
independence of the Teutonic race. Rome sent, indeed, her
legions again into Germany, to parade a temporary superior-
ity; but all hopes of permanent conquest were abandoned by
Augustus and his successors.

The blow which Arminius had struck never was forgotten.
Roman fear disguised itself under the specious title of mod-
eration; and the Rhine became the acknowledged boundary
of the two nations until the ﬁfth century of our era, when the
Germans became the assailants, and carved with their con-
quering swords the provinces of Imperial Rome into the king-
doms of modern Europe.

ARMINIUS

I have said above that the great Cheruscan is more truly
one of our national heroes than Caractacus is. It may be
added that an Englishman is entitled to claim a closer degree
‘of relationship with Arminius than can be claimed by any
German of modern Germany. The proof of this depends on
the proof of four facts: ﬁrst, that the Cherusci were Old
Saxons, or Saxons of the interior of Germany; secondly, that
the Anglo-Saxons, or Saxons of the coast of Germany, were
more closely akin than other German tribes were to the Che—

 

9 A.D.] ARMINIUS I37

ruscan Saxons; thirdly, that the Old Saxons were almost ex-
terminated by Charlemagne; fourthly, that the Anglo-Saxons
are our immediate ancestors. The last of these may be as-
sumed as an axiom in English history. The proofs of the
other three are partly philological and partly historical. I
have not space to go into them here, but they will be found
in the early chapters of the great work of Dr. Robert Gordon.
Latham on the “ English Language,” and in the notes of his
edition of the “ Germania of Tacitus.” It may be, however,
here remarked that the present Saxons of Germany are of the
High-Germanic division of the German race, Whereas both
the Anglo-Saxon and Old Saxon were of the Low-Germanic.

Being thus the nearest heirs of the glory of Arminius, we
may fairly devote more attention to his career than, in such
a work as the present, could be allowed to any individual leader.
And it is interesting to trace how far his fame survived dur-
ing the Middle Ages, both among the Germans of the Conti—

nent and among ourselves.
It seems probable that the jealousy with which Maraboduus,

the king of the Suevi and Marcomanni, regarded Arminius,
and which ultimately broke out into open hostilities between
those German tribes and the Cherusci, prevented Arminius
from leading the confederate Germans to attack Italy after
his ﬁrst victory. Perhaps he may have had the rare modera-
tion of being content with the liberation of his country, with-
out seeking to retaliate on her former oppressors. When
Tiberius marched into Germany in the year Io, Arminius was
too cautious to attack him on ground favorable to the legions,
and Tiberius was too skilful to entangle his troops in difﬁcult
parts of the country. His march and countermarch were as
unresisted as they were unproductive. A few years later,
when a dangerous revolt of the Roman legions near the fron-
tier caused their generals to ﬁnd them active employment by
leading them into the interior of Germany, we ﬁnd Arminius
again energetic in his country’s defense. The old quarrel
between him and his father-in-law, Segestes, had broken out
afresh. Segestes now called in the aid of the Roman general,
Germ‘anicus, to whom he surrendered himself; and by his
contrivance his daughter Thusnelda, the wife of Arminius,
also came into the hands of the Romans, being far advanced

I 33 DECISIVE BATTLES [9 A.D.

in pregnancy. She showed, as Tacitus relates, more of the
spirit of her husband than of her father—a spirit that could
not be subdued into tears or supplications. She was sent to
Ravenna, and there gave birth to a son, whose life we ﬁnd,
from an allusion in Tacitus, to have been eventful and un-
happy; but the part of the great historian’s work which nar-
rated his fate has perished, and we only know from another
quarter that the son of Arminius was, at the age of four years,
led captive in a triumphal pageant along the streets of Rome.

The high spirit of Arminius was goaded almost into frenzy
by these bereavements. The fate of his wife, thus torn from
him, and of his babe doomed to bondage even before its birth,
inﬂamed the eloquent invectives with which he roused his
countrymen against the home traitors, and against their in-
vaders, who thus made war upon women and children. Ger-
manicus had marched his army to the place where Varus had
perished, and had there paid funeral honors to the ghastly
relics of his predecessor’s legions that he found heaped around
him.4 Arminius lured him to advance a little farther into the
country, and then assailed him, and fought a battle, which,
by the Roman accounts, was a drawn one. The effect of it
was to make Germanicus resolve on retreating to the Rhine.
He himself, with part of his troops, embarked in some vessels
on the Ems, and returned by that river, and then by sea; but
part of his forces were entrusted to a Roman general, named
Cmcina, to lead them back by land to the Rhine. Arminius
followed this division on its march, and fought several battles
with it, in which he inﬂicted heavy loss on the Romans, cap-
tured the greater part“ of their baggage, and would have de-
stroyed them completely, had not his skilful system of opera-
tions been ﬁnally thwarted by the haste of Inguiomerus, a
confederate German chief, who insisted on assaulting the
Romans in their camp, instead of waiting till they were en-
tangled in the difﬁculties of the country and assailing their
‘ columns on the march.

In the following year the Romans were inactive; but in the
year afterwards Germanicus led a fresh invasion. He placed
his army on shipboard, and sailed to the mouth of the Ems,
Where he disembarked, and marched to the Weser, where he
encamped, probably in the neighborhood of Minden. Armin‘

 

9 .44).] ARMINIUS 139

ius had collected his army on the other side of the river; and
a scene occurred, which is powerfully told by Tacitus, and
which is the subject of a beautiful poem by Praed. It has
been alreadyrmentioned that the brother of Arminius, like
himself, had been trained up, while young, to serve in the
Roman armies; but, unlike Arminius, he not only refused to
quit the Roman service for that of his country, but fought
against his country with the legions of Germanicus. He had
assumed the Roman name of Flavius, and had gained con-
siderable distinction in the Roman service, in which he had
lost an eye from a wound in battle. When the Roman out-
posts approached the river Weser, Arminius called out to
them from the opposite bank, and expressed a wish to see his
brother. Flavius stepped forward, and Arminius ordered his
own followers to retire, and requested that the archers should
be removed from the Roman bank of the river. This was
done: and the brothers, who apparently had not seen each
other for some years, began a conversation from the opposite
sides of the stream, in which Arminius questioned his brother
respecting the loss of his eye, and what battle it had been lost
in, and what reward he had received for his wound. Flavius
told him how the eye was destroyed, and mentioned the
increased pay that he had on account of its loss, and showed
the collar and other military decorations that had been given
him. Arminius mocked at these as badges of slavery; and
then each began to try to win the other over— Flavius boast—
ing the power of Rome, and her generosity to the submissive ;
Arminius appealing to him in the name of their country’s
' gods, of the mother that had borne them, and by the holy
names of fatherland and freedom, not to prefer being the
betrayer to being the champion of his country. They soon
proceeded to mutual taunts and menaces, and Flavius called
aloud for his horse and his arms, that he might dash across
the river and attack his brother; nor would he have been
checked from doing so, had not the Roman general, Stertinius,
run up to him, and forcibly detained him. Arminius stood on
the other bank, threatening the renegade, and defying him to
battle.

I shall not be thought to need apology for quoting here the
stanzas in which Praed has described this scene—a scene

r4o DECISIVE BATTLES [9 A.D.

among the most affecting, as well as the most striking, that
history supplies. It makes us reﬂect on the desolate position
of Arminius, with his wife and child captives in the enemy’s
hands, and with his brother a renegade in arms against him.
The great liberator of our German race stood there, with
every source of human happiness denied him, except the
consciousness of doing his duty to his country.

“ Back, back! he fears not foaming ﬂood

Who fears not steel-clad line:

No warrior thou of German blood,
No brother thou of mine.

Go, earn Rome’s chain to load thy neck,

’ Her gems to deck thy hilt;

And blazon honor’s hapless wreck
With all the gauds of guilt!

“ But wouldst thou have me share the prey?

By all that I have done——

The Varian bones that day by day
Lie whitening in the sun,

The legion’s trampled panoply,
The eagle’s shattered wing,—

I would not be for earth or sky
So scorned and mean a thing.

“ Ho! call me here the wizard, boy,

Of dark and subtle skill,

To agonize, but not destroy,
To curse, but not to kill.

When swords are out, and shriek and shout
Leave little room for prayer,

No fetter on man’s arm or heart
Hangs half so heavy there.

 

“I curse him by the gifts the land

Hath won from him and Rome—

The riving ax, the wasting brand,
Rent forest, blazing home.

I curse him by our country’s gods,
The terrible, the dark,

The breakers of the Roman rods,
The smiters of the bark.

“ O misery, that such a ban
On such a brow should be!
Why comes he not in battle’s van
His country’s chief to be?—

 

 

9 A.D.] ARMINIUS 141

To stand a comrade by my side,
The sharer of my fame,
And worthy of a brother’s pride
’ And of a brother’s name?

“ But it is past! ———where heroes press
And cowards bend the knee
Arminius is not brotherless;
His brethren are the free.
They come around: one hour, and light
Will fade from turf and tide,
‘ Then onward, onward to the ﬁght
With darkness for our guide.

“ To-night, to-night, when we shall meet

In combat face to face,

Then only would Arminius greet
The renegade’s embrace.

The canker of Rome’s guilt shall be
Upon his dying name;

And as he lived in slavery,
So shall he fall in shame.”

On the day after the Romans had reached the Weser, Ger-
manicus led his army across that river, and a partial encounter
took place, in which Arminius was successful. But on the
succeeding day a general action was fought, in which Arminius
was severely wounded, and the German infantry routed with
heavy loss. The horsemen of the two armies encountered
without either party gaining the advantage. But the Roman
army remained master of the ground, and claimed a complete
victory. Germanicus erected a trOphy in the ﬁeld, with a
vaunting inscription, that the nations between the Rhine and
the Elbe had been thoroughly conquered by his army. But
that army speedily made a ﬁnal retreat to the left bank of the
Rhine; nor was the effect of their campaign more durable
than their trophy. The sarcasm with which Tacitus speaks
of certain other triumphs of Roman generals over Germans
may apply to the pageant which GermaniCus celebrated on his
return to Rome from his command of the Roman army of the
Rhine. I The Germans were “trz’ump/zati potz'zzs 92mm w'ctz'.”

After the Romans had abandoned their attempts on Ger-
many, we ﬁnd Arminius engaged in hostilities with Maro-
boduus, the king of the Suevi and Marcomanni, who was
endeavoring to bring the other German tribes into a state of

142 DECISIVE BATTLES [9 A.D.

dependency on him. Arminius was at the head of the Ger-
mans who took up arms against this home invader of their
liberties. After some minor engagements, a pitched battle
was fought between the two confederacies, 16 A.D., in which
the loss on each side was equal; but Maroboduus confessed
the ascendency of his antagonist by avoiding a renewal of the
engagement, and by imploring the intervention of the Romans
in his defense. The younger Drusus then commanded the
Roman legions in the province of Illyricum, and by his medi~
ation a peace was concluded between Arminius and Maro-
boduus, by the terms of which it is evident that the latter
must have renounced his ambitious schemes against the free-
dom of the other German tribes.

Arminius did not long survive this second war of independ-
ence, which he successfully waged for his country. He was
assassinated in the thirty-seventh year of his age by some of
his own kinsmen, who conspired against him. Tacitus says
that this happened while he was engaged in a civil war, which
had been caused by his attempts to make himself king over
his countrymen. It is far more probable (as one of the best
biographers of Arminius [Dr. Plate] has observed)that Tacitus
misunderstood an attempt of Arminius to extend his inﬂuence
as elective war-Chieftain of the Cherusci and other tribes for
an attempt to obtain the royal dignity. When we remember
that his father-in-law and his brother were renegades, we can
well understand that a party among his kinsmen may have
been bitterly hostile to him, and have opposed his authority
with the tribe by open violence, and, when that seemed in-
effectual, by secret assassination.

Arminius left a name which the historians of the nation
against which he combated so long and so gloriously have
delighted to honor. It is from the most indisputable source,
from the lips of enemies, that we know his exploits. His
countrymen made history, but did not write it. But his mem-
ory lived among them in the lays of their bards, who recorded

“The deeds he did, the ﬁelds he won,
The freedom he restored.”

Tacitus, many years after the death of Arminius, says of him,
“ Canitur adhuc barbaras apud gentes.” As time passed on,

 

9 A.D.] ARMINIUS 143

the gratitude of ancient Germany to her great deliverer grew
into adoration, and divine honors were paid for centuries to
Arminius by every tribe of the Low-Germanic division of the
Teutonic races. The Irmin—sul, or the column of Herman, near
Eresburg, the modern Stadtberg, was the chosen object of
worship to the descendants of the Cherusci, the Old Saxons,
and in defense of which they fought most desperately against
Charlemagne and his Christianized Franks. “Irmin, in the
cloudy Olympus of Teutonic belief, appears as a king and a
warrior; and the pillar, the ‘Irmin-sul,’ bearing the statue,
and considered as the symbol of the deity, was the Palladium
of the Saxon nation, until the temple of Eresburg was de-
stroyed by Charlemagne, and the column itself transferred to
the monastery of Corbey, where, perhaps, a portion of the
rude rock idol yet remains, covered by the ornaments of the
Gothic era.” [Palgrave]

Traces of the worship of Arminius are to be found among
our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, after their settlements in this
island. One of the four great highways was held to be under
the protection of the deity, and was called the “ Irmin-street.”
The name Arminius is, of course, the mere Latinized form of
“ Herman,”- the name by which the hero and the deity were
known by every man of Low-German blood, on either side
of the German Sea. It means, etymologically, the “War-
man,” the “ man of hosts.” No other explanation of the wor-
ship of the “ Irmin-sul,” and the name of the “Irmin-street,”
is so satisfactory as that which connects them with the deiﬁed
Arminius. We know for certain of the existence of other
columns of an analogous character. Thus, there are the
Roland-seule in North Germany; there was a Thor-seule in
Sweden, and (what is more important) there was an Athel-
stan—seule in Saxon England.

There is at the present moment a song respecting the Irmin-
sul current in the bishopric of Minden, one version of which
might seem only to refer to Charlemagne having pulled down

the Irmin-sul : —-
“ Herman, sla dermen,

Sla pipen, sla trummen,
De Kaiser will kummen,
Met hamer un stangen,
Will Herman uphangen.”

I44 DECISIVE BATTLES [9 an.

But there is another version, which probably is the older, and
which clearly refers to the great Arminius : -—

“Un Herman slang dermen;
Slaug pipen, slaug trummen;
De fiirsten sind kammen,
Met all eren-mannen
Hebt Varu: uphangen.”

About ten centuries and a half after the demolition of the
Irmin-sul, and nearly eighteen after the death of Arminius, the
modern Germans conceived the idea of rendering tardy hom-
age to their great hero; and, accordingly, some eight or ten
years ago, a general subscription was organized in Germany
for the purpose of erecting, on the Osning, ~— a conical moun-
tain, which forms the highest summit of the Teutoberger
Wald, and is eighteen hundred feet above the level of the sea,
——a colossal bronze statue of Arminius. The statue was de-
signed by Bandel. The hero was to stand uplifting a sword
in his right hand, and looking towards the Rhine. The height
of the statue was to be eighty feet from the base to the point
of the sword, and was to stand on a circular Gothic temple,
ninety feet high, and supported by oak-trees as columns. The
mountain, where it was to be erected, is wild and stern, and
overlooks the scene of the battle. It was calculated that the
statue would be clearly visible at a distance of sixty miles.
The temple is nearly ﬁnished, and the statue itself has been
cast at the copper-works at Lemgo. But there, through want
of funds to set it up, it has lain for some years, in disjointed
fragments, exposed to the mutilating homage of relic-seeking
travelers. The idea of honoring a hero who belongs to all
Germany is not one which the present rulers of that divided
country have any wish to encourage; and the statue may long
continue to lie there, and present too true a type of the con-
dition of Germany herself.

Surely this is an occasion in which Englishmen might well
prove, by acts as well as words, that we also rank Arminius
among our heroes.

I have quoted the noble stanzas of one of our modern Eng-
lish poets on Arminius, and I will conclude this memoir with
one of the odes of the great poet of modern Germany, Klop-
stock, on the victory to which we owe our freedom, and

 

9 11.9.] ' ' ARMINIUS 145

Arminius mainly owes his fame. Klopstock calls it the
“Battle of Winfield.” The epithet of “Sister of Cannae”
shows that Klopstock followed some chronologers, according
to whom Varus was defeated on the anniversary of the day on
which Paulus and Varro were defeated by Hannibal.

“Sister of Cannae ! 5 Winﬁeld’s° ﬁght !
We saw thee with thy streaming bloody hair,
With ﬁery eye, bright.with the world’s despair,
Sweep by ,Walhalla’s bards from out our sight.

“ Herrman outspake —‘ Now Victory or Death !
The Romans, . . . ‘ Victory 2’
And onward rushed their eagles with the cry.
— So ended the ﬁrst day.

“ ‘ Victory or Death ! ’ began
Then, ﬁrst, the Roman chief; and Herrman spake
Not, but home struck: the eagles ﬂuttered — brake.
—— So sped the second day.

TWO CHORUSES

“And the third came. . . . The cry was ‘Flight or Death !’
Flight left they not for them who’d make them slaves-—
Men who stab children !——ﬂight for llzem.’ . . . no I graves!
——’Twas their last day.

TWO BARDS

“ Yet spared they messengers: two came to Rome.
How drooped the plume! the lance was left to trail
Down in the dust behind; their cheek was pale:
So came the messengers to Rome.

“ High in his hall the Imperator sate——
Octaw'zmus Cesar Augustus sate.
They ﬁlled up wine—cups, wine-cups ﬁlled they up
For him the highest, Jove of all their state.

“ The ﬂutes of Lydia hushed before their voice,
Before the messengers—the ‘ Highest’ sprung—-
The god 7 against the marble pillars, wrung
By the dread words, striking his brow, and thrice
Cried he aloud in anguish, ‘ Varus! Varus!

Give back my legions, Varus! ’

“ And now the world-wide conquerors shrunk and feared

For fatherland and home
The lance to raise; and ’mongst those false to Rome

The death-lot rolled, and still they shrunk and feared;
ro

I46 DECISIVE BATTLES [9 A.D.

‘ For she her face hath turned,

The victor goddess,’ cried these cowards (for aye
Be it!) ‘from Rome and Romans, and her day
Is done! ’ And still he mourned,

And cried aloud in anguish, ‘ Varus! Varus!
Give back my legions, Varusl’”

NOTES

1 I cannot forbear quoting Macaulay’s beautiful lines, where he describes
how similar outrages in the early times of Rome goaded the plebeians to
rise against the patricians : ——

“Heap heavier still the fetters; bar closer still the grate;
Patient as sheep we yield us up unto your cruel hate.
But by the shades beneath us, and by the gods above,
Add not unto your cruel hate your still more cruel love!
* * * * * * * * * it
Then leave the poor plebeian his single tie to life —
The sweet, sweet love of daughter, of sister, and of wife;
The gentle speech, the balm for all that his vext soul endures;
The kiss in which he half forgets even such a yoke as yours.
Still let the maiden’s beauty swell the father’s breast with pride;
Still let the bridegroom’s arms enfold an unpolluted bride.
Spare us the inexpiable wrong, the unutterable shame,
That turns the coward’s heart to steel, the sluggard’s blood to ﬂame;
Lest when our latest hope is ﬂed ye taste of our despair,
And learn by proof, in some wild hour, how much the wretched dare.”

9 The circumstances of the early part of the battle which Arminius fought
with Cecina six years afterwards evidently resembled those of his battle
with Varus, and the result was very near being the same: I have therefore
adopted part of the description which Tacitus gives of the last-mentioned
engagement.

3 It is clear that the Romans followed the policy of fomenting dissensions
and wars of the Germans among themselves.

4 In the Museum of Rhenish antiquities at Bonn there is a Roman sepul-
chral monument, the inscription on which records that it was erected to
the memory of M. Coelius, who fell “Bella Varz'ano.”

5 The battle of Cannae, 216 B.C. — Hannibal’s victory over the Romans.

6 Winﬁeld—the probable site of the “ Herrmamsc/zlac/zt.”

7 Augustus was worshiped as a deity in his lifetime.

SYNOPSIS OF EVENTS BETWEEN THE VICTORY OF ARMINIUS
OVER VARUS AND THE BATTLE OF CHALONS

43 A.D. The Romans commence the conquest of Britain,
Claudius being then emperor of Rome. The population of
this island was then Celtic. , In about forty years all the tribes

 

 

9 A.D.] ARMINIUS I47

south of the Clyde were subdued, and their land made a
Roman province.

58 to 60. Successful campaigns of the Roman general Cor-
bula against the Parthians.

64. First persecution of the Christians at Rome under Nero.

68 to 70. Civil wars in the Roman world. The emperors
Nero, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius cut off successively by vio-
lent deaths. Vespasian becomes emperor.

7o. Jerusalem destroyed by the Romans under Titus.

83. Futile attack of Domitian on the Germans.

86. Beginning of the wars between the Romans and the
Dacians.

98 to II 7. Trajan emperor of Rome. Under him the em-
pire acquires its greatest territorial extent by his conquests
in Dacia and in the East. His successor, Hadrian, abandons
the provinces beyond the Euphrates, which Trajan had con-
quered.

I 38 to 180. Era of the Antonines.

I67 to I 76. A long and desperate war between Rome and
a great confederacy of the German nations. Marcus Anto-
ninus at last succeeds in repelling them.

192 to 197. Civil wars throughout the Roman world. Sev-
erus becomes emperor. He relaxes the discipline of the
soldiers. After his death in 21 I, the series of military insur-
rections, civil wars, and murders of emperors recommences.

226. Artaxerxes (Ardisheer) overthrows the Parthian and
restores the Persian kingdom in Asia. He attacks the Roman
possessions in the East.

2 50. The Goths invade the Roman provinces. The emperor

Decius is defeated and slain by them.
253 to 260. The Franks and Alemanni invade Gaul, Spain,

and Africa. The Goths attack Asia Minor and Greece.
The Persians conquer Armenia. Their king, Sapor, defeats
the Roman emperor Valerian, and takes him prisoner. Gen-

eral distress of the Roman empire.
268 to 283. The emperors Claudius, Aurelian, Tacitus,

Probus, and Carus defeat the various enemies of Rome, and
restore order in the Roman state.

285. Diocletian divides and reorganizes the Roman empire.
After his abdication in 305 a fresh series of civil wars and

148 _ DECISIVE BATTLES [9 m.

confusion ensues. Constantine, the ﬁrst Christian emperor,
reunites the empire in 324.

330. Constantine makes Constantinople the seat of empire
instead of Rome.

363. The emperor Julian is killed in action against the
Persians. ‘

364 to 375. The empire is again divided, Valentinian being
emperor of the West, and Valens of the East. Valentinian
repulses the Alemanni, and other German invaders from Gaul.
Splendor of the Gothic kingdom under Hermanric, north of
the Danube.

375 to 395. The Huns attack the Goths, who implore the
protection of the Roman emperor of the East. The Goths
are allowed to pass the Danube, and to settle in the Roman
provinces. A war soon breaks out between them and the
Romans, and the emperor Valens and his army are destroyed
by them. They ravage the Roman territories. The emperor
Theodosius reduces them to submission. They retain settle-
ments in Thrace and Asia Minor.

395. Final division of the Roman empire between Arcadius
and Honorius, the two sons of Theodosius. The Goths re-
volt, and under Alaric attack various parts of both the Roman
empires.

410. Alaric takes the city of Rome.

412. The Goths march into Gaul, and in 414 into Spain,
which had been already invaded by hosts of Vandals, Suevi,
Alani, and other Germanic nations. Britain is formally aban-
doned by the Roman emperor of the West.

428. Genseric, king of the Vandals, conquers the Roman
province of North Africa.

441. The Huns attack the Eastern empire.

 

 

CHAPTER VI

The Battle of Chalons, 451

“ The discomﬁture of the mighty attempt of Attila to found a new anti-
Christian dynasty upon the wreck of the temporal power of Rome, at the
end of the term of twelve hundred years, to which its duration had been
limited by the forebodings of the heathen.”— HERBERT.

the ancients, spreads far and wide around the city of

Chalons, in the northeast of France. The long rows
of poplars through which the river Marne winds its way,
and a few thinly scattered villages, are almost the only
objects that vary the monotonous aspect of the greater part
of this region. But about ﬁve miles from Chalons, near the
little hamlets of Chape and Cuperly, the ground is indented
and heaped up in ranges of grassy mounds and trenches,
which attest the work of man’s hand in ages past ; and which,
to the practised eye, demonstrate that this quiet spot has once

been the fortiﬁed position of a huge military post.
Local tradition gives to these ancient earthworks the name

of Attila’s Camp. Nor is there any reason to question the
correctness of the title, or to doubt that behind these very
ramparts it was that, I400 years ago, the most powerful
heathen king that ever ruled in Europe mustered the rem-
nants of his vast army, which had striven on these plains
against the Christian soldiery of Toulouse and Rome. Here
it was that Attila prepared to resist to the death his victors
in the ﬁeld; and here he heaped up the treasures of his
camp in one vast pile, which was to be his funeral pyre
should his camp be stormed. It was here that the Gothic
and Italian forces watched, but dared not assail, their enemy
in ,his despair, after that great and terrible day of battle,

described by Herbert, when

a BROAD expanse of plains, the Campi Catalaunici of

I49

150 DECISIVE BATTLES [45:

“The sound
Of conﬂict was o’erpast, the shout of all
Whom earth could send from her remotest bounds,
Heathen or faithful; — from thy hundred mouths,
That feed the Caspian with Riphean snows,
Huge Volga! from famed Hypanis, which once
Cradled the Hun; from all the countless realms
Between Imaus and that utmost strand
Where columns of Herculean rock confront
The blown Atlantic; Roman, Goth, and Hun,
And Scythian strength of chivalry, that tread
The cold Codanian shore, or what far lands
Inhospitable drink Cimmerian ﬂoods,
Franks, Saxons, Suevic, and Sarmatian chiefs,
And who from green Armorica or Spain

Flocked to the work of death.”

The victory which the Roman general Aetius, with his
Gothic allies, had then gained over the Huns was the last
victory of Imperial Rome. But among the long Fasti of her
triumphs, few can be found that, for their importance and
ultimate beneﬁt to mankind, are comparable with this expir-
ing effort of her arms. It did not, indeed, open to her any
new career of conquest; it did not consolidate the relics of
her power; it did not turn the rapid ebb of her fortunes.
The mission of Imperial Rome was, in truth, already accom- '
plished. She had received and transmitted through her once
ample dominion the civilization of Greece. She had broken
up the barriers of narrow nationalities among the various
states and tribes that dwelt around the coast of the Mediter-
ranean. She had fused these and many other races into one
organized empire, bound together by a community of laws,
of government, and institutions. Under the shelter of her
full power the True Faith had arisen in the earth, and during
the years of her decline it had been nourished to maturity,
and had overspread all the provinces that ever obeyed her
~sway. For no beneﬁcial purpose to mankind could the
dominion of the seven-hilled city have been restored or pro-
longed. But it was all-important to mankind what nations
should divide among them Rome’s rich inheritance of empire:
whether the Germanic and Gothic warriors should form states
and kingdoms out of the fragments of her dominions, and
become the free members of the commonwealth of Christian

 

451] BATTLE OF CHALONS 151

Europe; or whether pagan savages from the wilds of Central
Asia should crush the relics of classic civilization, and the
early institutions of the Christianized Germans, in one hope-
less chaos of barbaric conquest. The Christian Visigoths of
King Theodoric fought and triumphed at Chalons side by
side with the legions of Aetius. Their joint victory over
the Hunnish host not only rescued for a time from destruc-
tion the old age of Rome, but preserved for centuries of
power and glory the Germanic element in the civilization of
modern Europe.

In order to estimate the full importance to mankind of the
battle of Chalons, we must keep steadily in mind who and
what the Germans were, and the important distinctions be-
tween them and the numerous other races that assailed the
Roman empire; and it is to be understood that the Gothic
and the Scandinavian nations are included in the German
race. Now, “in two remarkable traits the Germans differed
from the Sarmatic as well as from the Slavic nations, and,
indeed, from all those other races to whom the Greeks and
Romans gave the designation of barbarians. I allude to their
personal freedom and regards for the rights of men; secondly,
to the respect paid by them to the female sex, and the chas-
tity for which the latter were celebrated among the people of
the north. These were the foundations of that probity of
character, self-respect, and purity of manners which may be
traced among the Germans and Goths even during pagan
times, and which, when their sentiments were enlightened by
Christianity, brought out those splendid traits of character
which distinguished the age of chivalry and romance.” What
the intermixture of the German stock with the classic, at the
fall of the Western empire, has done for mankind may be
best felt by watching, with Arnold, over how large a portion
of the earth the inﬂuence of the German element is now

extended.
“ It affects, more or less, the whole west of Europe, from

the head of the Gulf of Bothnia to the most southern promon-
tory of Sicily, from the Oder and the Adriatic to the Hebrides
and to Lisbon. It is true that the language spoken over a
large portion of this space is not predominantly German; but
'even in France, and Italy, and Spain, the inﬂuence of the

152 DECISIVE BATTLES [45!

Franks, Burgundians, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and Lombards,
while it has colored even the language, has in blood and insti-
tutions left its mark legibly and indelibly. Germany, the
Low Countries, Switzerland for the most part, Denmark,
Norway, and Sweden, and our own islands are all in lan-
guage, in blood, and in institutions German most decidedly.
But all South America is peopled with Spaniards and Portu-
guese; all North America, and all Australia, with English-
men. I say nothing of the prospects and inﬂuence of the
German race in Africa and in India: it is enough to say that
half of Europe, and all America and Australia, are German,
more or less completely, in race, in language, or in institu-
tions, or in all.” [Arnold]

By the middle of the ﬁfth century, Germanic nations had
settled themselves in many of the fairest regions of the
Roman empire, had imposed their yoke on the provincials,
and had undergone, to a considerable extent, that moral con-
quest which the arts and reﬁnements of the vanquished in
arms have so often achieved over the rough victor. The
Visigoths held the north of Spain and Gaul south of the
Loire. Franks, Alemanni, Alans, and Burgundians had estab-
lished themselves in other Gallic provinces, and the Suevi
were masters of a large southern portion of the Spanish .
peninsula. A king of the Vandals reigned in North Africa,
and the Ostrogoths had ﬁrmly planted themselves in the
provinces north of Italy. Of these powers and principalities,
that of the Visigoths, under their king Theodoric, son of
Alaric, was by far the ﬁrst in power and in civilization.

The pressure of the Huns upon Europe had ﬁrst been felt
in the fourth century of our era. They had long been formi-
dable to the Chinese empire; but the ascendency in arms
which another nomadic tribe of Central Asia, the Sienpi,
gained over them, drove the Huns from their Chinese con-
quests westward; and this movement once being communi-
cated to the whole chain of barbaric nations that dwelt
northward of the Black Sea and the Roman empire, tribe
after tribe of savage warriors broke in upon the barriers of
civilized Europe, “velut unda supervenit undam.” The Huns
crossed the Tanais into Europe in 375, and rapidly reduced
to subjection the Alans, the Ostrogoths, and other tribes, that

 

451] BATTLE OF CHALONS 153

were then dwelling along the course of the Danube. The
armies of the Roman emperor that tried to check their prog-
ress were cut to pieces by them; and Pannonia and other
provinces south of the Danube were speedily occupied by the
victorious cavalry of these new invaders. Not merely the
degenerate Romans, but the bold and hardy warriors of Ger-
many and Scandinavia were appalled at the numbers, the
ferocity, the ghastly appearance, and the lightning-like rapid-
ity of the Huns. Strange and loathsome legends were coined
and credited which attributed their origin to the union of

“Secret, black, and midnight hags ”

with the evil spirits of the wilderness.

Tribe after tribe, and city after city, fell before them. Then
came a pause in their career of conquest in Southwestern Eu-
rope, caused probably by dissensions among their chiefs, and
also by their arms being employed in attacks upon the Scandi-
navian nations. But when Attila (or Atzel, as he is called in

' the Hungarian language) became their ruler, the torrent of

their arms was directed with augmented terrors upon the west

’ and the south; and their myriads marched beneath the guid—

ance of one master~mind to the overthrow both of the new
and the old powers of the earth.

Recent events have thrown such a strong interest over
everything connected with the Hungarian name that even the
terrible name of Attila now impresses us the more vividly
through our sympathizing admiration of the exploits of those
who claim to be descended from his warriors, and “ambi-
tiously insert the name of Attila among their native kings.”
The authenticity of this martial genealogy is denied by some
writers, and questioned by more. But it is at least certain

\ that the Magyars of Arpad, who are the immediate ancestors

of the bulk of the modern Hungarians, and who conquered
the country which bears the name of Hungary in 889 A.D.,
Were of the same stock of mankind as were the Huns of
Attila, even if they did not belong to the same subdivision of
that stock. Nor is there any improbability in the tradition
that after Attila’s death many of his warriors remained in
Hungary, and that their descendants afterwards joined the
Huns of Arpad in their career of conquest. It is certain that

I 54 DECISIVE BATTLES [45:

Attila made Hungary the seat of his empire. It seems also
susceptible of clear proof that the territory was then called
Hungvar, and Attila’s soldiers Hungvari. Both the Huns of
Attila and those of Arpad came from the family of nomadic
nations whose primitive regions were those vast Wildernesses
of High Asia which are included between the Altaic and the
Himalayan mountain chains. The inroads of these tribes
upon the lower regions of Asia and into Europe have caused
many of the most remarkable revolutions in the history of
the world. There is every reason to believe that swarms of
these nations made their way into distant parts of the earth,
at periods long before the date of the Scythian invasion of
Asia, which is the earliest inroad of the nomadic race that
history records. The ﬁrst, as far as we can conjecture in
respect to the time of their descent, were the Finnish and
Ugrian tribes, who appear to have come down from the Altaic
border of High Asia towards the northwest, in which direction
they advanced to the Uralian mountains. There they estab-
lished themselves; and that mountain chain, with its valleys
and pasture-lands, became to them a new country, whence
they sent out colonies on every side. But the Ugrian colony
which under Arpad occupied Hungary, and became the an-
cestors of the bulk of the present Hungarian nation, did not
quit their settlements on the Uralian mountains till a very late '
period—not until four centuries after the time when Attila
led from the primary seats of the nomadic races in High Asia
the host with which he advanced into the heart of France.
That host was Turkish; but closely allied in origin, language,
and habits with the Finno-Ugrian settlers on the Ural.
Attila’s fame has not come down to us through the partial and
suspicious medium of chroniclers and poets of his own race.
It is not from Hunnish authorities that we learn the extent of
his might: it is from his enemies, from the literature and the
, legends of the nations whom he afﬂicted with his arms, that
we draw the unquestionable evidence of his greatness. Be-
sides the express narratives of Byzantine, Latin, and Gothic
writers, we have the strongest proof of the stern reality of
Attila’s conquests in the extent to which he and his Huns
have been the themes of the earliest German and Scandina-
vian lays. Wild as many of these legends are, they bear

 

 

45:] BATTLE OF CHALONS 15 5

concurrent and certain testimony to the awe with which the
memory of Attila was regarded by the bold warriors who
composed and delighted in them. Attila’s exploits, and the
wonders of his unearthly steed and magic sword, repeatedly
occur in the sagas of Norway and Iceland; and the cele-
brated Nibelungenlied, the most ancient of Germanic poetry,
is full of them. There Etsel, or Attila, is described as the
wearer of twelve mighty crowns, and as promising to his bride
the lands of thirty kings, whom his irresistible sword has sub-
dued. He is, in fact, the hero of the latter part of this re-
markable poem; and it is at his capital city, Etselenburgh,
which evidently corresponds to the modern Buda, that much
of its action takes place.

When we turn from the legendary to the historic Attila, we
see clearly that he was not one of the vulgar herd of barbaric
conquerors. Consummate military skill may be traced in his
campaigns ; and he relied far less on the brute force of armies
for the aggrandizement of his empire than on the unbounded
inﬂuence over the affections of friends and the fears of foes
. which his genius enabled him to acquire. Austerely sober in
his private life; severely just on the judgment-seat; conspicu-
ous among a nation of warriors for hardihood, strength, and
skill in every martial exercise ; grave and deliberate in coun-
sel, but rapid and remorseless in execution — he gave safety -
and security to all who were under his dominion, while he
waged a warfare of extermination against all who opposed or
sought to escape from it. He watched the national passions,
the prejudices, the creeds, and the superstitions of the varied
nations over which he ruled and of those Which he sought to
reduce beneath his sway: all these feelings he had the skill
to turn to his own account. His own warriors believed him
‘ to be the inspired favorite of their deities, and followed him
with fanatic zeal. His enemies looked on him as the pre-
appointed minister of Heaven’s wrath against themselves;
and, though they believed not in his creed, their own made
them tremble before him.

In one of his early campaigns he appeared before his troops
with an ancient iron sword in his graSp, which he told them
was the god of war whom their ancestors had worshiped. It
is certain that the nomadic tribes of Northern Asia, whom

156 DECISIVE BATTLES [45:

Herodotus described under the name of Scythians, from the
earliest times worshiped as their god a bare sword. That
sword-god was supposed, in Attila’s time, to have disappeared
from earth; but the Hunnish king now claimed tohave re-
ceived it by special revelation. It was said that a herdsman,
who was tracking in the desert a wounded heifer by the drops
of blood, found the mysterious sword standing ﬁxed in the
ground, as if it had been darted down from heaven. The
herdsman bore it to Attila, who thenceforth was believed by
the Huns to wield the Spirit, of Death in battle; and the
seers prophesied that that sword was to destroy the world. A
Roman [Priscus] who was on an embassy to the Hunnish
camp recorded in his memoirs Attila’s acquisition of this
supernatural weapon, and the immense inﬂuence over the
minds of the barbaric tribes which its possession gave him.
In the title which he assumed, we shall see the skill with
which he availed himself of the legends and creeds of
other nations as well as of his own. He designated him-
self “ATTILA, Descendant of the Great Nimrod. Nurtured
in Engaddi. By the grace of God, King of the Huns, the
Goths, the Danes, and the Medes. The Dread of the World.”

Herbert states that Attila is represented on an old medal-
lion with a teraphim, or a head, on his breast; and the same
- Writer adds: “We know, from the ‘Hamartigenea’ of Pru-
dentius, that Nimrod, with a snaky-haired head, was the object
of adoration to the heretical followers of Marcion; and the
same head was the palladium set up by Antiochus Epiphanes
over the gates of Antioch, though it has been called the vis-
age of Charon. The memory of Nimrod was certainly re-
garded with mystic veneration by many; and by asserting
himself to be the heir of that mighty hunter before the
Lord, he vindicated to himself at least the whole Babylo-
nian kingdom.

“ The singular assertion in his style, that he was nurtured in
Engaddi, where he certainly had never been, will be more
easily understood on reference to the twelfth chapter of the
Book of Revelation, concerning the woman. clothed with the
sun, who was to bring forth in the wilderness—‘Where she
hath a place prepared of God’——a man child, who was to
contend with the dragon having seven heads and ten horns,

 

451] BATTLE or CHALONS I 57

and rule all nations with a rod of iron. This prophecy was
at that time understood universally by the sincere Chris-
tians to refer to the birth of Constantine, who was to over-
whelm the paganism of the city on the seven hills, and it is
still so explained; but it is evident that the heathens must
have looked on it in a different light, and have regarded it
as a foretelling of the birth of that Great One who should
master the temporal power of Rome. The assertion, there-
fore, that he was nurtured in Engaddi is a claim to be looked
upon as that man child who was to be brought forth in a place
prepared of God in the wilderness. Engaddi means a place
of palms and vines, in the desert; it was hard by Zoar, the
city of refuge, which was saved in the vale of Siddim, 0r
Demons, when the rest was destroyed by ﬁre and brimstone
from the Lord in heaven, and might therefore be especially
called a place prepared of God in the wilderness.”

It is obvious enough why he styled himself “ By the grace
of God, King of the Huns and Goths ”; and it seems far
from difﬁcult to see why he added the names of the Medes
and the Danes. His armies had been engaged in warfare
against the Persian kingdom of the Sassanidae; and it is cer—
tain that he meditated the attack and overthrow of the Medo-
Persian power. Probably some of the northern provinces of
that kingdom had been compelled to pay him tribute; and
this would account for his styling himself king of the Medes,
they being his remotest subjects to the south. From a simi-
lar cause he may have called himself king of the Danes, as
his power may well have extended northwards as far as the
nearest of the Scandinavian nations; and this mention of
Medes and Danes as his subjects would serve at once to in-
dicate the vast extent of his dominion.1

The extensive territory north of the Danube and Black Sea,
and eastward of Caucasus, over which Attila ruled, ﬁrst in
conjunction with his brother Bleda, and afterwards alone,
cannot be very accurately deﬁned; but it must have com-
prised within it, besides the Huns, many nations of Slavic,
Gothic, Teutonic, and Finnish origin. South also of the
Danube, the country from the river Sau as far as Novi in
Thrace was a Hunnish province. Such was the empire of
the Huns in 445 A.D.; a memorable year, in whichr‘Attila

I 58 DECISIVE BATTLES [45 I

founded Buda on the Danube as his capital city; and rid
himself of his brother by a crime, which seems to have been
prompted not only by selﬁsh ambition, but also by a desire of
turning to his purpose the legends and forebodings which then
were universally spread throughout the Roman empire, and
must have been well known to the watchful and ruthless Hun.

The year 445 of our era completed the twelfth century from
the foundation of Rome, according to the best chronologers.
It had always been believed among the Romans that the
twelve vultures which were said to have appeared to Romu-
lus when he founded the city signiﬁed the time during which
the Roman power should endure. The twelve vultures de-
noted twelve centuries. This interpretation of the vision of
the birds of destiny was current among learned Romans, even
when there were yet many of the twelve centuries to run,
and while the imperial city was at the zenith of its power.
But as the allotted time drew nearer and nearer to its conclu-
sion, and as Rome grew weaker and weaker beneath the
blows of barbaric invaders, the terrible omen was more and
more talked and thought of ; and in Attila’s time men watched
for the momentary extinction of the Roman state with the
last beat of the last vulture’s Wing. Moreover, among the
numerous legends connected with the foundation of the city,
and the fratricidal death of Remus, there was one most terri-
ble one, which told that Romulus did not put his brother to
death in accident, or in hasty quarrel, but that

“He slew his gallant twin
With inexpiable sin,”

deliberately, and in compliance with the warnings of super-
natural powers. The shedding of a brother’s blood was be-
lieved to have been the price at which the founder of Rome
had purchased from destiny her twelve centuries of existence.

We may imagine, therefore, With what terror in this, the
twelve-hundredth year after the foundation of Rome, the in-
habitants of the Roman empire must have heard the tidings
that the royal brethren, Attila and Bleda, had founded a new
capital on the Danube, which was designed to rule over the
ancient capital on the Tiber; and that Attila, like Romulus,
had consecrated the foundation of his new city by murdering

WW”) 7,"; . r .

_ 3‘

45 I ] BATTLE OF CHALONS I 59

his brother; so that, for the new cycle of centuries then about
to commence, dominion had been bought from the gloomy
spirits of destiny in favor of the Hun by a sacriﬁce of equal
awe and value with that which had formerly obtained it for
the Romans.

It is to be remembered that not only the pagans, but also
the Christians of that age, knew and believed in these legends
and omens, however they might differ as to the nature of
the superhuman agency by which such mysteries had been
made known to mankind. And we may observe, with Herbert,
a modern learned dignitary of our church, how remarkably this
augury was fulﬁlled. For “if to the twelve centuries denoted
by the twelve vultures that appeared to Romulus we add, for
the six birds that appeared to Remus, six lustra, or periods of
ﬁve years each, by which the Romans were wont to number
their time,.it brings us precisely to the year 476, in which the
Roman empire was ﬁnally extinguished by Odoacer.”

An attempt to assassinate Attila, made, or supposed to have
been made, at the instigation of Theodosius the Younger, the
emperor of Constantinople, drew the Hunnish armies, in 445,
upon the Eastern empire, and delayed for a time the destined
blow against Rome. Probably a more important cause of
delay was the revolt of some of the Hunnish tribes to the
north of the Black Sea against Attila, which broke out about
this period, and is cursorily mentioned by the Byzantine
writers. Attila quelled this revolt; and having thus consoli-
dated his power, and having punished the presumption of
the Eastern Roman emperor by fearful ravages of his fairest
provinces, Attila, 45o A.D., prepared to set his vast forces in
motion for the conquest of Western Europe. He sought un-
Successfully by diplomatic intrigues to detach the king of
the Visigoths from his alliance with Rome, and he resolved
ﬁrst to crush the power of Theodoric, and then to advance
with overwhelming power to trample out the last sparks of
the doomed Roman empire.

A strong invitation from a Roman princess gave him a pre-
text for the war, and threw an air of chivalric enterprise over
his invasion. Honoria, sister of Valentinian III., the em-
peror of the West, had sent to Attila to offer him her hand,
and her supposed right to share in the imperial power. This

I60 DECISIVE BATTLES [451

had been discovered by the Romans, and Honoria had been
forthwith closely imprisoned. Attila now pretended to take
up arms in behalf of his self-promised bride, and proclaimed
that he was about to march to Rome to redress Honoria’s
wrongs. Ambition and spite against her brother must have
been the sole motives that led the lady to woo the royal
Hun, for Attila’s face and person had all the national ugli-
ness of his race, and the description given of him by a Byzan—
tine ambassador must have been well known in the imperial
courts. Herbert has well versiﬁed the portrait drawn by
Priscus of the great enemy of both Byzantium and Rome :—

“ Terriﬁc was his semblance, in no mold
Of beautiful proportion cast; his limbs
Nothing exalted, but with sinews braced
Of chalybean temper, agile, lithe,
And swifter than the roe; his ample chest
Was overbrowed by a gigantic head,
With eyes keen, deeply sunk, and small, that gleamed
Strangely in wrath, as though some spirit unclean
Within that corporal tenement installed
Looked from its windows, but with tempered ﬁre
Beamed mildly on the unresisting. Thin
His beard and hoary; his ﬂat nostrils crowned
A cicatrized, swart visage: but withal
That questionable shape such glory wore
That mortals quailed beneath him.”

Two chiefs of the Franks, who were then settled on the
Lower Rhine, were at this period engaged in a feud with
each other; and while one of them appealed to the Romans
for aid, the other invoked the assistance and protection of the
Huns. Attila thus obtained an ally whose cooperation se-
cured for him the passage of the Rhine ; and it was this cir-
cumstance which caused him to take a northward route from
Hungary for his attack upon Gaul. The muster of the Hun—
nish hosts was swollen by warriors of every tribe that they
had subjugated; nor is there any reason to suspect the old
chroniclers of wilful exaggeration in estimating Attila’s army
at seven hundred thousand strong. Having crossed the
Rhine, probably a little below Coblentz, be defeated the king
of the Burgundians, who endeavored to bar his progress.
He then divided his vast forces into two armies, ——one of

 

451] , BATTLE OF CHALONS I61

which marched northwest upon Tongres and Arras, and the
other cities of that part of France; while the main body,
under Attila himself, marched up the Moselle, and destroyed
Besangon, and other towns in the country of the Burgundians.
One of the latest and best biographers of Attila well observes
that, “having thus conquered the eastern part of France,
Attila prepared for an invasion of the West Gothic terri-
tories beyond the Loire. He marched upon Orleans, where
he intended to force the passage of that river; and only a
little attention is requisite to enable us to perceive that he
proceeded on a systematic plan. He had his right wing on
the north, for the protection of his Frank allies ; his left wing
on the south, for the purpose of preventing the Burgundians
from rallying, and of menacing the passes of the Alps from
Italy; and he led his center towards the chief object of the
campaign—the conquest of Orleans, and an easy passage
into the West Gothic dominion. The whole plan is very like
that of the allied powers in 1814, with this difference, that
their left wing entered France through the deﬁles of the Jura,
in the direction of Lyons, and that the military object of the
campaign was the capture of Paris.”

It was not until the year 45I that the Huns commenced
the siege of Orleans; and during their campaign in Eastern
Gaul the Roman general Aetius had strenuously exerted
himself in collecting and organizing such an army as might,
when united to the soldiery of the Visigoths, be ﬁt to face the
Huns in the ﬁeld. He enlisted every subject of the Roman
empire whom patriotism, courage, or compulsion could col-
lect beneath the standards; and round these troops, which
assumed the once proud title of the legions of Rome, he
arrayed the large forces of barbaric auxiliaries whom pay,
persuasion, or the general hate and dread of the Huns
brought to the camp of the last of the Roman generals.
King Theodoric exerted himself with equal energy. Orleans
resisted her besiegers bravely as in after-times. The passage
of the Loire was skilfully defended against the Huns; and
Aetius and Theodoric, after much maneuvering and difﬁculty,
effected a junction of their armies to the south of that im‘
portant river. ,

On the advance of the allies upon Orleans, Attila instantly

II

162 DECISIVE BATTLES [45!

broke up the siege of that city, and retreated towards the
Marne. He did not choose to risk a decisive battle with only
the central corps of his army against the combined power of
his enemies; and he therefore fell back upon his base of
operations; calling in his wings from Arras and Besangon,
and concentrating the Whole of the Hunnish forces on the
vast plains of Chalons-sur-Marne. A glance at the map will
show how scientiﬁcally this place was chosen by the Hunnish
general, as the point for his scattered forces to converge
upon; and the nature of the ground was eminently favor-V
able for the operations of cavalry, the arm in which Attila’s
strength peculiarly lay.

It was during the retreat from Orleans that a Christian
hermit is reported to have approached the Hunnish king and
said to him, “Thou art the Scourge of God for the chastise-
ment of Christians.” Attila instantly assumed this new title
of terror, which thenceforth became the appellation by which
he was most widely and most fearfully known.

The confederate armies of Romans and Visigoths at last
met their great adversary, face to face, on the ample battle-
ground of the Chalons plains. Aetius commanded on the
right of the allies; King Theodoric on the left; and Sangi—
pan, king of the Alans, whose ﬁdelity was suspected, was
placed purposely in the center and in the very front of the
battle. Attila commanded his center in person, at the head
of his own countrymen, while the Ostrogoths, the Gepidae,
and the other subject allies of the Huns were drawn up on
the wings. Some maneuvering appears to have occurred
before the engagement, in which Aetius had the advantage,
inasmuch as he succeeded in occupying a sloping hill which
commanded the left ﬂank of the Huns. Attila saw the impor-
tance of the position taken by Aetius on the high ground,
and commenced the battle by a furious attack on this part of
the Roman line, in which he seems to have detached some of
his best troops from his center to aid his left. The Romans,
having the advantage of the ground, repulsed the Huns, and
While the allies gained this advantage on their right, their left,
under King Theodoric, assailed the Ostrogoths, who formed
the right of Attila’s army. The gallant king was himself
struck down by a javelin, as he rode Onward at the head of

 

 

45r] BATTLE OF CHALONS I63

his men, and his own cavalry charging over him trampled him
to death in the confusion. But the Visigoths, infuriated, not
dispirited, by their monarch’s fall, routed the enemies opposed
to them, and then wheeled upon the ﬂank of the Hunnish
center, which had been engaged 1n 3. sanguinary and indecisive
contest with the Alans.

In this peril Attila made his center fall back upon his camp ;
and when the shelter of its entrenchments and wagons had
once been gained, the Hunnish archers repulsed without
difﬁculty the charges of the vengeful Gothic cavalry. Aetius
had not pressed the advantage which he gained on his side
of the ﬁeld, and when night fell over the wild scene of havoc,
Attila’s left was still unbroken, but his right had been routed,
and his center forced back upon his camp.

Expecting an assault on the morrow, Attila stationed his
best archers in front of the cars and wagons, which were
drawn up as a fortiﬁcation along his lines, and made every
preparation for a desperate resistance. But the “ Scourge of
God” resolved that no man should boast of the honor of hav-
ing either captured or slain him; and he caused to be raised
in the center of his encampment a huge pyramid of the
wooden saddles of his cavalry: round it he heaped the spoils
and the wealth that he had won; on it be stationed his wives
who had accompanied him in the campaign ; and on the sum-
mit he placed himself, ready to perish in the ﬂames, and balk
the victorious foe of their choicest booty, should they succeed
in storming his defenses.

But when the morning broke, and revealed the extent of
the carnage, with which the plains were heaped for miles, the
successful allies saw also and respected the resolute attitude
of their antagonist. Neither were any measures taken to
blockade him in his camp, and so to extort by famine that
submission which it was too plainly perilous to enforce with
the sword. Attila was allowed to march back the remnants
of his army without molestation, and even with the semblance
of success.

It is probable that the crafty Aetius was unwilling to be
too victorious. He dreaded the glory which his allies, the
Visigoths, had acquired; and feared that Rome might ﬁnd a
second Alaric in Prince Thorismund, who had signalized him-

164 DECISIVE BATTLES [45:

self in the battle, and had been chosen on the ﬁeld to succeed
his father Theodoric. He persuaded the young king to return
at once to his capital, and thus relieved himself at the same
time of the presence of a dangerous friend as well as of a
formidable, though beaten, foe.

Attila’s attacks on the Western empire were soon renewed;
but never with such peril to the civilized world as had men-
aced it before his defeat at Chalons. And on his death, two
years after that battle, the vast empire which his genius had
founded was soon dissevered by the successful revolts of the
subject nations. The name of the Huns ceased for some
centuries to inspire terror in Western Europe, and their
ascendency passed away with the life of the great king by
whom it had been so fearfully augmented.2

N mm

1 In the “ N ibelungenlied,” the old poet who describes the reception of
the heroine Chrimhild by Attila (Etsel) says that Attila’s dominions were
so vast that among his subject warriors there were Russian, Greek, Wal-
lachian, Polish, and even Dam‘slz 1572ng1115.

2 If I seem to have given fewer of the details of the battle itself than its
importance would warrant, my excuse must be that Gibbon has enriched
our language with a description of it too long for quotation and too splen--
did for rivalry. I have not, however, taken altogether the same view of it
that he has. The notes to Mr.Herbert’s poem of “Attila” bring together
nearly all the authorities on the subject.

SYNOPSIS OF EVENTS BETWEEN THE BATTLE OF CHALONS,
451, AND THE BATTLE OF TOURS, 732

476. The Roman empire of the West extinguished by
Odoacer.

481. Establishment of the French monarchy in Gaul by
Clovis.

455 to 582. The Saxons, Angles, and Frisians conquer Brit-
ain, except the northern parts, and the districts along the
west coast. The German conquerors found eight independ-
ent kingdoms.

533 to 568. The generals of Justinian, the emperor of
Constantinople, conquer Italy and North Africa; and these

countries are for a short time annexed to the Roman empire
of the East.

 

451] BATTLE or CHALONS 165

568 to 5 70. The Lombards conquer great part of Italy.

5 70 to 627. The wars between the emperors of Constanti-
nople and the kings of Persia are actively continued.

622. The Mahometan era of the Hegira. Mahomet is
driven from Mecca, and is received as prince of Medina.

629 to 632. Mahomet conquers Arabia.

632 to 651. The Mahometan Arabs invade and conquer
Persia.

632 to 709. They attack the Roman empire of the East.
They conquer Syria, Egypt, and Africa.

709 to 713. They cross the straits of Gibraltar, and invade
and conquer Spain.

“At the death of Mohammed, in 632, his temporal and
religious sovereignty embraced and was limited by the Ara-
bian peninsula. The Roman and Persian empires, engaged
in tedious and indecisive hostility upon the rivers of Meso-
potamia and the Armenian mountains, were viewed by the
ambitious fanatics of his creed as their quarry. In the very
ﬁrst year of Mohammed’s immediate successor, Abubeker,
each of these mighty empires was invaded. The crumbling
fabric of Eastern despotism is never secured against rapid
and total subversion; a few victories, a few sieges, carried
the Arabian arms from the Tigris to the Oxus, and overthrew,
with the Sassanian dynasty, the ancient and famous religion
they had professed. Seven years of active and unceasing
warfare sufﬁced to subjugate the rich province of Syria,
though defended by numerous armies and fortiﬁed cities; and
the Khalif Omar had scarcely returned thanks for the accom-
plishment of this conquest, when Amrou, his lieutenant, an-
nounced to him the entire reduction of Egypt. After some
interval, the Saracens won their way along the coast of Africa,
as far as the Pillars of Hercules, and a third province was
irretrievably torn from the Greek empire. These Western
conquests introduced them to fresh enemies, and ushered in
more Splendid successes. Encouraged by the disunion of the
Visigoths, and invited by treachery, Musa, the general of a
master who sat beyond the opposite extremity of the Medi-
terranean Sea, passed over into Spain, and within about two
years the name of Mohammed was invoked under the Pyre-

nees.” [Hallam]

CHAPTER VII

The Battle of Tours, 732

“The events that rescued our ancestors of Britain, and our neighbors of
Gaul, from the civil and religious yoke of the Koran.”—— GIBBON.

between the cities of Poitiers and Tours is principally

composed of a succession of rich pasture-lands, which
are traversed and fertilized by the Cher, the Creuse, the
Vienne, the Claine, the Indre, and other tributaries of the
river Loire. Here and there the ground swells into pictur-
esque eminences; and occasionally a belt of forest land, a
brown heath, or a clustering series of vineyards, breaks the
monotony of the wide-spread meadows; but the general char-
acter of the land is that of a grassy plain, and it seems naturally
adapted for the evolutions of numerous armies, especially of
those vast bodies of cavalry which principally decided the
fate of nations during the centuries that followed the down-
fall of Rome and preceded the consolidation of the modern
European powers.

This region has been signalized by more than one memora—
ble conﬂict; but it is principally interesting to the historian
by having been the scene of the great victory won by Charles
Martel over the Saracens, 732, which gave a decisive check
to the career of the Arab conquest in Western Europe,
rescued Christendom from Islam, preserved the relics of
ancient and the germs of modern civilization, and reestab-
lished the old superiority of the Indo-European over the
Semitic family of mankind.

Sismondi and Michelet have underrated the enduring inter-
est of this great appeal of battle between the champions of
the Crescent and the Cross. But, if French writers have

slighted the exploits of their national hero, the Saracenic
166

THE broad tract of champaign country which intervenes

 

 

 

V x

/

 

 

7 32] BATTLE OF TOURS 167

trophies of Charles Martel have had full justice done to them
by English and German historians. Gibbon devotes several
pages of his great work to the narrative of the battle of
Tours, and to the consideration of the consequences which
probably would have resulted if Abderrahman’s enterprise had
not been crushed by the Frankish chief. Schlcgel speaks of
this “ mighty victory ” in terms of fervent gratitude, and tells
how “the arms of Charles Martel saved and delivered the
Christian nations of the West from the deadly grasp of a11-
destroying Islam”; and Ranke points out, as “ one of the
most important epochs in the history of the world, the com-
mencement of the eighth century, when, on the one side,
Mahommedanism threatened to overspread Italy and Gaul,
and, on the other, the ancient idolatry of Saxony and Fries-
land once more forced its way across the Rhine. In this
peril of Christian institutions, a youthful prince of Germanic
race, Karl Martell, arose as their champion; maintained them
with all the energy which the necessity for self-defense calls
forth, and ﬁnally extended them into new regions.”

Arnold ranks the victory of Charles Martel even higher
than the Victory of Arminius, “among those signal deliver-
ances which have affected for centuries the happiness of man-
kind.” In fact, the more we test its importance, the higher
we shall be led to estimate it; and, though the authentic
details which we possess of its circumstances and its heroes
are but meager, we can trace enough of its general character
to make us watch with deep interest this encounter between
the rival conquerors of the decaying Roman empire. That
old classic world, the history of which occupies so large a
portion of our early studies, lay, in the eighth century of our
era, utterly exanimate and overthrown. On the north the
German, on the south the Arab, was rending away its prov-
inces: At last the spoilers encountered one another, each
striving for the full mastery of the prey. Their conﬂict
brought back upon the memory of Gibbon the old Homeric
simile, where the strife of Hector and Patroclus over the dead
body of Cebriones is compared to the combat of two lions
that, in their hate and hunger, ﬁght together on the mountain
tops over the carcass of a slaughtered stag; and the reluc-

tant yielding of the Saracen power to the superior might of

168 DECISIVE BATTLES [732

the Northern warriors might not inaptly recall those other
lines of the same book of the Iliad where the downfall of
Patroclus beneath Hector is likened to the forced yielding
of the panting and exhausted wild boar that had long and
furiously fought with a superior beast of prey for the posses-
sion of the fountain among the rocks, at which each burned
to drink.

Although three centuries had passed away since the Ger-
manic conquerors of Rome had crossed the Rhine, never to
repass that frontier stream, no settled system of institutions
or government, no amalgamation of the various races into one

people, no uniformity of language or habits, had been estab-
lished in the country at the time when Charles Martel was

called on to repel the menacing tide of Saracenic invasion
from the south. Gaul was not yet France. In that, as in
other provinces of the Roman empire of the West, the do-
minion of the Caesars had been shattered as early as the
ﬁfth century, and barbaric kingdoms and principalities had
promptly arisen on the ruins of the Roman power. But few
of these had any permanency; and none of them consolidated
the rest, or any considerable number of the rest, into one
coherent and organized civil and political society. The great .
bulk of the population still consisted of the conquered pro-
vincials; that is to say, of Romanized Celts, of a Gallic race
which had long been under the dominion of the Caesars, and ‘
had acquired, together with no slight infusion of Roman
blood, the language, the literature, the laws, and the civiliza-
tion of Latium. Among these, and dominant over them,
roved or dwelt the German victors: some retaining nearly
all the rude independence of their primitive national charac-
ter; others softened and disciplined by the aspect and con-
tact of the manners and institutions of civilized life. For it
‘ is to be borne in mind that the Roman empire in the West
was not crushed by any sudden avalanche of barbaric inva-
sion. The German conquerors came across the Rhine not in
enormous hosts, but in bands of a few thousand warriors at
a time. The conquest of a province was the result of an inﬁ-
nite series of partial local invasions, carried on by little armies
of this description. The victorious warriors either retired
with their booty or ﬁxed themselves in the invaded district,

 

732] BATTLE OF TOURS 169

taking care to keep sufﬁciently concentrated for military pur-
poses, and ever ready for some fresh foray, either against a
rival Teutonic band, or some hitherto unassailed city of the
provincials. Gradually, however, the conquerors acquired a
desire for permanent landed possessions. They lost some-
what of the restless thirst for novelty and adventure which

.had ﬁrst made them throng beneath the banner of the boldest

captains of their tribe, and leave their native forests for a
roving military life on the left bank of the Rhine. They
were converted to the Christian faith; and gave up with
their old creed much of the coarse ferocity which must have
been fostered in the spirits of the ancient warriors of the
North by a mythology which promised, as the reward of the
brave on earth, an eternal cycle of ﬁghting and drunkenness
in heaven.

But although their conversion and other civilizing inﬂu-
ences operated powerfully upon the Germans in Gaul, and
although the Franks (who were originally a confederation of
the Teutonic tribes that dwelt between the Rhine, the Maine,
and the Weser) established a decided superiority “over the
other conquerors of the province as well as over the con-
quered provincials, the country long remained a chaos of
uncombined and shifting elements. The early princes of the
Merovingian dynasty were generally occupied in wars against
other princes of their house, occasioned by the frequent sub-
divisions of the Frank monarchy; and the ablest and best of
them had found all their energies tasked to the utmost to
defend the barrier of the Rhine against the pagan Germans,
who strove to pass that river and gather their share of the
spoils of the empire.

The conquests which the Saracens effected over the south-
ern and eastern provinces of Rome were far more rapid than
those achieved by the Germans in the north; and the new
Organizations of society which the Moslems introduced were
summarily and uniformly enforced. Exactly a century passed
between the death of Mahomet and the date of the battle of
Tours. During that century the followers of the Prophet
had torn away half the Roman empire; and, besides their
conquests over Persia, the Saracens had overrun Syria, Egypt,
Africa, and Spain in an uncheckered and apparently irresisti-

17o DECISIVE BATTLES " [732

ble career of victory. Nor, at the commencement of the
eighth century of our era, was the Mahometan world divided
against itself, as it subsequently became. All these vast
regions obeyed the caliph; throughout them all, from the
Pyrenees to the Oxus, the name of Mahomet was invoked in
prayer, and the Koran revered as the book of the law.

It was under one of their ablest and most renowned com-
manders, with a veteran army, and with every apparent
advantage of time, place, and circumstance, that the Arabs
made their great effort at the conquest of Europe north of
the Pyrenees. The victorious Moslem soldiery in Spain,

“A countless multitude;
Syrian, Moor, Saracen, Greek renegade,
Persian, and Copt, and Tartar, in one bond

Of erring faith conjoined —— strong in the youth
And heat of zeal —a dreadful brotherhood,”

were eager for the plunder of more Christian cities and
shrines, and full of fanatic conﬁdence in the invincibility of
their arms.
“Nor were the chiefs

Of victory less assured, by long success

Elate, and proud of that o’erwhelming strength

Which surely, they believed, as it had rolled

Thus far unchecked, would roll victorious on,

Till, like the Orient, the subjected West

Should bow in reverence at Mahommed’s name;

And pilgrims from remotest Arctic shores

Tread with religious feet the burning sands
Of Araby and Mecca’s stony soil.”

-— SOUTHEY’S Roderick.

It is not only by the modern Christian poet, but by the old
Arabian chroniclers also, that these feelings of ambition and
arrogance are attributed to the Moslems, who had overthrown
the Visigoth power in Spain. And their eager expectations
of new wars were excited to the utmost on the reappoint-
ment by the caliph of Abderrahrnan Ibn Abdillah Alghafeki
to the government of that country, 729, which restored
them a general who had signalized his skill and prowess dur-
ing the conquests of Africa and Spain; whose ready valor
and generosity had made him the idol of the troops; who

 

732] BATTLE OF TOURS 171

had already been engaged in several expeditions into Gaul,
so as to be well acquainted with the national character and
tactics of the Franks; and who was known to thirst, like a
good Moslem, for revenge for the slaughter of some detach-
ments of the true believers which had been cut off on the
north of the Pyrenees.

In addition to his cardinal military virtues, Abderrahman
is described by the Arab writers as a model of integrity and
justice. The ﬁrst two years of his second administration in
Spain were occupied in severe reforms of the abuses which
under his predecessors had crept into the system of govern-
ment, and in extensive preparations for his intended conquest
of Gaul. Besides the troops which he collected from his prov-
ince, he obtained from, Africa a large body of chosen Berber
cavalry, ofﬁcered by Arabs 0f proved skill and valor; and in
the summer of 732 he crossed the Pyrenees at the head of
an army which some Arab writers rate at eighty thousand
strong, while some of the Christian chroniclers swell its num-
bers to many hundreds of thousands more. Probably the Arab
account diminishes, but of the two keeps nearer to the truth.
It was from this formidable host, after Eudes, the count of
Aquitaine, had vainly striven to check it, after many strong
cities had fallen before it, and half the land been overrun,
that Gaul and Christendom were at last rescued by the strong
arm of Prince Charles, who acquired a surname,1 like that of
the war-god of his forefathers’ creed, from the might with
which he broke and shattered his enemies in the battle.

The Merovingian kings had sunk into absolute insigniﬁ-
cance, and had become mere puppets of royalty before the
eighth century. Charles Martel, like his father, Pepin Heri-
stal, was duke of the Austrasian Franks, the bravest and most
thoroughly Germanic part of the nation; and exercised, in
the name of the titular king, what little paramount authority
the turbulent minor rulers of districts and towns could be
persuaded or compelled to acknowledge. Engaged with his
national competitors in perpetual conﬂicts for power, engaged
also in more serious struggles for safety against the ﬁerce
tribes of the unconverted Frisians, Bavarians, Saxons, and
Thuringians, who at that epoch assailed with peculiar feroo
ity the Christianized Germans on the left bank of the Rhine,

I72 " DECISIVE BATTLES [732

Charles Martel added experienced skill to his natural cour-
age, and he had also formed a militia of veterans among the
Franks. Hallam has thrown out a doubt Whether, in our
admiration of his victory at Tours, we do not judge a little
too much by the event, and whether there was not rashness
in‘his risking the fate of France on the result of a general
battle with the invaders. But when we remember that
Charles had no standing army, and the independent spirit of
the Frank warriors who followed his standard, it seems most
probable that it was not in his power to adopt the cautious
policy of watching the invaders and wearing out their
strength by delay. So dreadful and so wide-spread were the
ravages of the Saracenic light cavalry throughout Gaul that
it must have been impossible to restrain for any length of
time the indignant ardor of the Franks. And, even if
Charles could have persuaded his men to look tamely on
While the Arabs stormed more towns and desolated more dis-
tricts, he could not have kept an army together when the
usual period of a military expedition had expired. If, in-
deed, the Arab account of the disorganization of the Moslem
forces be correct, the battle was as well timed on the part of
Charles as it was, beyond all question, well fought.

The monkish chroniclers, from whom we are obliged to
glean a narrative of this memorable campaign, bear full
evidence to the terror which the Saracen invasion inspired,
and to the agony of that great struggle. The Saracens, say
they, and their king, who was called Abdirames, came out of
Spain, with all their wives, and their children, and their sub-
stance, in such great multitudes that no man could reckon or
estimate them. They brought with them all their armor, and
whatever they had, as if they were thenceforth always to
dwell in France.

“Then Abderrahman, seeing the land ﬁlled with the mul-
titude of his army, pierces through the mountains, tramples
over rough and level ground, plunders far into the country of
the Franks, and smites all with the sword, insomuch that when
Eudo came to battle with him at the river Garonne, and ﬂed
before him, God alone knows the number of the slain. Then
Abderrahman pursued after Count Eudo, and while he strives
to spoil and burn the holy shrine at Tours, he encounters the

 

 

732] BATTLE OF TOURS 173

chief of the Austrasian Franks, Charles, a man of war from
his youth up, to whom Eudo had sent warning. There for
nearly seven days they strive intensely, and at last they set
themselves in battle array; and the nations of the North,
standing ﬁrm as a wall, and impenetrable as a zone of ice,
utterly slay the Arabs with the edge of the sword.”

The European writers all concur in speaking of the fall of
Abderrahman as one of the principal causes of the defeat of
the Arabs; who, according to one writer, after ﬁnding that
their leader was slain, dispersed in the night, to the agreeable
surprise of the Christians, who expected the next morning to
see. them issue from their tents and renew the combat. One
monkish chronicler puts the loss of the Arabs at 375,000 men,
while he says that only 1007 Christians fell— a disparity of
loss which he feels bound to account for by a special inter-
position of Providence. I have translated above some of the
most spirited passages of these writers ; but it is impossible
to collect from them anything like a full or authentic descrip-
tion of the great battle itself, or of the operations which
preceded or followed it.

Though, however, we may have cause to regret the meager—
ness and doubtful character of these narratives, we have the
great advantage of being able to compare the accounts given
of Abderrahman’s expedition by the national writers of each
side. This is a beneﬁt which the inquirer into antiquity so
seldom can obtain, that the fact of possessing it, in the in-
stance of the battle of Tours, makes us think the historical
testimony respecting that great event more certain and satis.
factory than is the case in many other instances, where we
possess abundant details respecting military exploits, but
where those details come to us from the annalist of one
nation only; and where we have, consequently, no safeguard
against the exaggerations, the distortions, and the ﬁctions
which national vanity has so often put forth in the garb and
under the title of history. The Arabian writers who recorded
the conquests and wars of their countrymen in Spain have
narrated also the expedition into Gaul of their great emir, and
his defeat and death near Tours in battle with the host of the
Franks under King Caldus, the name into which they meta<

morphose Charles.

1

r 74 DECISIVE BATTLES [732

They tell us how there was war between the count of the
Frankish frontier and the Moslems, and how the count gath-
ered together all his people, and fought for a time with
doubtful success. “ But,” say the Arabian chroniclers, “ Ab-
derrahman drove them back; and the men of Abderrahman
were puffed up in spirit by their repeated successes, and they
were full of trust in the valor and the practise in war of their
emir. So the Moslems smote their enemies, and passed the
river Garonne, and laid waste the country, and took captives
without number. And that army went through all places like
a desolating storm. Prosperity made those warriors insatia-
ble. At the passage of the river, Abderrahman overthrew
the count, and the count retired into his stronghold, but the
Moslems fought against it, and entered it by force, and slew
the count; for everything gave way to their simitars, which
were the robbers of lives. All the nations of the Franks
trembled at that terrible army, and they betook them to their
king, Caldus, and told him of the havoc made by the Moslem
horsemen, and how they rode at their will through all the land
of Narbonne, Toulouse, and Bordeaux, and they told the king
of the death of their count. Then the king bade them be of
good cheer, and offered to aid them. And in the I I4th year2
he mounted his horse, and he took with him a host that could
not be numbered, and went against the Moslems. And he
came upon them at the great city of Tours. And Abderrah-
man and other prudent cavaliers saw the disorder of the Mos-
lem troops, who were loaded with spoil; but they did not
venture to displease the soldiers by ordering them to abandon
everything except their arms and war-horses. And Abder-
rahman trusted in the valor of his soldiers and in the good
fortune which had ever attended him. But,” the Arab writer
’ remarks, “ such defect of discipline always is fatal to armies.
So Abderrahman and his host attacked Tours to gain still
more spoil, and they fought against it so ﬁercely that they
stormed the city almost before the eyes of the army that
came to save it ; and the fury and the cruelty of the Moslems
towards the inhabitants of the city were like the fury and
cruelty of raging tigers. It was manifest,” adds the Arab,
“ that God’s chastisement was sure to follow such excesses;
and Fortune thereupon turned her back upon the Moslems. _

MK:

732] BATTLE OF TOURS I 75

“ Near the river Owar3 the two great hosts of the two lan-
guages and the two creeds were set in array against each
other. The hearts of Abderrahman, his captains, and his
men were ﬁlled with wrath and pride, and they were the ﬁrst
to begin the ﬁght. The Moslem horsemen dashed ﬁerce and
frequent forward against the battalions of the Franks, who
resisted manfully, and many fell dead on either side, until the
going down of the sun. Night parted the two armies; but
in the gray of the morning the Moslems returned to the bat-
tle. Their cavaliers had soon hewn their way into the center
of the Christian host. But many of the Moslems were fear-
ful for the safety of the spoil which they had stored in their
tents, and a false cry arose in their ranks that some of the
enemy were plundering the camp ; whereupon several squad-
rons of the Moslem horsemen rode off to protect their tents.
But it seemed as if they ﬂed; and all the host was troubled.
And while Abderrahman strove to check their tumult, and to
lead them back to battle, the warriors of the Franks came
around him, and he was pierced through with many spears,
so that he died. Then all the host ﬂed before the enemy,
and many died in the ﬂight. This deadly defeat of the Mos-
lems, and the loss of the great leader and good cavalier Ab-
derrahman, took place in the hundred and ﬁfteenth year.”

It would be difﬁcult to expect from an adversary a more
explicit confession of having been thoroughly vanquished
than the Arabs here accord to the Europeans. The points
on which their narrative differs from those of the Christians
— as to how many days the conﬂict lasted, whether the as-
sailed city was actually rescued or not, and the like—are of
little moment compared with the admitted great fact that
there was a decisive trial of strength between Frank and
Saracen, in which the former conquered. The enduring im-
portance of the battle of Tours in the eyes of the Moslems is
attested not only by the expressions of “ the deadly battle”
and “the disgraceful overthrow,” which their writers con-
stantly employ when referring to it, but also by the fact that
no further serious attempts at conquest beyond the Pyrenees
were made by the Saracens. Charles Martel, and his son and
grandson, were left at leisure to consolidate and extend their
power. The new Christian Roman empire of the West,

I 76 DECISIVE BATTLES [732

which the genius of Charlemagne founded, and throughout
which his iron will imposed peace on the old anarchy of
creeds and races, did not indeed retain its integrity after its
great ruler’s death. Fresh troubles came over Europe; but
Christendom, though disunited, was safe. The progress of
civilization and the development of the nationalities and gov-
ernments of modern Europe, from that time forth, went for-
ward in not uninterrupted, but ultimately certain, career.

, NOTES

1 Martel — “ The Hammer.” See the Scandinavian sagas for an account
of the favorite weapon of Thor.

2 Of the Hegira.

3 Probably the Loire.

SYNOPSIS OF EVENTS BETWEEN THE BATTLE OF TOURS,
732, AND THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS, 1066

768 to 814. Reign of Charlemagne. This monarch has
justly been termed the principal regenerator of Western
Europe after the destruction of the Roman empire. The
early death of his brother, Carloman, left him sole master of

the dominions of the Franks, which, by a succession of victo- .

rious wars, he enlarged into the new empire of the West.
He conquered the Lombards, and reestablished the pope at
Rome, who, in return, acknowledged Charles as suzerain of
Italy. And in the year 800 Leo III., in the name of the
Roman people, solemnly crowned Charlemagne, at Rome, as
emperor of the Roman empire of the West. In Spain, Charle-
magne ruled the country between the Pyrenees and the
Ebro; but his most important conquests were effected on the
eastern side of his original kingdom, over the Sclavonians of
Bohemia, the Avars of Pannonia, and over the previously
‘ uncivilized German tribes who had remained in their father-
land. The old Saxons were his most obstinate antagonists,
and his wars with them lasted for thirty years. Under him
the greater part of Germany was compulsorily civilized, and
converted from Paganism to Christianity. His empire ex-
tended eastward as far as the Elbe, the Saal, the Bohemian
mountains, and a line drawn from thence crossing the Dan-
ube above Vienna, and prolonged to the Gulf of Istria.

‘ ‘ sné$gégqu.v‘ __-L ”L

 

 

732] BATTLE OF TOURS I 77

Throughout this vast assemblage of provinces Charlemagne
established an organized and ﬁrm government. But it is not
as a mere conqueror that he demands admiration. “ In a life
restlessly active, we see him reforming the coinage and estab—
lishing the legal divisions of money, gathering about him the
learned of every country; founding schools and collecting
libraries; interfering, with the air of a king, in religious con-
troversies ; attempting, for the sake of commerce, the mag-
niﬁcent enterprise of uniting the Rhine and the Danube, and
meditating to mold the discordant code of Roman and bar-
barian laws into a uniform system.” [Hallam.]

814 to 888. Repeated partitions of the empire and civil
wars between Charlemagne’s descendants. Ultimately the
kingdom of France is ﬁnally separated from Germany and
Italy. In 962 Otho the Great of Germany revives the impe-
rial dignity.

827. Egbert, king of Wessex, acquires the supremacy over
the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

832. The ﬁrst Danish squadron attacks part of the English
coast. The Danes, or Northmen, had begun their ravages in
France a few years earlier. For two centuries Scandinavia
sends 'out ﬂeet after ﬂeet of sea-rovers, who desolate all the
western kingdoms of Europe, and in many cases effect per-
manent conquests.

871 to 900. Reign of Alfred in England. After a long
and varied struggle he rescues England from the Danish
invaders.

'911. The French king cedes Neustria to Hrolf the North-
man. Hrolf (or Duke Rollo, as he thenceforth was termed)
and his army of Scandinavian warriors become the ruling
class of the population of the province, which is called after
them Normandy.

1016. Four knights from Normandy, who had been on a
pilgrimage to the Holy Land, while returning through Italy,
head the people of Salerno in repelling an attack of a band
of Saracen corsairs. In the next year many adventurers
from Normandy settle in Italy, where they conquer Apulia
(1040), and afterwards (1060) Sicily.

1017. Canute, king of Denmark, becomes king of England.

On the death of the last of his sons, in 1041, the Saxon line
12

“uh

I 78 DECISIVE BATTLES [732

is restored, and Edward the Confessor (who had been bred in
the court of the Duke of Normandy) is called by the English
to the throne of this island, as the representative of the House
of Cerdic.

103 5. Duke Robert of Normandy dies on his return from
a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and his son William (after-
wards the conqueror of England) succeeds to the dukedom
of Normandy.

M; gun‘s“ .Aw. .

 

 

 

CHAPTER VIII

The Battle of Hastings, 1066

“Eis vos la Bataille assemblée,
Dunc encore est grant renomée.”
—-1€oman de Rou, l. 3183.

her a duke’s love, and gave us William the Conqueror.

Had she not thus fascinated Duke Robert the Liberal,
of Normandy, Harold would not have fallen at Hastings, no
Anglo-Norman dynasty could have arisen, no British empire.
The reﬂection is Sir Francis Palgrave’s; and it is emphati-
cally true. If any one should write a history of “Decisive
loves that have materially inﬂuenced the drama of the world
in all its subsequent scenes,” the daughter of the tanner of
Falaise would deserve a conspicuous place in his pages. But
it is her son, the victor of Hastings, who is now the object of
our attention; and no one who appreciates the inﬂuence of
England and her empire upon the destinies of the world will
ever rank that victory as one of secondary importance.

It is true that in the last century some writers of eminence
on our history and laws mentioned the Norman Conquest in
terms from which it might be supposed that the battle of
Hastings led to little more than the substitution of one royal
family for another on the throne of this country, and to the
garbling and changing of some of our laws” through the “cun-
ning of the Norman lawyers.” But, at least since the
appearance of the work of Augustin Thierry on the Norman
Conquest, these forensic fallacies have been exploded. Thierry
made his readers keenly appreciate the magnitude of that po-
litical and social catastrophe. He depicted in vivid colors the
atrocious cruelties of the conquerors, and the sweeping and
enduring innovations that they wrought, involving the over-

I79

5 RLETTA’S pretty feet twinkling in the brook gained

 

, ‘1‘ng I],

180 DECISIVE BATTLES [1066

throw of the ancient constitution, as well as of the last of the
Saxon kings. In his pages we see new tribunals and tenures
superseding the old ones, new divisions of race and class in-
troduced, whole districts devastated to gratify the vengeance
or the caprice of the new tyrant, the greater part of the lands
of the English conﬁscated, and divided among aliens, the very
name of Englishmen turned into a reproach, the English lan-
guage rejected as servile and barbarous, and all the high
places in Church and State for upwards of a century ﬁlled
exclusively by men of foreign raCe.

No less true than eloquent is Thierry’s summing up of the
social effects of the Norman Conquest on the generation that
witnessed it, and on many of their successors. He tells his
reader that “if he would form a just idea of England con-
quered by William of Normandy, he must ﬁgure to himself,
not a mere change of political rule, not the triumph of one
candidate over another candidate, of the man of one party
over the man of another party; but the intrusion of one people
into the bosom of another people, the violent placing of one
society over another society, which it came to destroy, and the
scattered fragments of which it retained only as personal prop-
erty, or (to use the words of an old act) as ‘ the clothing of
the soil’: he must not picture to himself, on the one hand,
William, a king and a despot; on the other, subjects of Will-
iam’s, high and low, rich and poor, all inhabiting England,
and consequently all English; but he must imagine two nations,
of one of which William is a member and the chief -—two
nations which (if the term must be used) were both subject to
William, but as applied to which the word has quite different
senses, meaning in the one case suéordz'nate, in the other sub—
jugated. He must consider that there are two countries, two
soils, included in the same geographical circumference—that
of the Normans, rich and free; that of the Saxons, poor and
serving, vexed by rem“ and millage ,' the former full of spacious
mansions and walled and moated castles, the latter scattered
over with huts and straw and ruined hovels: that peopled
with the happy and the idle, with men of the army and of the
court, with knights and nobles; this with men of pain and
labor, with farmers and artisans: on the one side, luxury and
insolence ; on the other, misery and envy— not the envy of

‘3‘?
raj:
i:

 

1066] BATTLE OF HASTINGS 181

the poor at the sight of opulence they cannot reach, but the
envy of the despoiled when in presence of the despoilers.”

Perhaps the effect of Thierry’s work has been to cast into the
shade the ultimate good effects on England of the Norman
Conquest. Yet these are as undeniable as are the miseries
which that conquest inﬂicted on our Saxon ancestors from the
time of the battle of Hastings to the time of the signing of
the Great Charter at Runnymede. The last is the true epoch
'of English nationality: it is the epoch when Anglo-Norman
and Anglo-Saxon ceased to keep aloof from each other —the
one in haughty scorn, the other in sullen abhorrence; and
when all the free men of the land, whether barons, knights,
yeomen, or burghers, combined to lay the foundations of
English freedom.

Our Norman barons were the chiefs of that primary con-
stitutional movement; those “iron barons” whom Chatham
has so nobly eulogized. This alone should make England re-
member her obligations to the Norman Conquest, which planted
far and wide, as a dominant class in her land, a martial no-
bility of the bravest and most energetic race that ever existed.

It may sound paradoxical, but it is in reality no exaggera—
tion to say, with Guizot, that England owes her liberties to
her having been conquered by the Normans. It is true that
the Saxon institutions were the primitive cradle of English
liberty, but by their own intrinsic force they could never have
fOunded the enduring free English constitution. It was the
Conquest that infused into them a new virtue; and the politi-
cal liberties of England arose from the situation in which the
Anglo-Saxon and the Anglo-Norman populations and laws
found themselves placed relatively to each other in this island.
The state of England under her last Anglo-Saxon kings closely
resembled the state of France under the last Carlovingian
and the ﬁrst Capetian princes. The crown was feeble, the
great nobles were strong and turbulent. And although there
was more national unity in Saxon England than in France;
although the English local free institutions had more reality
and energy than was the case with anything analogous to
them on the Continent in the eleventh century, still the proba-
bility is that the Saxon system of polity, if left to itself, would
have fallen into utter confusion, out of which would have

I 82 DECISIVE BATTLES [1066

arisen ﬁrst an aristocratic hierarchy like that which arose in
France, next an absolute monarchy, and ﬁnally a series of
anarchical revolutions, such as we now behold around but
not among us.

The latest conquerors of this island were also the bravest
and the best. I do not except even the Romans. And, in spite
of our sympathies with Harold and Hereward, and our abhor-
rence of the founder of the New Forest, and the desolator of
Yorkshire, we must confess the superiority of the Normans
to the Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Danes, Whom they met here
in 1066, as well as to the degenerate Frank noblesse and the
crushed and servile Romanesque provincials from whom, in
912, they had wrested the district in the north of Gaul which
still bears the name of Normandy.

It was not merely by extreme valor and ready subordina-
tion or military discipline that the Normans were preeminent
among all the conquering races of the Gothic stock, but also
by their instinctive faculty of appreciating and adopting the
superior civilizations which they encountered. This Duke
Rollo and his Scandinavian warriors readily embraced the
creed, the language, the laws, and the arts which France, in
those troubled and evil times with which the Capetian dynasty
commenced, still inherited from imperial Rome and imperial
Charlemagne. “They adopted the customs, the duties, the
obedience, that the capitularies of emperors and kings had
established; but that which they brought to the application
of those laws was the spirit of life, the spirit of liberty—the
habits also of military subordination, and the aptness for a
state politic, which could reconcile the security of all with the
independence of each.” [Sismondi] So, also, in all chival-
ric feelings, in enthusiastic religious zeal, in almost idolatrous
respect to females of gentle birth, in generous fondness for
the nascent poetry of the time, in a keen intellectual relish
for subtle thought and disputation, in a taste for architectural
magniﬁcence, and all courtly reﬁnement and pageantry, the
Normans were the Paladins of the world. Their brilliant
qualities were sullied by many darker traits of pride, of mer-
ciless cruelty, and of brutal contempt for the industry, the
rights, and the feelings of all whom they considered the lower
classes of mankind.

MMJ‘, 4M“; ”W4, 4

1066] BATTLE OF HASTINGS I83

Their gradual blending with the Saxons softened these
harsh and evil points of their national character, and in re-
turn they ﬁred the duller Saxon mass with a new spirit of
animation and power. As Campbell boldly expressed it,
“ They kzgk-mettled we blood of our veins.” Small had been
the ﬁgure which England made in the world before the com-
ing over of the Normans; and without them she never would
have emerged from insigniﬁcance. The authority of Gibbon
may be taken as decisive, when he pronounces that, “As-
suredly England was a gainer by the Conquest.” And we
may proudly adopt the comment of the Frenchman Rapin,
who, writing of the battle of Hastings more than a century
, ago, speaks of the revolution effected by it as “the ﬁrst step
by which England has arrived to that height of grandeur and
glory we behold it in at present.”

The interest of this eventful struggle, by which William of
' Normandy became king of England, is materially enhanced
by the high personal characters of the competitors for our
crown. They were three in number. One was a foreign
prince from the North; one was a foreign prince from the
South; and one was a native hero of the land. Harald Har-
drada, the strongest and most chivalric of the kings of Nor-
way, was the ﬁrst; Duke William of Normandy was the
second; and the Saxon Harold, the son of Earl Godwin, was
the third. Never was a nobler prize sought by nobler cham-
pions, or striven for more gallantly. The Saxon triumphed
over the Norwegian, and the Norman triumphed over the
Saxon; but Norse valor was never more conspicuous than
when Harald Hardrada and his host fought and fell at Stam-
ford Bridge ; nor did Saxons ever face their foes more bravely
than our Harold and his men on the fatal day of Hastings.

During the reign of King Edward the Confessor over this
land, the claims of the Norwegian king to our crown were lit-
tle thought of ; and though Hardrada’s predecessor, King
Magnus of Norway, had on one occasion asserted that, by
virtue of a compact with our former king, Hardicanute, he was
entitled to the English throne, no serious attempt had been
made to enforce his pretensions. But the rivalry of the Saxon
Harold and the Norman William was foreseen and bewailed
by the Confessor, who was believed to have predicted on his

 

 

184 DECISIVE BATTLES [1066

death-bed the calamities that were pending over England.
Duke William was King Edward’s kinsman. Harold was the
head of the most powerful noble house, next to the royal
blood, in England; and personally he was the bravest and
most popular Chieftain in the land. King Edward was child-
less, and the nearest collateral heir was a puny, unpromising
boy. England had suffered too severely during royal minori-
ties to make the accession of Edgar Atheling desirable; and
long before King Edward’s death, Earl Harold was the des-
tined king of the nation’s choice, though the favor of the
Confessor was believed to lean towards the Norman duke.

A little time before the death of King Edward, Harold was
in Normandy. The causes of the voyage of the Saxon earl
to the Continent are doubtful; but the fact of his having been,
in 1065, at the ducal court, and in the power of his rival, is
indisputable. William made skilful and unscrupulous use of
the opportunity. Though Harold was treated with outward
courtesy and friendship, he was made fully aware that his lib-
erty and life depended on his compliance with the duke’s
requests. William said to him, in apparent conﬁdence and
cordiality, “When King Edward and I once lived like broth-
ers under the same roof, he promised that if ever he became
king of England, he would make me heir to his throne. Har-
old, I wish that thou wouldst assist me to realize this prom-
ise.” Harold replied with expressions of assent; and further
agreed, at William’s request, to marry William’s daughter
Adela, and to send over his own sister to be married to one of
William’s barons. The crafty Norman was not content with
this extorted promise; he determined to bind Harold by a
more solemn pledge, which, if broken, would be a weight on
the spirit of the gallant Saxon, and a discouragement to others
‘ from adopting his cause. Before a full assembly of the Nor-
man barons, Harold was required to do homage to Duke

William, as the heir apparent of the English crown. Kneel— .

ing down, Harold placed his hands between those of the duke,
and repeated the solemn form by which he acknowledged the
duke as his lord, and promised to him fealty and true service.
But William exacted more. He had caused all the bones and
relics of saints, that were preserved in the Norman monas-
teries and churches, to be collected into a chest, which was

4

 

mr%"‘ 5‘ f- ‘

1066] BATTLE OF HASTINGS 185

placed in the council-room, covered over with a cloth of gold.
On the chest of relics, which were thus concealed, was laid a
missal. The duke then solemnly addressed his titular guest
and real captive, and said to him, “Harold, I require thee,
before this noble assembly, to conﬁrm by oath the promises
which thou hast made me, to assist me in obtaining the crown
of England after King Edward’s death, to marry my daughter
Adela, and to send me thy sister, that I may give her in mar-
riage to one of my barons.” Harold, once more taken by
surprise, and not able to deny his former words, approached
the missal, and laid his hand on it, not knowing that the chest
of relics was beneath. The old Norman chronicler Wace,
who describes the scene most minutely, says, when Harold
placed his hand on it, the hand trembled and the ﬂesh quiv-
ered; but he swore, and promised upon his oath, to take Ele
[Adela] to wife, and to deliver up England to the duke, and

‘ thereunto to do all in his power, according to his might and

wit, after the death of Edward, if he himself should live: so
help him God. Many cried, “ God grant it!” and when Har-
old rose from his knees the duke made him stand close to the
chest, and took off the pall that had covered it, and showed
Harold upon what holy relics he had sworn; and Harold was
sorely alarmed at the sight.

Harold was soon after this permitted to return to England;
and, after a short interval, during which he distinguished him-
self by the wisdom and humanity with which he paciﬁed some
formidable tumults of the Anglo-Danes in Northumbria, he
found himself called on to decide whether he would keep the
oath which the Norman had obtained from him, or mount the
vacant throne of England in compliance with the nation’s
choice. King Edward the Confessor died on the 5th of Janu-
ary, 1066, and on the following day an assembly of the thanes
and prelates present in London, and of the citizens of the
metropolis, declared that Harold should be their king. It
was reported that the dying Edward had nominated him as
his successor; but the sense which his countrymen enter-
tained of his preeminent merit was the true foundation of his
title to the crown. Harold resolved to disregard the oath
which he made in Normandy, as violent and void, and on the
7th day of that January he was anointed king of England

186 DECISIVE BATTLES [1066

and received from the archbishop’s hands the golden crown
and scepter of England, and also an ancient national symbol,
a weighty battle-ax. He had deep and speedy need of this
signiﬁcant part of the insignia of Saxon royalty.

A messenger from Normandy soon arrived to remind
Harold of the oath which he had sworn to the duke “ with his
mouth, and his hand upon good and holy relics.” “It is
true,” replied the Saxon king, “ that I took an oath to
William; but I took it under constraint: I promised what did
not belong to me—what I could not in any way hold: my
royalty is not my own; I could not lay it down against the
will of the country, nor can I against the will of the country
take a foreign wife. As for my sister, whom the duke claims,
that he may marry her to one of his chiefs, she has died
within the year; would he have me send her corpse?”

William sent another message, which met with a similar
answer; and then the duke published far and wide through
Christendom what he termed the perjury and bad faith of his
rival, and proclaimed his intention of asserting his rights by
the sword before the year should expire, and of pursuing and
punishing the perjurer even in those places where he thought
he stood most strongly and most securely. ’

Before, however, he commenced hostilities, William, with
deep-laid policy, submitted his claims to the decision of the
pope. Harold refused to acknowledge this tribunal, or to
answer before an Italian priest for his title as an English king.
After a formal examination of William’s complaints by the
pope and the cardinals, it was solemnly adjudged at Rome
that England belonged to the Norman duke; and a banner
was sent to William from the holy see, which the pope him-
self had consecrated and blessed for the invasion of this
island. The clergy throughout the Continent were now
assiduous and energetic in preaching up William’s enterprise
as undertaken in the cause of God. Besides these spiritual
arms (the effect of which in the eleventh century must not be
measured by the philosophy or the indifferentism of the
nineteenth), the Norman duke applied all the energies of his
mind and body, all the resources of his duchy, and all the
inﬂuence he possessed among vassals or allies, to the collec-
tion of “ the most remarkable and formidable armament which

x066] BATTLE OF HASTINGS I87

the Western nations had witnessed.” [Mackintosh] All the
adventurous spirits of Christendom ﬂocked to the holy banner,
under which Duke William, the most renowned knight and
sagest general of the age, promised to lead them to glory and
wealth in the fair domains of England. His army was ﬁlled
with the chivalry of Continental Europe, all eager to save their
souls by ﬁghting at the pope’s bidding, ardent to signalize
their valor in so great an enterprise, and longing also for the
pay and the plunder which William liberally promised. But
the Normans themselves were the pith and the ﬂower of the
army; and William himself was the strongest, the sagest, and
ﬁercest spirit of them all.

Throughout the spring and summer of 1066, all the sea-
ports of Normandy, Picardy, and Brittany rang with the busy
sound of preparation. On the opposite side of the Channel,
King Harold collected the army and the ﬂeet with which he
hoped to crush the southern invaders. But the unexpected
attack of King Harald Hardrada of Norway upon another
part of England disconcerted the skilful measures which the
Saxon had taken against the menacing armada of Duke
William.

Harold’s renegade brother, Earl Tostig, had excited the
’Norse king to this enterprise, the importance of which has
naturally been eclipsed by the superior interest attached to
the victorious expedition of Duke William, but which was on
a scale of grandeur which the Scandinavian ports had rarely,
if ever before, witnessed. Hardrada’s ﬂeet consisted of two
hundred war-ships and three hundred other vessels, and all
the best warriors of Norway were in his host. He sailed
ﬁrst to the Orkneys, where many of the islanders joined him,
and then to Yorkshire. After a severe conﬂict near York
he completely routed Earls Edwin and Morcar, the govern-
ors of Northumbria. The city of York opened its gates,
and all the country, from the Tyne to the Humber, sub-
mitted to him. The tidings of the defeat of Edwin and
Morcar compelled Harold to leave his position on the south-
ern coast, and move instantly against the Norwegians. By
a remarkably rapid march he reached Yorkshire in four
days, and took the Norse king and his confederates by sur-
prise. Nevertheless, the battle which ensued, and which

188 DECISIVE BATTLES [1066

was fought near Stamford Bridge, was desperate and was
long doubtful. Unable to break the ranks of the Norwegian
phalanx by force, Harold at length tempted them to quit their
close order by a pretended ﬂight. Then the English columns
burst in among them, and a carnage ensued, the extent of
which may be judged of by the exhaustion and inactivity of
Norway for a quarter of a century afterwards. King Harald
Hardrada, and all the ﬂower of his nobility, perished on the
25th of September, 1066, at Stamford Bridge; a battle
which was a Flodden to Norway.

Harold’s victory was splendid; but he had bought it dearly
by the fall of many of his best ofﬁcers and men; and still
more dearly by the opportunity which Duke William had
gained of effecting an unopposed landing on the Sussex
coast. The whole of William’s shipping had assembled at
the mouth of the Dive, a little river between the Seine and
the Orme, as early as the middle of August. The army
which he had collected amounted to ﬁfty thousand knights,
and ten thousand soldiers of inferior degree. Many of the
knights were mounted, but many must have served on foot;
as it is hardly possible to believe that William could have
found transports for the conveyance of ﬁfty thousand war-
horses across the Channel. For a long time the winds were
adverse; and the duke employed the interval that passed
before he could set sail in completing the organization and
in improving the discipline of his army, which he seems to
have brought into the same state of perfection as was seven
centuries and a half afterwards the boast of another army
assembled on the same coast, and which Napoleon designed
(but providentially in vain) for a similar descent upon England.

It was not till the approach of the equinox that the wind
veered from the nertheast to the west, and gave the Nor-
mans an opportunity of quitting the weary shores of the
Dive. They eagerly embarked and set sail; but the wind
soon freshened to a gale, and drove them along the French
coast to St. Valery, where the greater part of them found
shelter; but many of their vessels were wrecked, and the
whole coast of Normandy was strewn with the bodies of the
drowned. William’s army began to grow discouraged and
averse to the enterprise, which the very elements thus seemed

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ﬂew" . l- «"j .

I066] BATTLE OF‘ HASTINGS 189

to ﬁght against; though in reality the northeast wind which
had cooped them so long at the mouth of the Dive, and the
western gale which had forced them into St. Valery, were
the best possible friends to the invaders. They prevented
the Normans from crossing the Channel until the Saxon king
and his army of defense had been called away from the
Sussex coast to encounter Harald Hardrada in Yorkshire;
and also until a formidable English ﬂeet, which by King
Harold’s orders had been cruising in the Channel to inter-
cept the Normans, had been obliged to disperse temporarily
for the purpose of reﬁtting and taking in fresh stores of
provisions.

Duke William used every expedient to reanimate the droop-
ing spirits of his men at St. Valery; and at last he caused
the body of the patron saint of the place to be exhumed and
carried in solemn procession, while the Whole assemblage of
soldiers, mariners, and appurtenant priests implored the
saint’s intercession for a change of Wind. That very night
the wind veered, and enabled the medieval Agamemnon to
quit his Aulis.

With full sails, and a following southern breeze, the Nor-

, man armada left the French shores and steered for England.

The invaders crossed an undefended sea, and found an
undefended coast. It was in Pevensey Bay in Sussex, at
Bulverhithe, between the castle of Pevensey and Hastings,
that the last conquerors of this island landed, on the 29th of
September, 1066.

Harold was at York, rejoicing over his recent victory,
which had delivered England from her ancient Scandinavian
foes, and resettling the government of the counties which
Harald Hardrada had overrun, when the tidings reached
him that Duke William of Normandy and his host had
landed on the Sussex shore. Harold instantly hurried south-
ward to meet this long-expected enemy. The severe loss
which his army had sustained in the battle with the Norwe-
gians must have made it impossible for any large number of
veteran troops to accompany him in his forced march to
London, and thence to Sussex. He halted at the capital
only six days; and during that time gave orders for collect-
ing forces from his southern and midland counties, and also

190 DECISIVE BATTLES [1066

directed his ﬂeet to reassemble off the Sussex coast. Harold
was well received in London, and his summons to arms was
promptly obeyed by citizen, by thane, by sokman, and by
ceorl; for he had shown himself during his brief reign a just
and wise king, affable to all men, active for the good of his
country, and (in the words of the old historian) sparing him-
self from no fatigue by land or sea. He might have gathered
a much more numerous force than that of William, but his
recent victory had made him over-conﬁdent, and he was
irritated by the reports of the country being ravaged by the
invaders. As soon, therefore, as he had collected a small
army in London, he marched off towards the coast; pressing
forward as rapidly as his men could traverse Surrey and
Sussex, in the hope of taking the Normans unawares, as he,
had recently by a similar forced march succeeded in surpris-
ing the Norwegians. But he had now to deal with a foe
equally brave with Harald Hardrada, and far more skilful
and wary.

The old Norman chroniclers describe the preparations of
William on his landing, with a graphic vigor which would be
wholly lost by transfusing their racy Norman couplets and
terse Latin prose into the current style of modern history. It
is best to follow them closely, though at the expense of much
quaintness and occasional uncouthness of expression. They
tell us how Duke William’s own ship was the ﬁrst of the Nor-
man ﬂeet. “ It was called the Mora, and was the gift of his
duchess, Matilda. On the head of the ship in the front, which
mariners call the prow, there was a brazen child bearing an
arrow with a bended bow. His face was turned towards Eng-
land, and thither he looked, as though he were about to shoot.
The breeze became soft and sweet, and the sea was smooth for
their landing. The ships ran on dry land, and each ranged
by the other’s side. There you might see the good sailors,
the sergeants, and squires sally forth and unload the ships;
cast the anchors, haul the ropes, bear out shields and saddles,
and land the war-horses and palfreys. The archers came
forth, and touched land the ﬁrst, each with his bow strung,
and with his quiver full of arrows, slung at his side. All
were shaven and shorn ; and all clad in short garments, ready
to attack, to shoot, to wheel about and skirmish. All stood

 

1066] BATTLE or HASTINGS 191

well equipped, and of good courage for the ﬁght; and they
scoured the whole shore, but found not an armed man there.
After the archers had thus gone forth, the knights landed all
armed, with their hauberks on, their shields slung at their
necks, and their helmets laced. They formed together on
the shore, each armed, and mounted on his war—horse: all
had their swords girded on, and rode forward into the coun-
try with their lances raised. Then the carpenters landed,
who had great axes in their hands, and planes and adzes
hung at their sides. They took counsel together, and sought
for a good spot to place a castle on. They had brought with
them in the ﬂeet three wooden castles from Normandy, in
pieces, all ready for framing together, and they took the
materials of one of these out of the ships, all shaped and
pierced to receive the pins which they had brought cut and
ready in large barrels; and before evening had set in they
had ﬁnished a good fort on the English ground, and there
they placed their stores. All then ate and drank enough,
and were right glad that they were ashore.

“When Duke William himself landed, as he stepped on the
shore, he slipped and fell forward upon his two hands. Forth-
with all raised a loud cry of distress. ‘An evil sign,’ said they,
‘is here.’ But he cried out lustily, ‘See, my lords! by the
splendor of God, I have taken possession of England with
both my hands. It is now mine; and what is mine is yours.’

“The next day they marched along the seashore to Has-
tings. Near that place the duke fortiﬁed a camp, and set up
the two other wooden castles. The foragers, and those who
looked out for booty, seized all the clothing and provisions
they could ﬁnd, lest what had been brought by the ships
should fail them. And the English were to be seen ﬂeeing
before them, driving off their cattle, and quitting their houses.
Many took shelter in burying-places, and even there they
were in grievous alarm.”

Besides the marauders from the Norman camp, strong
bodies of cavalry were detached by William into the country,
and these, when Harold and his army made their rapid march
from London southward, fell back in good order upon the
main body of the Normans, and reported that the Saxon king
was rushing on like a. madman. But Harold, when he found

.4.4.~ 'w

192 DECISIVE BATTLES [1066

that his hopes of surprising his adversary were vain, changed
his tactics, and halted about seven miles from the Norman
lines. He sent some spies, who spoke the French language,
to examine the number and preparations of the enemy, who,
on their return, related with astonishment that there were
more priests in William’s camp than there were ﬁghting men
in the English army. They had mistaken for priests all the
Norman soldiers who had short hair and shaven chins; for
the English laymen were then accustomed to wear long hair
and mustaches. Harold, who knew the Norman usages,
smiled at their words and said, “ Those whom you have seen
in such numbers are not priests, but stout soldiers, as they will
soon make us feel.”

Harold’s army was far inferior in number to that of the
Normans, and some of his captains advised him to retreat
upon London, and lay waste the country, so as to starve down
the strength of the invaders. The policy thus recommended
was unquestionably the wisest; for the Saxon ﬂeet had now
reassembled, and intercepted all William’s communications
with Normandy; so that as soon as his stores of provisions
were exhausted he must have moved forward upon London; '
where Harold, at the head of the full military strength of the
kingdom, could have deﬁed his assault, and probably might
have witnessed his rival’s destruction by famine and disease,
without having to strike a single blow. But Harold’s bold
blood was up, and his kindly heart could not endure to inflict
on his South Saxon subjects even the temporary misery of
wasting the country. “He would not burn houses and vil-
lages, neither would he take away the substance of his people.”

Harold’s brothers, Gurth and Leofwine, were with him in
the camp, and Gurth endeavored to persuade him to absent
‘ himself from the battle. The incident shows how well devised
had been William’s scheme of binding Harold by the oath on
the holy relics. “ My brother,” said the young Saxon prince,
“thou canst not deny that either by force or free will thou
hast made Duke William an oath on the bodies of saints.
Why then risk thyself in the battle with a perjury upon thee?
To us, who have sworn nothing, this is a holy and a just war,
for we are ﬁghting for our country. Leave us, then, alone
to ﬁght this battle, and he who has the right will win.” Har-

1066] BATTLE OF HASTINGS 19 3

old replied that he would not look on while others risked their
lives for him. Men would hold him a coward, and blame him
for sending his best friends where he dared not go himself.
He resolved, therefore, to ﬁght, and to ﬁght in person; but
he was still too good a general to be the assailant in the action.
He strengthened his position on the hill where he had halted,
by a palisade of stakes interlaced with osier hurdles, and
there, he said, he would defend himself against whoever should
seek him.

The ruins of Battle Abbey at this hour attest the place
where Harold’s army was posted. The high altar of the
abbey stood on the very spot where Harold’s own standard
was planted during the ﬁght, and where the carnage was the
thickest. Immediately after his victory William vowed to
build an abbey on the site; and a fair and stately pile soon
rose there, where for many ages the monks prayed and said
masses for the souls of those who were slain in the battle,
whence the abbey took its name. Before that time the place
was called Senlac. Little of the ancient ediﬁce now remains;
but it is easy to trace among its relics and in the neighbor-
hood the scenes of the chief incidents in the action; and it
is impossible to deny the generalship shown by Harold in
stationing his men; especially when we bear in mind that he
was deﬁcient in cavalry, the arm in which his adversary’s
main strength consisted.

' A neck of hills trends inward for nearly seven miles from

' the high ground immediately to the northeast of Hastings.

The line of this neck of hills is from southeast to northwest,
and the usual route from Hastings to London must, in ancient
as in modern times, have been along its summits. At the
distance from Hastings which has been mentioned, the con-

’tinuous chain of hills ceases. A valley must be crossed, and

on the other side of it, opposite to the last of the neck of hills,
rises a high ground of some extent, facing to the southeast.
This high ground, then termed Senlac, was occupied by Har-
old’s army. It could not be attacked in front without con-
siderable disadvantage to the assailants, and could hardly be
turned without those engaged in the maneuver exposing
themselves to a fatal charge in ﬂank, while they wound round
the base of the height, and underneath the ridges which pro-

I3

194 DECISIVE BATTLES [1066

ject from it on either side. There was a rough and thickly
wooded district in the rear, which seemed to offer Harold
great facilities for rallying his men and checking the prog-
ress of the enemy if they should succeed in forcing him back
from his post. And it seemed scarcely possible that the
Normans, if they met with any repulse, could save themselves
from utter destruction. With such hopes and expectations
(which cannot be termed unreasonable, though “Successum
Dea dira negavit ”) King Harold bade his standard be set up
a little way down the slope of Senlac Hill, at the point where
the ascent from the valley was steep, and on which the ﬁerc-
est attacks of the advancing enemy were sure to be directed.

The foundation-stones of the high altar of Battle Abbey
have during late years been discovered; and we may place
our feet on the very spot where Harold stood, with England’s
banner waving over him; where, when the battle was joined,
he defended himself to the utmost; where the fatal arrow
came down on him; where he “leaned in agony on his
shield”; and where at last he was beaten to the earth, and
with him the Saxon banner was beaten down, like him never
to rise again. The ruins of the altar are a little to the west
of the high road which leads from Hastings along the neck
of hills already described, across the valley, and through the
modern town of Battle, towards London. Before a railway
was made along this valley, some of the old local features
were more easy than now to recognize. The eye then at
once saw that the ascent from the valley was least steep at
the point which Harold selected for his own post in the
engagement. But this is still sufﬁciently discernible; and
we can ﬁx the spot, a little lower down the slope, immedi-
ately in front of the high altar, where the brave Kentish
men stood, “whose right it was to strike ﬁrst whenever the
king went to battle,” and who, therefore, were placed where
the Normans would be most likely to make their ﬁrst charge.
Round Harold himself, and where the plantations wave which
now surround the high altar’s ruins, stood the men of Lon-
don, “whose privilege it was to guard the king’s body, to
place themselves around it, and to guard his standard.” On
the right and left were ranged the other warriors of Central
and Southern England, whose shires the old Norman chroni-

1066] . BATTLE OF HASTINGS 195

cler distorts in his French nomenclature. Looking thence in
the direction of Hastings, we can distinguish the “ridge of
the rising ground over which the Normans appeared advanc~
ing.” It is the nearest of the neck of hills. It is along that
bill that Harold and his brothers saw approach in succession
the three divisions of the Norman army. The Normans came .
down that slope, and then formed in the valley, so as to
assault the whole front of the English position. Duke Will-
iam’s own division, with “the best men and greatest strength
of the army,” made the Norman center, and charged the Eng-
lish immediately in front of Harold’s banner, as the nature
of the ground had led the Saxon king to anticipate.

There are few battles the localities of which can be more
completely traced; and the whole scene is fraught with asso-
ciations of deep interest; but the spot which, most of all,
awakens our sympathy and excites our feelings is that where
Harold himself fought and fell. The crumbling fragments of
the gray altar-stones, with the wild ﬂowers that cling around
their base, seem ﬁtting memorials of the brave Saxon who
there bowed his head in death; while the laurel-trees that
are planted near, and wave over the ruins, remind us of the
Conqueror, Who there, at the close of that dreadful day,
reared his victorious standard high over the trampled ban-
ner of the Saxon, and held his triumphant carousal amid
the corses of the slain, with his Norman chivalry exulting
, around him.

When it was known in the invaders’ camp at Hastings
that King Harold had marched southward with his power,
but a brief interval ensued before the two hosts met in deci-
sive encounter.

William’s only chance of safety lay in bringing on a gen-
eral engagement; and he joyfully advanced his army from
their camp on the hill over Hastings, nearer to the Saxon
position. But he neglected no means of weakening his oppo-
nent, and renewed his summonses and demands on Harold
with an ostentatious air of sanctity and moderation.

“ A monk named Hugues Maigrot came in William’s name
to call upon the Saxon king to do one of three things— either
to resign his royalty in favor of William, or to refer it to the
arbitration _of the popeto decide which of the two ought to

196 DECISIVE BATTLES [1066

be king, or to let it be determined by the issue of a single
combat. Harold abruptly replied, ‘I will not resign my title,
I will not refer it to the pope, nor will I accept the single
combat.’ He was far from being deﬁcient in bravery; but
he was no more at liberty to stake the crown which he had
received from a whole people on the chance of a duel than to
deposit it in the hands of an Italian priest. William was not
at all rufﬂed by the Saxon’s refusal, but steadily pursuing the
course of his calculated measures, sent the Norman monk
again, after giving him these instructions : ‘ Go and tell Harold
that if he will keep his former compact with me, I will leave
to him all the country which is beyond the Humber, and will
give his brother Gurth all the lands which Godwin held. If
he still persist in refusing my offers, then thou shalt tell him,
before all his people, that he is a perjurer and a liar; that he,
and all who shall support him, are excommunicated by the
mouth of the pope; and that the bull to that effect is in my
hands.’

“ Hugues Maigrot delivered this message in a solemn tone;
and the Norman chronicle says that at the word excommuni-
catz’on the English chiefs looked at one another as if some

great danger were impending. One of them then spoke as

follows: ‘ We must ﬁght, whatever may be the danger to us;
for what we have to consider is not whether we shall accept
and receive a new lord as if our king were dead: the case is
quite otherwise. The Norman has given our lands to his
captains, to his knights, to all his people, the greater part of
whom have already done homage to him for them; they will
all look for their gift, if their duke become our king; and he
himself is bound to deliver up to them our goods, our wives,
and our daughters : all is promised to them beforehand. They
come, not only to ruin us, but to ruin our descendants also,
and to take from us the country of our ancestors. And what
shall we do —-— whither shall we go —when we have no longer
a country?’ The English promised, by a unanimous oath,
to make neither peace nor truce nor treaty with the invader,
but to die or drive away the Normans.” [Thierry.]

The 13th of October was occupied in these negotiations:
and at night the duke announced to his men that the next day
would be the day of battle. That night is said to have

1066] BATTLE OF HASTINGS 197

been passed by the two armies in very different manners.
The Saxon soldiers spent it in joviality, singing their national
songs, and draining huge horns of ale and wine round their
camp-ﬁres. The Normans, when they had looked to their
arms and horses, confessed themselves to the priests, with
whom their camp was thronged, and received the sacrament
by thousands at a time.

On Saturday, the 14th of October, was fought the great
battle.

It is not difﬁcult to compose a narrative of its principal
incidents, from the historical information which we possess,
especially if aided by an examination of the ground. But it
is far better to adopt the spirit-stirring words of the old chron-
iclers, who wrote while the recollections of the battle were yet
fresh, and while the feelings and prejudices of the combatants
yet glowed in the bosoms of their near descendants. Robert
Wace, the Norman poet, who presented his “ Roman de Rou ”
to our Henry II., is the most picturesque and animated of the
old writers; and from him we can obtain a more vivid and
full description of the conﬂict than even the most brilliant
romance writer of the present time can supply. We have
also an antique memorial of the battle, more to be relied on
than either chronicler or poet (and which conﬁrms Wace’s
narrative remarkably), in the celebrated Bayeux tapestry,
which represents the principal scenes of Duke William’s
expedition, and of the circumstances connected with it, in
minute though occasionally grotesque details, and which was
undoubtedly the production of the same age in which the
battle took place, whether we admit or reject the legend that
Queen Matilda and the ladies of her court wrought it with
‘ their own hands in honor of the royal Conqueror.

Let us therefore suffer the old Norman chronicler to trans-
port our imaginations to the fair Sussex scenery, northwest
of Hastings, with its breezy uplands, its grassy slopes, and
ridges of open down swelling inland from the sparkling sea,
its scattered copses, and its denser glades of intervening
forests, clad in all the varied tints of autumn, as they appeared
on the morning of the 14th of October, seven hundred and
eighty-ﬁve years ago. The Norman host is pouring forth
from its tents; and each troop, and each company, is forming

 

198 DECISIVE BATTLES [1066

fast under the banner of its leader. The masses have been
sung, which were ﬁnished betimes in the morning; the barons
have all assembled round Duke William; and the duke has
ordered that the army shall be formed in three divisions, so
as to make the attack upon the Saxon position in three places.
The duke stood on a hill where he could best see his men;
the barons surrounded him, and he spoke to them proudly.
He told them how he trusted them, and how all that he gained
should be theirs; and how sure he felt of conquest, for in all
the world there was not so brave an army or such good men
and true as were then forming around him. Then they
cheered him in turn, and cried out, “ ‘You will not see one
coward; none here will fear to die for love of you, if need be.’
And he answered them, ‘ I thank you well. For God’s sake
spare not; strike hard at the beginning; stay not to take
spoil; all the booty shall be in common, and there will be
plenty for every one. There will be no safety in asking
quarter or in ﬂight: the English will never love or spare a
Norman. Felons they were, and felons they are; false they
were, and false they will be. Show no weakness towards
them, for they will have no pity on you. Neither the coward
for running well, nor the bold man for smiting well, will be
the better liked by the English, nor will any be the more
spared on either account. You may ﬂy to the sea, but you
can ﬂy no farther; you will ﬁnd neither ships nor bridge
there; there will be no sailors to receive you; and the Eng-
lish will overtake you there and slay you in your shame.
More of you will die in ﬂight than in the battle. Then, as
ﬂight will not secure you, ﬁght, and you will conquer. I have
no doubt of the victory: we are come for glory, the victory
is in our hands, and we may make sure of obtaining it if we
so please.’ As the duke was speaking thus, and would yet
have spoken more, William Fitz Osber rode up, with his horse
all coated with iron: ‘Sire,’ said he, ‘we tarry here too long,
let us all arm ourselves. Allmzs ! Allow.”

“Then all went to their tents, and armed themselves as
they best might; and the duke was very busy, giving every
one his orders ; and he was courteous to all the vassals, giving
away many arms and horses to them. When he prepared to ‘
arm himself, he called ﬁrst for his good hauberk, and a man

 

1066] BATTLE OF HASTINGS 199

brought it on his arm, and placed it before him, but in putting
his head in, to get it on, he unawares turned it the wrong
way, with the back part in front. He soon changed it, but
when he saw that those who stood by were sorely alarmed,
he said, ‘ I have seen many a man who, if such a thing had
happened to him, would not have borne arms, or entered the
ﬁeld the same day; but I never believed in omens, and I
never will. I trust in God, for he does in all things his
pleasure, and ordains what is to come to pass, according to
his will. I have never liked fortune-tellers, nor believed in
diviners; but I commend myself to our Lady. Let not this
mischance give you trouble. v The hauberk which was turned
wrong, and then set right by me, signiﬁes that a change will
arise out of the matter which we are now stirring. You shall
see the name of duke changed into king. Yea, a king shall
I be, who hitherto have been but duke.’ Then he crossed
himself, and straightway took his hauberk, stooped his head,
and put it on aright, and laced his helmet, and girt on his
sword, which a varlet brought him. Then the duke call-ed
for his good horse—a better could not be found. It had
been sent him by a king of Spain, out of very great friend—
ship. Neither arms nor the press of ﬁghting men did it fear,
if its lord spurred it on. Walter Giffard brought it.. The
duke stretched out his hand, took the reins, put foot in stirrup,
and mounted; and the good horse pawed, pranced, reared
himself up, and curveted. The Viscount of Toarz saw how
the duke bore himself in arms, and said to his people that were
around him, ‘ Never have I seen a man so fairly armed, nor
one who rode so gallantly, or bore his arms or became his
hauberk so well; neither any one who bore his lance so grace-
fully, or sat his horse and managed him so nobly. There is
no such knight under heaven! a fair count he is, and fair
king he will be. Let him ﬁght, and he shall overcome: shame
be to the man who shall fail him.’

“ Then the duke called for the standard which the pope had
sent him, and he who bore it having unfolded it, the duke took
it, and called to Raol de Conches. ‘Bear my standard,’ said
he, ‘ for I would not but do you right; by right and by ancestry
your line are standard-bearers of Normandy, and very good
knights have they all been.’ But Raol said that he would

200 DECISIVE BATTLES [1066

serve the duke that day in other guise, and would ﬁght the
English with his hand as long as life should last. Then the
duke bade Galtier Giffart bear the standard. But he was old
and white-headed, and bade the duke give the standard to
some younger and stronger man to carry. Then the duke
said ﬁercely, ‘ By the splendor of God, my lords, I think you
mean to betray and fail me in this great need.’ ‘ Sire,’ said
Giffart, ‘not so! we have done no treason, nor do I refuse
from any felony towards you; but I have to lead a great
chivalry, both hired men and the men of my ﬁef. Never had
I such good means of serving you as I now have; and if God
please, I will serve you; if need be, I will die for you, and
will give my own heart for yours.’

“ ‘ By my faith,’ quoth the duke,‘ I always loved thee, and
now I love thee more; if I survive this day, thou shalt be
the better for it all thy days.’ Then he called out a knight,
whom he had heard much praised, Tosteins Fitz—Rou le Blanc
by name, whose abode was at Bec—en-Caux. To him he de-
livered the standard; and Tosteins took it right cheerfully,
and bowed low to him in thanks, and bore it gallantly, and
with good heart. His kindred still have quittance of all ser— '
vice for their inheritance on that account, and their heirs are
entitled so to hold their inheritance forever.

“ William sat on his war-horse, and called on Rogier, whom
they call De Mongomeri. ‘ I rely much upon you,’ said he ;
‘lead your men thitherward, and attack them from that side.
William, the son of Osber the seneschal, a right good vassal,
shall go with you and help in the attack, and you shall have
the men of Boulogne and Poix, and all my soldiers. Alain
Fergert and Ameri shall attack on the other side ; they shall
. lead the Poitevins and the Bretons, and all the barons of
Maine ; and I, with my own great men, my friends and kin-
dred, will ﬁght in the middle throng, where the battle shall
be the hottest.’

“The barons, and knights, and men-at-arms were all now
armed; the foot-soldiers were well equipped, each bearing
bow and sword; on their heads were caps, and to their feet
were bound buskins. Some had good hides which they had
bound round their bodies; and many were clad in frocks, and
had quivers and bows hung to their girdles. The knights

 

 

1066] BATTLE OF HASTINGS 201

had hauberks and swords, boots of steel and shining helmets;
shields at their necks, and in their hands lances. And all
had their cognizances, so that each might know his fellow,
and Norman might not strike Norman, nor Frenchman kill
his countryman by mistake. Those on foot led the way, with
serried ranks, bearing their bows. The knights rode next,
supporting the archers from behind. Thus both horse and
foot kept their course and order of march as they began ; in
close ranks, at a gentle pace, that the one might not pass or
separate from the other. All went ﬁrmly and compactly,
bearing themselves gallantly.

“ Harold had summoned his men, earls, barons, and vava—
sors, from the castles and the cities; from the ports, the
villages, and boroughs. The peasants were also called to-
gether from the villages, bearing such arms as they found;
clubs and great picks, iron forks and stakes. The English
had enclosed the place where Harold was, with his friends
and the barons of the country whom he had summoned and

called together.
“Those of London had come at once, and those of Kent,

Hertfort, and of Essesse; those of Surée and Susesse, of St.
Edmund and Sufoc; of Norwis and Norfoc; of Cantorbierre
and Stanfort ; Bedefort and Hundetone. The men of North-
anton also came; and those of Eurowic and Bokinkeham, of
Bed and Notinkeham, Lindesie and Nichole. There came
. also from the west all who heard the summons; and very
many were to be seen coming from Salebiere and Dorset,
from Bat and from Somerset. Many came, too, from about
Glocestre, and many from Wirecestre, from Wincestre, Hon-
‘tesire, and Brichesire; and many more from other counties
that we have not named, and cannot indeed recount. All
who could bear arms, and had learned the news of the duke’s
arrival, came to defend the land. But none came from be-
yond Humbre, for they had other business upon their hands,
the Danes and Tosti having much damaged and weakened
them.

“ Harold knew that the Normans would come and attack
him hand to hand; so he had early enclosed the ﬁeld in which
he placed his men. He made them arm early, and range
themselves for the battle; he himself having put on arms and

”v VAT, Tammi—r. ,r

202 ' DECISIVE BATTLES [1066

equipments that became such a lord. The duke, he said,
ought to seek him, as he wanted to conquer England; and it
became him to abide the attack, who had to defend the land.
He commanded the people, and counseled his barons to keep
themselves all together, and defend themselves in a body; for
if they once separated, they would with difﬁculty recover
themselves. ‘The Normans,’ he said, ‘are good vassals,
valiant on foot and on horseback; good knights are they on
horseback, and well used to battle; all is lost if they once
penetrate our ranks. They have brought long lances and
swords, but you have pointed lances and keen-edged bills;
and I do not expect that their arms can stand against yours.
Cleave wherever you can; it will be ill done if you spare
aught’

“ The English had built up a fence before them with their
shields and with ash and other wood; and had well joined
and wattled in the whole work, so as not to leave even a
crevice; and thus they had a barricade in their front through
which any Norman who would attack them must ﬁrst pass.
Being covered in this way by their shields and barricades,
their aim was to defend themselves; and if they had re-
mained steady for that purpose they would not have been
conquered that day; for every Norman who made his way
in lost his life, either by hatchet or bill, by club, or other
weapons. They wore short and close hauberks, and helmets
that hung over their garments. King Harold issued orders
and made proclamation round that all should be ranged with
their faces towards the enemy ; and that no one should move
from where he was; so that, whoever came, might ﬁnd them
ready; and that whatever any one, be he Norman or other,
should do, each should do his best to defend his own place.
Then he ordered the men of Kent to go where the Normans
were likely to make the attack; for they say that the men of
Kent are entitled, to strike ﬁrst; and that whenever the king
goes to battle, the ﬁrst blow belongs to them. The right
of the men of London is to guard the king’s body, to place
themselves around him, and to guard his standard; and they
were accordingly placed by the standard to watch and defend it.

“ When Harold had made his reply and given his orders, he
came into the midst of the English, and dismounted by the

 

 

1066] BATTLE OF HASTINGS 203

side of the standard : Leofwine and Gurth, his brothers,
were with him, and around him he had barons enough, as
he stood by his standard, which was in truth a noble one,
sparkling with gold and precious stones. After the victory,
William sent it to the pope, to prove and commemorate his
great conquest and glory. The English stood in close ranks,
ready and eager for the ﬁght; and they moreover made a
fosse, which went across the ﬁeld, guarding one side of their
army.

“Meanwhile the Normans appeared advancing over the
ridge of a rising ground; and the ﬁrst division of their troops
moved onwards along the hill and across a valley. And pres-
ently another division, still larger, came in sight, close follow-
ing upon the ﬁrst, and they were led towards another part of
the ﬁeld, forming together as the ﬁrst body had done. And
while Harold saw and examined them, and was pointing them
out to Gurth, a fresh company came in sight, covering all the
plain; and in the midst of them was raised the standard that
came from Rome. Near it was the duke, and the best men
and greatest strength of the army were there. The good
knights, the good vassals, and brave warriors were there; and
there were gathered together the gentle barons, the good arch-
ers, and the men-at—arms, whose duty it was to guard the duke,
and range themselves around him. The youths and common
herd of the camp, whose business was not to join in the battle,
but to take care of the harness and stores, moved off towards
a rising ground. The priests and the clerks also ascended a
hill, there to offer up prayers to God, and watch the event of
the battle.

“ The English stood ﬁrm on foot in close ranks, and carried
themselves right boldly. Each man had his hauberk on, with
his sword girt, and his shield at his neck. Great hatchets were
also slung at their necks, with which they expected to strike
heavy blows.

“ The Normans brought on the three divisions of their army
to attack at different places. They set out in three companies,
and in three companies did they ﬁght. The ﬁrst and second
had come up, and then advanced the third, which was the
greatest; with that came the duke with his own men, and all

moved boldly forward.

204 DECISIVE BATTLES [1066

“ As soon as the two armies were in full View of each other,
great noise and tumult arose. You might hear the sound of
many trumpets, of bugles, and of horns; and then you might
see men ranging themselves in line, lifting their shields, rais-
ing their lances, bending their bows, handling their arrows.
ready for assault and defense.

“The English stood ready to their post, the Normans still
moved on ; and when they drew near, the English were to be
seen stirring to and fro ; were going and coming; troops rang-
ing themselves in order; some with their color rising, others
turning pale; some making ready their arms, others raising
their shields; the brave man rousing 'himself to ﬁght, the
coward trembling at the approach of danger.

“ Then Taillefer, who sang right well, rode mounted on a
swift horse, before the duke, singing of Charlemagne and of
Roland, of Olivier and the peers who died in Roncesvalles.
And when they drew nigh to the English, ‘A boon, sire!’
cried Taillefer; ‘I have long served you, and you owe me for
all such service. To~day, so please you, you shall repay it.
I ask as my guerdon, and beseech you for it earnestly, that
you will allow me to strike the ﬁrst blow in the battle! ’ And
the duke answered, ‘I grant it.’ Then Taillefer put his horse
to a gallop, charging before all the rest, and struck an English-
man dead, driving his lance below the breast into his body, and
stretching him upon the ground. Then he drew his sword,
and struck another, crying out, ‘ Come on, come on! What
do ye, sirs? lay on, lay on!’ At the second blow he struck,
the English pushed forward, and surrounded and slew him.
Forthwith arose the noise and cry of war, and on either side
the people put themselves in motion.

“The Normans moved on to the assault, and the English
defended themselves well. Some were striking, others urging
onward; all were bold, and cast aside fear. And now, behold,
that battle was gathered, whereof the fame is yet mighty.

“ Loud and far resounded the bray of the horns; and the
shocks of the lances, the mighty strokes of maces, and the
quick clashing of swords. One while the Englishmen rushed
on, another while they fell back; one while the men from over
the sea charged onward, and again at other times retreated.
The Normans shouted ‘ Dex aie!’ the English people ‘ Out! ’

 

1066] BATTLE or HASTINGS 205

Then came the cunning maneuvers, the rude shocks and
strokes of the lance and blows of the swords, among the ser—
geants and soldiers, both English and Norman.

“When the English fall, the Normans shout. Each side
taunts and deﬁes the other, yet neither knoweth what the other
saith; and the Normans say the English bark, because they
understand not their speech.

“Some wax strong, others weak; the brave exult, but the
cowards tremble, as men who are sore dismayed. The Nor-
mans press on the assault, and the English defend their post
well; they pierce the hauberks, and cleave the shields, receive
and return mighty blows. Again, some press forward, others
yield; and thus in various ways the struggle proceeds. In the
plain was a fosse, which the Normans had now behind them,
having passed it in the ﬁght without regarding it. But the
English charged, and drove the Normans before them till they
made them fall back upon this fosse, overthrowing into it -
horses and men. Many were to be seen falling therein, roll-
ing one over the other, with their faces to the earth, and
unable to rise. Many of the English, also, whom the Nor-
mans drew down along with them, died there. At no time dur-
ing the day’s battle did so many Normans die as perished in
that fosse. So those said who saw the dead.

“‘ The varlets who were set to guard the harness began to
abandon it as they saw the loss of the Frenchmen, when
thrown back upon the fosse without power to recover them-
selves. Being greatly alarmed at seeing the difﬁculty in
restoring order, they began to quit the harness, and sought
around, not knowing where to ﬁnd shelter. The Duke Will-
iam’s brother, Odo, the good priest, the Bishop of Bayeux,
galloped up, and said to them, ‘Stand fast! stand fast! be
quiet and move not! fear nothing, for if God please, we shall
conquer yet.’ So they took courage, and rested where they
were; and Odo returned, galloping back to where the battle
was most ﬁerce, and was of great service on that day. He
had put a hauberk on, over a white aube, wide in the body,
with the sleeve tight; and sat on a white horse, so that all might
recognize him. In his hand he held a mace, and wherever he
saw most need he held up and stationed the knights, and often
urged them on to assault and strike the enemy.

206 DECISIVE BATTLES [1066

“ From nine o’clock in the morning, when the combat be-
gan, till three o’clock came, the battle was up and down, this
way and that, and no one knew who would conquer and win
the land. Both sides stood so ﬁrm and fought so well that
no one could guess which would prevail. The Norman
archers with their bows shot thickly upon the English; but
they covered themselves with their shields, so that the arrows
could not reach their bodies, nor do any mischief, how true
soever was their aim, or however well they shot. Then the
Normans determined to shoot their arrows upwards into the
air, so that they might fall on their enemies’ heads, and strike
their faces. The archers adopted this scheme, and shot up
into the air towards the English; and the arrows in falling
struck their heads and faces, and put out the eyes of many;
and all feared to open their eyes, or leave their faces un-
guarded. ,

“ The arrows now ﬂew thicker than rain before the wind;
fast sped the shafts that the English called ‘ wibetes.’ Then
it was that an arrow, that had been thus shot upward, struck
Harold above his right eye, and put it out. In his agony he
drew the arrow and threw it away, breaking it with his hands ;
and the pain to his head was so great that he leaned upon his
shield. So the English were wont to say, and still say to the
French, that the arrow was well shot which was so sent up
against their king; and that the archer won them great glory,
who thus put out Harold’s eye.

“The Normans saw that the English defended themselves
well, and were so strong in their position that they could do
little against them. So they consulted together privily, and
arranged to draw off, and pretend to ﬂee, till the English should
pursue and scatter themselves over the ﬁeld; for they saw
that if they could once get their enemies to break their ranks,
they might be attacked and discomﬁted much more easily. As
they had said, so they did. The Normans by little and little
ﬂed, the English following them. As the one fell back, the
other pressed after; and when the Frenchmen retreated, the
English thought and cried out that the men of France ﬂed,
and would never return.

“ Thus they were deceived by the pretended ﬂight, and
great mischief thereby befell them; for if they had not moved

 

1066] BATTLE OF HASTINGS 207

from their position, it is not likely that they would have been
conquered at all; but like fools they broke their lines and
pursued. .

“The Normans were to be seen following up their strata-
gem, retreating slowly so as to draw the English farther on.
As they still ﬂee, the English pursue; they push out their
lances and stretch forth their hatchets; following the Nor-
mans, as they go rejoicing in the success of their scheme, and
scattering themselves over the plain. And the English mean-
time jeered and insulted their foes with words. ‘Cowards,’
they cried, ‘you came hither in an evil hour, wanting our
lands, and seeking to seize our property, fools that ye were
to come! Normandy is too far off, and you will not easily
reach it. It is of little use to run back ; unless you can cross
the sea at a leap, or can drink it dry, your sons and daugh-
mm are lost to you.’

“‘ The Normans bore it all, but in fact they knew not what
the English said: their language seemed like the baying of
dogs, which they could not understand. At length they
stopped and turned round, determined to recover their ranks;
and the barons might be heard crying ‘ Dex aie !’ for a halt.
Then the Normans resumed their former position, turning
their faces towards the enemy; and their men were to be seen
facing round and rushing onward to a fresh mélée; the one
party assaulting the other; this man striking, another press-
ing onward. One hits, another misses; one ﬂies, another
pursues; one is aiming a stroke, while another discharges his
blow. Norman strives with Englishman again, and aims his
blow afresh. One ﬂies, another pursues swiftly; the combat-
ants are many, the plain wide, the battle and the mélée ﬁerce.
On every hand they ﬁght hard, the blows are heavy, and the
struggle becomes ﬁerce.

“ The Normans were playing their part well, when an Eng-
lish knight came rushing up, having in his company a hundred
men, furnished with various arms. He wielded a northern
hatchet, with the blade 3. full foot long ; and was well armed
after his manner, being tall, bold, and of noble carriage. In
the front of the battle where the Normans thronged most, he
came bounding on swifter than the stag, many Normans
falling before him and his company. He rushed straight

208 ‘ DECISIVE BATTLES [1066

upon a Norman who was armed and riding on a war-horse,
and tried with his hatchet of steel to cleave his helmet; but
the blow miscarried, and the sharp blade glanced down before
the saddle-bow, driving through the horse’s neck down to the
ground, so that both horse and master fell together to.the
earth. I know not whether the Englishman struck another
blow; but the Normans who saw the stroke were astonished,
and about to abandon the assault, when Roger de Mongomeri
came galloping up, with his lance set, and heeding not the
long-handled ax, which the Englishman wielded aloft, struck
him down, and left him stretched upon the ground. Then
Roger cried out, ‘ Frenchmen, strike ! the day is ours! ’ And
again a ﬁerce méle’e was to be seen, with many a blow of
lance and sword; the English still defending themselves, kill-
ing the horses and cleaving the shields.

“There was a French soldier of noble mien, who sat his
horse gallantly. He spied two Englishmen who were also
carrying themselves boldly. They were both men of great
worth, and had become companions in arms and fought to-
gether, the one protecting the other. They bore two long
and broad bills, and did great mischief to the Normans, kill-.
ing both horses and men. The French soldier looked at them
and their bills, and was sore alarmed, for he was afraid of
losing his good horse, the best that he had; and would will-
ingly have turned to some other quarter, if it would not have
looked like cowardice. He soon, however, recovered his
courage, and, spurring his horse, gave him the bridle, and
galloped swiftly forward. Fearing the two bills, he raised
his shield, and struck one of the Englishmen with his lance on
the breast, so that the iron passed out at his back. At the
moment that he fell the lance broke, and the Frenchman
seized the mace that hung at his right side, and struck the
other Englishman a blow that completely broke his skull.

“On the other side was an Englishman who much annoyed
the French, continually assaulting them with a keen-edged
hatchet. He had a helmet made of wood, which he had fast-
ened down to his coat, and laced round his neck, so that no
blows could reach his head. The ravage he was making was
seen by a gallant Norman knight, who rode a horse that
neither ﬁre nor water could stop in its career, When its master

 

1066] BATTLE OF HASTINGS 209

urged it on. The knight spurred, and his horse carried him
on well till he charged the Englishman, striking him over
the helmet, so that it fell down over his eyes; and as he.
stretched out his hand to raise it and uncover the face, the
Norman cut off his right hand, so that his hatchet fell to the
ground. Another Norman sprang forward and eagerly
seized the prize with both his hands, but he kept it little
space, and paid dearly for it, for as he stooped to pick up the
hatchet, an Englishman with his long-handled ax struck
him over the back, breaking all his bones, so that his entrails
and lungs gushed forth. The knight of the good horse
meantime returned without injury; but on his way he met
another Englishman, and bore him down under his horse,
wounding him grievously, and trampling him altogether

, under foot.

“And now might be heard the loud clang and cry of
battle, and the clashing of lances. The English stood ﬁrm
in their barricades, and shivered the lances, beating them
into pieces with their bills and maces. The Normans drew
their swords, and hewed down the barricades, and the Eng-
lishin great trouble fell back upon their standard, where
were collected the maimed and wounded.

“There were many knights of Chauz, who jousted and
made attacks. The English knew not how to joust, or bear
arms on horseback, but fought with hatchets and bills. A
man when he wanted to strike with one of their hatchets was
obliged to hold it with both his hands, and could not at the
same time, as it seems to me, both cover himself and strike
with any freedom.

.“ The English fell back towards the standard, which was
upon a rising ground, and the Normans followed them across
the valley, attacking them on foot and horseback. Then
Hue de Mortemer, with the sires D’Auviler, D’Onebac, and
St. Cler, rode up and charged, overthrowing many.

“ Robert Fitz Erneis ﬁxed his lance, took his shield, and,
galloping towards the standard, with his keen-edged sword
struck an Englishman who was in front, killed him, and
then, drawing back his sword, attacked many others, and
pushed straight for the standard, trying to beat it down, but
the English surrounded it, and killed him with their bills.

I4

2 IO DECISIVE BATTLES [1066

He was found on the spot, when they afterwards sought for
him, dead, and lying at the standard’s foot.

“Duke William pressed close upon the English with his
lance; striving hard to reach the standard with the great
troop he led; and seeking earnestly for Harold, on whose
account the whole war was. The Normans follow their
lord, and press around him; they ply their blows upon the
English; and these defend themselves stoutly, striving hard
with their enemies, returning blow for blow.

“ One of them was a man of great strength, a wrestler,
who did great mischief to the Normans with his hatchet; all
feared him, for he struck down a great many Normans.
The duke spurred on his horse, and aimed a blow at him,
but he stooped, and so escaped the stroke; then jumping on
one side, he lifted his hatchet aloft, and as the duke bent to
avoid the blow the Englishman boldly struck him on the
head, and beat in his helmet, though without doing much
injury. He was very near falling, however, but bearing on
his stirrups he recovered himself immediately; and when he
thought to have revenged himself upon the churl by killing
him, he had escaped, dreading the duke’s blow. He ran
back in among the English, but he was not safe even there;
for the Normans, seeing him, pursued and caught him; and,
having pierced him through and through with their lances,
left him dead on the ground.

“Where the throng of the battle was greatest, the men of
Kent and Essex fought wondrously well, and made the Nor-
mans again retreat, but without doing them much injury.
And when the duke saw his men fall back and the English
triumphing over them, his spirit rose high, and he seized his
shield and his lance, which a vassal handed to him, and took
his post by his standard.

“ Then those who kept close guard by him and rode where
he rode, being about a thousand armed men, came and rushed
with closed ranks upon the English ; and with the weight of
their good horses, and the blows the knights gave, broke the
press of the enemy, and scattered the crowd before them,
the good duke leading them on in front. Many pursued and
many ﬂed; many were the Englishmen who fell around, and
were trampled under the horses, crawling upon the earth,

 

 

 

 

1066] BATTLE OF HASTINGS , 211

and not able to rise. Many of the richest and noblest men
fell in that rout, but the English still rallied in places; smote
down those whom they reached, and maintained the combat
the best they could; beating down the men and killing the
horses. One Englishman watched the duke, and plotted to
kill him; he would have struck him with his lance, but he
could not, for the dukevstruck him ﬁrst, and felled him to
the earth.

“ Loud was now the clamor, and great the slaughter; many
a soul then quitted the body it inhabited. The living marched
over the heaps of dead, and each side was weary of striking.
He charged on who could, and he who could no longer strike
still pushed forward. The strong struggled with the strong;
some failed, others triumphed; the cowards fell back, the
brave pressed on; and sad was his fate who fell in the midst,
for he had little chance of rising again; and many in truth
fell, who never rose at all, being crushed under the throng.

“ And now the Normans pressed on so far, that at last they
had reached the standard. There Harold had remained, de-
fending himself to the utmost; but he was sorely wounded
in his eye by the arrow, and suffered grievous pain from the
blow. An armed man came in the throng of the battle, and
struck him on the ventail of his helmet, and beat him to
the ground; and as he sought to recover himself, a knight
beat him down again, striking him on the thick of his thigh,
down to the bone.

“ Gurth saw the English falling around, and that there
was no remedy. He saw his race hastening to ruin, and
despaired of any aid; he would have ﬂed, but could not, for
the throng continually increased. And the duke pushed on
till he reached him, and struck him with great force. Whether
he died of that blow I know not, but it was said that he fell
under it, and rose no more.

“ The standard was beaten down, the golden standard was
taken, and Harold and the best of his friends were slain; but
there was so much eagerness, and throng of so many around,
seeking to kill him, that I know not who it was that slew him.

“The English were in great trouble at having lost their
king, and at the duke’s having conquered and beat down the
standard; but they still fought on, and defended themselves

i ’1‘..'.’. a-..

212 DECISIVE BATTLES [I066

long, and in fact till the day drew to a close. Then it clearly
appeared to all that the standard was lost, and the news had
spread throughout the army that Harold for certain was dead;
and all saw that there was no longer any hope, so they left
the ﬁeld, and those ﬂed who could.

“William fought well; many an assault did he lead, many
a blow did he give, and many receive, and many fell dead
under his hand. Two horses were killed under him, and he
took a third at time of need, so that he fell not to the ground ;
and he lost not a drop of blood. But whatever any one did,
and whoever lived or died, this is certain, that William con-
quered, and that many of the English ﬂed from the ﬁeld, and
many died on the spot. Then he returned thanks to God,
and in his pride ordered his standard to be brought and set
up on high where the English standard had stood; and that
was the signal of his having conquered and beaten down the
foe. And he ordered his tent to be raised on the spot among
the dead, and had his meat brought thither, and his supper
prepared there.

“ Then he took off his armor; and the barons and knights,
pages and squires, came when he had unstrung his shield;
and they took the helmet from his head, and the hauberk
from his back, and saw the heavy blows upon his shield, and
how his helmet was dinted in. And all greatly wondered,
and said, ‘Such a baron never bestrode war-horse, or dealt
such blows, or did such feats of arms; neither has there
been on earth such a knight since Rollant and Olivier.’

“Thus they lauded and extolled him greatly, and rejoiced
in What they saw; but grieving also for their friends who
were slain in the battle. And the duke stood meanwhile
among them of. noble stature and mien; and rendered thanks
to the King of Glory, through whom he had the victory; and
thanked the knights around him, mourning also frequently
for the dead. And he ate and drank among the dead, and
made his bed that night upon the ﬁeld.

“The morrow was Sunday; and those who had slept upon
the ﬁeld of battle, keeping watch around, and suffering great
fatigue, bestirred themselves at break of day, and sought out
and buried such of the bodies of their dead friends as they
might ﬁnd. The noble ladies of the land also came, some to

 

 

/ 1066] BATTLE OF HASTINGS 2 I 3

seek their husbands, and others their fathers, sons, or brothers.
They bore the bodies to their villages, and interred them at
the churches; and the clerks and priests of the country were
ready, and at the request of their friends took the bodies that
were found and prepared graves and laid them therein.

“King Harold was carried and buried at Varham; but I
know not who it was that bore him thither, neither do I know
who buried him. Many remained on the ﬁeld, and many had
ﬂed in the night.”

Such is a Norman account of the battle of Hastings, which
does full justice to the valor of the Saxons, as well as to the
skill and bravery of the victors. It is indeed evident that
the loss of the battle to the English was owing to the wound
which Harold received in the afternoon, and which must
have incapacitated him from effective command. When we
remember that he hadhimself just won the battle of Stam‘
ford Bridge over Harald Hardrada by the maneuver of a
feigned ﬂight, it is impossible to suppose that he could be
deceived by the same stratagem on the part of the Normans
at Hastings. But his men, when deprived of his control,
would very naturally be led by their inconsiderate ardor into
the pursuit that proved so fatal to them. All the narratives
of the battle, however much they may vary as to the precise
time and manner of Harold’s fall, eulogize the generalship
and the personal prowess which he displayed until the fatal
arrow struck him. The skill with which he had posted his
army was proved, both by the slaughter which it cost the
Normans to force the position, and also by the desperate
rally which some of the Saxons made, after the battle, in the
forest in the rear, in which they cut off a large number of
the pursuing Normans. This circumstance is particularly
mentioned by William of Poitiers, the Conqueror’s own chap-
lain. Indeed, if Harold, or either of his brothers, had sur—
vived, the remains of the English army might have formed
again in the wood, and could at least have effected an orderly
retreat, and prolonged the war. But both Gurth and Leof-
wine, and all the bravest thanes of Southern England, lay
dead on Senlac, around their fallen king and the fallen stand-
ard of their country. The exact number of the slain on the
Saxon side is unknown; but we read that on the side of the

214 DECISIVE BATTLES [1066

victors, out of sixty thousand men who had been engaged,
no less than a fourth perished; so well had the English bill-
men “ plied the ghastly blow,” and so sternly had the Saxon
battle-ax cloven Norman casque and mail.1 The old histo-
rian Daniel justly as well as forcibly remarks, “Thus was
tried, by the great assize of God’s judgment in battle, the
right of power between the English and Norman nations; a
battle the most memorable of all others, and, however misera-
bly lost, yet most nobly fought on the part of England.”
Many a pathetic legend was told in after-years respecting
the discovery and the burial of the corpse of our last Saxon
king. The main circumstances, though they seem to vary,
are perhaps reconcilable.2 Two of the monks of Waltham
Abbey, which Harold had founded a little time before his
election to the throne, had accompanied him to the battle.
On the morning after the slaughter they begged and gained
permission of the Conqueror to search for the body of their
benefactor. The Norman soldiery and camp-followers had
stripped and gashed the slain; and the two monks vainly
strove to recognize from among the mutilated and gory heaps

around them the features of their former king. They sent '

for Harold’s mistress, Edith, surnamed “the Fair” and the
“ Swan-necked,” to aid them. The eye of love proved keener
than the eye of gratitude, and the Saxon lady, even in that
Aceldama, knew her Harold.

The king’s mother now sought the victorious Norman, and
begged the dead body of her son. But William at ﬁrst
answered in his wrath, and in the hardness of his heart,
that a man who had been false to his word and his religion
should have no other sepulcher than the sand of the shore.
He added, with a sneer, “ Harold mounted guard on the coast
.while he was alive; he may continue his guard now he is
dead.” The taunt was an unintentional eulogy; and a grave
washed by the spray of the Sussex waves would have been
the noblest burial-place for the martyr of Saxon freedom.
But Harold’s mother was urgent in her lamentations and her
prayers; the Conqueror relented; like Achilles, he gave up
the dead body of his fallen foe to a parent’s supplications;
and the remains of King Harold were deposited with regal
honors in Waltham Abbey.

3
J
A
l

 

1066] BATTLE OF HASTINGS 2 I 5

On Christmas day of the same year, William the Con-
queror was crowned at London king of England.

NOTES

1 The Conqueror’s chaplain calls the Saxon battle-axes “smvissimas
secures.”

9 See them collected in Lingard, vol. i., p. 452 et seq.,- Thierry, vol. i.,
p. 299; Sharon Turner, vol. i., p. 82; and “Histoire de Normandie” par

Lieguet, p. 242.

SYNOPSIS OF EVENTS BETWEEN THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS,
1066, AND JOAN OF ARc’s VICTORY AT ORLEANS, 1429

1066 to 1087. Reign of William the Conqueror. Frequent
risings of the English against him, which are quelled with
merciless rigor.

1096. The ﬁrst crusade.

1112. Commencement of the disputes about investitures
between the emperors and the popes.

1 140. Foundation of the city of Liibeck, whence originated
the Hanseatic League. Commencement of the feuds in Italy
between the Guelphs and Ghibellines.

I 146. The second crusade.

1154. Henry II. becomes king of England. Under him
Thomas a Becket is made Archbishop of Canterbury: the
ﬁrst instance of any man of the Saxon race being raised to
high ofﬁce in Church or State since the Conquest.

I 170. Strongbow, Earl of Pembroke, lands with an English
army in Ireland.

1189. Richard Coeur de Lion becomes king of England.
He and King Philip Augustus of France join in the third
Crusade.

1199 to 1204. On the death of King Richard, his brother
John claims and makes himself master of England and Nor-
mandy and the other large Continental possessions of the
early Plantagenet princes. Philip Augustus asserts the cause
of Prince Arthur, John’s nephew, against him. Arthur is
murdered, but the French king continues the war against
John, and conquers from him Normandy, Brittany, Anjou,
Maine, Touraine, and Poitiers.

1215. The barons, the freeholders, the citizens, and the

2 16 DECISIVE BATTLES [1066

yeomen of England rise against the tyranny of John and his
foreign favorites. They compel him to sign Magna Charta.
This is the commencement of our nationality; for our history
from this time forth is the history of a national life, then
complete, and still in being. All English history before this
period is a mere history of elements, of their collisions, and
of the processes of their fusion. For upward of a century
after the Conquest, Anglo-Norman and Anglo-Saxon had
kept aloof from each other: the one in haughty scorn, the
other in sullen abhorrence. They were two peoples, though
living in the same land. It is not until the thirteenth cen-
tury, the period of the reigns of John and his son and grand-
son, that we can perceive the existence of any feeling of
common patriotism among them. But in studying the his-
tory of these reigns, we read of the old dissensions no longer.
The Saxon no more appears in civil war against the Norman; .
the Norman no longer scorns the language of the Saxon, or
refuses to bear together with him the name of Englishman.
No part of the community think themselves foreigners to
another part. They feel that they are all one people, and
they have learned to unite their efforts for the common pur-.
pose of protecting the rights and promoting the welfare of
all. The fortunate loss of the Duchy of Normandy in John’s
reign greatly promoted these new feelings. Thenceforth our
barons’ only homes were in England. One language had,
in the reign of Henry III., become the language of the land;
and that, also, had then assumed the form in which we still
possess it. One law, in the eye of which all freemen are
equal without distinction of race, was modeled, and steadily
enforced, and still continues to form the groundwork of our
judicial system.

1273. Rudolph of Hapsburg chosen emperor of Germany.

1283. Edward I. conquers Wales.

1346. Edward III. invades France, and gains the battle of
Cressy. ’

1356. Battle of Poitiers.

I360. Treaty of Bretigny between England and France.
By it Edward III. renounces his pretensions to the French
crown. The treaty is ill kept, and indecisive hostilities con-
tinue between the forces of the two countries.

 

warts-sever? *" '“ ~

1066] BATTLE OF HASTINGS 217

1414. Henry V. of England claims the crown of France,
and resolves to invade and conquer that kingdom. At this
time France was in the most deplorable state of weakness
and suffering, from the factions that raged among her nobil-
ity, and from the cruel oppressions Which the rival nobles
practised on the mass of the community. “ The people were
exhausted by taxes, civil wars, and military executions; and
they had fallen into that worst of all states of mind, when
the independence of one’s country is thought no longer a
paramount and sacred object. ‘What can the English do to
us worse than the things we suffer at the hands of our own
princes?’ was a common exclamation among the poor people
of F rance.”

I415. Henry invades France, takes Harﬁeur, and wins the
great battle of Agincourt.

I417 to 1419. Henry conquers Normandy. The French
dauphin assassinates the Duke of Burgundy, the most power-
ful of the French nobles, at Montereau. The successor of
the murdered duke becomes the active ally of the English.

I420. The Treaty of Troyes is concluded between Henry
V. of England and Charles VI. of France, and Philip, Duke
of Burgundy. By this treaty it was stipulated that Henry
should marry the Princess Catherine of France; that King
Charles, during his lifetime, should keep the title and dignity
of king of France, but that Henry should succeed him, and

should at once be entrusted with the administration of the gov-

ernment, and that the French crown should descend to Henry’s
heirs; that France and England should forever be united
under one king, but should still retain their several usages,
customs, and privileges; that all the princes, peers, vassals,
and communities of France should swear allegiance to Henry
as their future king, and should pay him present obedience
as regent; that Henry should unite his arms to those of King
Charles and the Duke of Burgundy, in order to subdue the
adherents of Charles, the pretended dauphin; and that these
three princes should make no truce or peace with the dauphin
but by the common consent of all three.

1421. Henry V. gains several victories over the French,
who refuse to acknowledge the Treaty of Troyes. His son,

afterwards Henry VI., is born.

218 DECISIVE BATTLES , [1066

1422. Henry V. and Charles VI. of France die. Henry
VI. is proclaimed at Paris king of England and France.
The followers of the French dauphin proclaim him Charles
VII., king of France. The Duke of Bedford, the English
regent in France, defeats the army of the dauphin at Crevant.

I424. The Duke of Bedford gains the great victory of
Verneuil, over the French partisans of the dauphin and their
Scotch auxiliaries.

I428. The English begin the siege of Orleans.

 

CHAPTER IX

form of Arc’: Victory over t/ze Eng/7512 at Orleans, 1429

“The eyes of all Europe were turned towards this scene; where, it was
reasonably supposed, the French were to make their last stand for main-

taining the independence of their monarchy and the rights of their sov-
ereign.” —— HUME.

HEN, after their victory at Salamis, the generals of
the various Greek states voted the prizes for dis-
tinguished individual merit, each assigned the ﬁrst

place of excellence to himself, but they all concurred in giv-
ing their second votes to Themistocles. This was looked on
as a decisive proof that Themistocles ought to be ranked ﬁrst
of all. If we were to endeavor, by a similar test, to ascertain
which European nation has contributed the most to the prog-
ress of European civilization, we should ﬁnd Italy, Germany,
England, and Spain each claiming the ﬁrst degree, but each
also naming France as clearly next in merit. It is impossible
to deny her paramount importance in history. Besides the
formidable part that she has for nearly three centuries played,
as the Bellona of the European commonwealth of states, her
inﬂuence during all this period over the arts, the literature,
the manners, and the feelings of mankind, has been such as
to make the crisis of her earlier fortunes a point of world-wide
interest; and it may be asserted without exaggeration that
the future career of every nation was involved in the result
of the struggle by which the unconscious heroine of France,
in the beginning of the ﬁfteenth century, rescued her country
from becoming a second Ireland under the yoke of the tri-
umphant English.

Seldom has the extinction of a nation’s independence ap-
peared more inevitable than was the case in France, when
the English invaders completed their lines round Orleans,

four hundred and twenty-three years ago. A series of dread-
219

 

220 DECISIVE BATTLES [I429

ful defeats had thinned the chivalry of France, and daunted
the spirits of her soldiers. A foreign king had been pro-
claimed in her capital; and foreign armies of the bravest
veterans, and led by the ablest captains then known in the
world, occupied the fairest portions of her territory. Worse
to her even than the ﬁerceness and the strength of her foes
were the factions, the vices, and the crimes of her own chil-
dren. Her native prince was a dissolute triﬂer, stained with
the assassination of the most powerful noble of the land,
whose son, in revenge, had leagued himself with the enemy.
Many more of her nobility, many of her prelates, her magis-
trates, and rulers, had sworn fealty to the English king. The
condition of the peasantry, amid the general prevalence of
anarchy and brigandage which were added to the customary
devastations of contending armies, was wretched beyond the
power of language to describe. The sense of terror and
suffering seemed to have extended itself even to the brute
creation.

“In sooth, the estate of France was then most miserable.
There appeared nothing but a horrible face, confusion, pov-
erty, desolation, solitarinesse, and feare. The lean and bare
labourers in the country did terriﬁe even theeves themselves,
who had nothing left them to spoile but the carkasses of
these poore miserable creatures, wandering up and down like
ghosts drawne out of their graves. The least farmes and
hamlets were fortiﬁed by these robbers, English, Bourgueg—
nons, and French, every one striving to do his worst; all men-
of-war were well agreed to spoile the countryman and merchant.
Even t/ze cattell, accustomed to Me Zamme 5e11, t/ze szgne of Me
enemy’s appmac/z, would run home of Memselves wz'l/zout any .
guide, 6y t/zz's aceusz‘omed misery.” [De Serres.]

In the autumn of 1428, the English, who were already
masters of all France north of the Loire, prepared their
forces for the conquest of the southern provinces, which yet
adhered to the cause of the dauphin. The city of Orleans,
on the banks of that river, was looked upon as the last
stronghold of the French national party. If the English
could once obtain possession of it, their victorious progress
through the residue of the kingdom seemed free from any
serious obstacle. Accordingly, the Earl of Salisbury, one of

 

 

I429] RELIEF OF ORLEANS 22!

the bravest and most experienced of the English generals,
who had been trained under Henry V., marched to the attack
of the all-important city; and, after reducing several places of
inferior consequence in the neighborhood, appeared with his
army before its walls on the 12th of October, 1428.

The city of Orleans itself was on the north side of the
Loire, but its suburbs extended far on the southern side, and
a strong bridge connected them with the town. A fortiﬁca- -
tion, which in modern military phrase would be termed a
téte-du-pont, defended the bridge-head on the southern side,
and two towers, called the Tourelles, were built on the bridge
itself, Where it rested on an island at a little distance from
the téte-du-pont. Indeed, the solid masonry of the bridge
terminated at the Tourelles, and the communication thence
with the téte-du-pont on the southern shore was by means of
a drawbridge. The Tourelles and the téte-du-pont formed
together a strong fortiﬁed post, capable of containing a gar~
rison of considerable strength: and so long as this was in
possession of the Orleannais, they could communicate freely
with the southern provinces, the inhabitants of which, like the
Orleannais themselves, supported the cause of their dauphin
against the foreigners. Lord Salisbury rightly judged the
capture of the Tourelles to be the most material step towards
the reduction of the city itself. Accordingly he directed his
principal operations against this post, and, after some very
severe repulses, he carried the Tourelles by storm, on the 23d
of October. The French, however, broke down the part of
the bridge which was nearest to the north bank, and thus
rendered a direct assault from the Tourelles upon the city
impossible. But the possession of this post enabled the Eng
lish to distress the town greatly by a battery of cannon which
they planted there, and which commanded some of the prin-
cipal streets. g

It has been observed by Hume that this is the ﬁrst siege
in which any important use appears to have been made of
artillery. And even at Orleans both besiegers and besieged
seem to have employed their cannons more as instruments of
destruction against their enemy’s men, than as engines of
demolition" against their enemy’s walls and works. The
efﬁcacy of cannon in breaching solid masonry was taught

222 DECISIVE BATTLES [1429 \

Europe by the Turks, a few years afterwards, at the memora-
ble siege of Constantinople. In our French wars, as in the
wars of the classic nations, famine was looked on as the
surest weapon to compel the submission of a well-walled
town; and the great object of the besiegers was to effect a
complete circumvallation. The great ambit of the walls of
Orleans, and the facilities which the river gave for obtaining
succor and supplies, rendered the capture of the place by
this process a matter of great difﬁculty. Nevertheless, Lord
Salisbury, and Lord Suffolk, who succeeded him in command
of the English after his death by a cannon-ball, carried on
the necessary works with great skill and resolution. Six
strongly fortiﬁed posts, called bastilles, were formed at cer-
tain intervals round the town; and the purpose of the English
engineers was to draw strong lines between them. During
the winter little progress was made with the entrenchments,
but when the spring of 1429 came, the English resumed their
works with activity; the communications between the city
and the country became more difﬁcult, and the approach of
want began already to be felt in Orleans.

The besieging force also fared hardly for stores and provi-i

sions, until relieved by the effects of a brilliant victory which
Sir John Fastolfe, one of the best English generals, gained at
Rouvrai, near Orleans, a few days after Ash Wednesday, 1429.
With only sixteen hundred ﬁghting men, Sir John completely
defeated an army of French and Scots, four thousand strong,
which had been collected for the purpose of aiding the Or-
leannais and harassing the besiegers. After this encounter,
which seemed decisively to conﬁrm the superiority of the
English in battle over their adversaries, Fastolfe escorted large
supplies of stores and food to Suffolk’s camp, and the spirits
of the English rose to the highest pitch at the prospect of the
speedy capture of the city before them, and the consequent
subjection of all France beneath their arms.

The Orleannais now in their distress offered to surrender the
city into the hands of the Duke of Burgundy, Who, though
the ally of the English, was yet one of their native princes.
The Regent Bedford refused these terms, and the speedy
submission of the city to the English seemed inevitable. The
Dauphin Charles, who was now at Chinon with his remnant

xii-8:442:14 ). u. t

 

3
l

 

1429] RELIEF OF ORLEANS 223

of a court, despaired of maintaining any longer the struggle
for his crown; and was only prevented from abandoning the
country by the more masculine spirits of his mistress and his
queen. Yet neither they, nor the boldest of Charles’s captains,
could have shown him where to ﬁnd resources for prolonging
the war; and least of all could any human skill have predicted
the quarter whence rescue was to come to Orleans and to
France.

In the village of Domrémy, on the borders of Lorraine,
there was a poor peasant of the name of Jacques d’Arc, re-
spected in his station of life, and who had reared a family in
virtuous habits and in the practise of the strictest devotion.
His eldest daughter was named by her parents Jeannette, but
she was called Jeanne by the French, which was Latinized
into Johanna, and Anglicized into Joan.

At the time when Joan ﬁrst attracted attention she was
about eighteen years of age. She was naturally of a suscep-
tible disposition, which diligent attention to the legends of
saints and tales of fairies, aided by the dreamy loneliness of
her life while tending her father’s ﬂocks,1 had made peculiarly
prone to enthusiastic fervor. At the same time she was em-
inent for piety and purity of soul, and for her compassionate
gentleness to the sick and the distressed.

The district where she dwelt had escaped comparatively
7 free from the ravages of war, but the approach of roving bands
of Burgundian or English troops frequently spread terror
through Domrémy. Once the village had been plundered by
some of these marauders, and Joan and her family had been
driven from their home, and forced to seek refuge for a time
at Neufchateau. The peasantry in Domrémy were principally
attached to the House of Orleans and the dauphin; and all
the miseries which France endured were there imputed to the
_ Burgundian faction and their allies, the English, who were
seeking to enslave unhappy France.

Thus from infancy to girlhood Joan had heard continually
of the woes of the war, and she had herself witnessed some
of the wretchedness that it caused. A feeling of intense
patriotism grew in her with her growth. The deliverance of
France from the English was the subject of her reveries by
day and her dreams by night. Blended with these aspira-

224 DECISIVE BATTLES [r429

tions were recollections of the miraculous interpositions of
Heaven in favor of the oppressed, which she had learned
from the legends of her church. Her faith was undoubting;
her prayers were fervent. “She feared no danger, for she
felt no sin”; and at length she believed herself to have
received the supernatural inspiration which she sought.
According to her own narrative, delivered by her to her
merciless inquisitors in the time of her captivity and approach-
ing death, she was about thirteen years old when her revela-
tions commenced. Her own words describe them best: “ At
the age of thirteen, a voice from God came near to her to
help her in ruling herself, and that voice came to her about
the hour of noon, in summer-time, while she was in her father’s
garden. And she had fasted the day before. And she heard
the voice on her right, in the direction of the church; and
when she heard the voice she also saw a bright light. After-
wards, St. Michael and St. Margaret and St. Catherine
appeared to her. They were always in a halo of glory; she
could see that their heads were crowned with jewels; and she
heard their voices, which were sweet and mild. She did not
distinguish their arms or limbs. She heard them more fre- ‘
quently than she saw them; and the usual time when she
heard them was when the church bells were sounding for
prayer. And if she was in the woods when she heard them,
she could plainly distinguish their voices drawing near to her.
When she thought that she discerned the heavenly voices,
she knelt down, and bowed herself to the ground. Their
presence gladdened her even to tears; and after they departed
she wept because they had not taken her with them back to
Paradise. They always spoke soothingly to her. They told
her that France would be saved, and that she was to save it.”
Such were the visions and the voices that moved the spirit of
the girl of thirteen; and as she grew older they became more
frequent and more clear. At last the tidings of the siege of
Orleans reached Domrémy. Joan heard her parents and
neighbors talk of the sufferings of its population, of the ruin
which its capture would bring on their lawful sovereign, and
of the distress of the dauphin and his court. Joan’s heart
was sorely troubled at the thought of the fate of Orleans;
and her voices now ordered her to leave her home, and

 

 

x429] RELIEF OF ORLEANS 225

warned her that she was the instrument chosen by Heaven
for driving away the English from that city, and for taking
the dauphin to be anointed king at Rheims. At length she
informed her parents of her divine mission, and told them
that she must go to the Sire de Baudricourt, who commanded
at Vaucouleurs, and who was the appointed person to bring
her into the presence of the king, whom she was to save.
Neither the anger nor the grief of her parents, who said that
they would rather see her drowned than exposed to the con-
tamination of the camp, could move her from her purpose.
One of her uncles consented to take her to Vaucouleurs, where
De Baudricourt at ﬁrst thought her mad, and derided her;
but by degrees was led to believe, if not in her inspiration, at
least in her enthusiasm and in its possible utility to the
dauphin’s cause.

The inhabitants of Vaucouleurs were completely won over
to her side by the piety and devoutness which she displayed,
and by her ﬁrm assurance in the truth of her mission. She
told them that it was God’s will that she should go to the
king, and that no one but her could save the kingdom of
France. She said that she herself would rather remain with
her poor mother and spin; but the Lord had ordered her
forth. The fame of “The Maid,” as she was termed, the
renown of her holiness and of her mission, spread far and
Wide. Baudricourt sent her with an escort to Chinon, where
the Dauphin Charles was dallying away his time. Her voices
had hidden her assume the arms and the apparel of a knight;
and the wealthiest inhabitants of Vaucouleurs had vied with
each other in equipping her with war-horse, armor, and sword.
On reaching Chinon, she was, after some delay, admitted into
the presence of the dauphin. Charles designedly dressed
himself far less richly than many of his courtiers were
apparelled, and mingled with them, when Joan was intro-
duced, in order to see if the Holy Maid would address her
exhortations to the wrong person. But she instantly singled
him out, and, kneeling before him, said, “ Most noble dauphin,
the King of Heaven announces to you by me that you shall
be anointed and crowned king in the city of Rheims, and that
you shall be his vicegerent in France.” His features may
probably have been seen by her previously in portraits, or

15

226 DECISIVE BATTLES [1429

have been described to her by others; but she herself believed
that her voices inspired her when she addressed the king;
and the report soon spread abroad that the Holy Maid had
found the king by a miracle; and this, with many other
similar rumors, augmented the renown and inﬂuence that she
now rapidly acquired.

The state of public feeling in France was now favorable to
an enthusiastic belief in divine interposition in favor of the
party that had hitherto been unsuccessful and oppressed.
The humiliations which had befallen the French royal family
and nobility were looked on as the just judgments of God
upon them for their vice and impiety. The misfortunes that
had come upon France as a nation were believed to have been
drawn down by national sins. The English, who had been
the instruments of Heaven’s wrath against France, seemed
now by their pride and cruelty to be ﬁtting objects of it them-
selves. France in that age was a profoundly religious country.
There was ignorance, there was superstition, there was bigotry;
but there was faith — a faith that itself worked true miracles,
even while it believed in unreal ones. At this time, also, one
of those devotional movements began among the clergy in-
France which from time to time occur in national churches
without it being possible for the historian to assign any ade-
quate human cause for their immediate date or extension.
Numberless friars and priests traversed the rural districts and
towns of France, preaching to the people that they must seek
from Heaven a deliverance from the pillages of the soldiery
and the insolence of the foreign oppressors. The idea of a
Providence that works only by general laws was wholly alien
to the feelings of the age. Every political event, as well as
every natural phenomenon, was believed to be the immediate
result of a special mandate of God. This led to the belief
that his holy angels and saints were constantly employed in
executing his commands and mingling in the affairs of men.
The church encouraged these feelings, and at the same time
sanctioned the concurrent popular belief that hosts of evil
spirits were also ever actively interposing in the current of
earthly events, with whom sorcerers and wizards could league
themselves and thereby obtain the exercise of supernatural
power.

 

 

 

 

x429] RELIEF OF ORLEANS 227

Thus all things favored the inﬂuence which Joan obtained
both over friends and foes. The French nation, as well as
the English and the Burgundians, readily admitted that super-
human beings inspired her: the only question was, whether
these beings were good or evil angels; whether she brought
with her “ airs from heaven, or blasts from hell.” This ques-
tion seemed to her countrymen to be decisively settled in her
favor by the austere sanctity of her life, by the holiness of
her conversation, but, still more, by her exemplary attention
toall the services and rites of the church. The dauphin at
ﬁrst feared the injury that might be done to his cause if he
had laid himself open to the charge of having leagued him-
self with a sorceress. Every imaginable test, therefore, was
resorted to in order to set Joan’s orthodoxy and purity beyond
suspicion. At last Charles and his advisers felt safe in accept-
ing her services as those of a true and virtuous daughter of
the Holy Church.

It is indeed probable that Charles himself, and some of his
counselors, may have suspected Joan of being a mere enthu-
siast; and it is certain that Dunois, and others of the best
generals, took considerable latitude in obeying or deviating
from the military orders that she gave. But over the mass
of the people and the soldiery, her inﬂuence was unbounded.
While Charles and his doctors of theology and court ladies
had been deliberating as to recognizing or dismissing the
Maid, a considerable period had passed away, during which a
small army, the last gleanings, as it seemed, of the English
sword, had been assembled at Blois, under Dunois, La Hire,
Xaintrailles, and other chiefs, who to their natural valor were
now beginning to unite the wisdom that is taught by mis-
fortune. It was resolved to send Joan with this force and a
convoy of provisions to Orleans. The distress of that city
had now become urgent. But the communication with the
open country was not entirely cut off; the Orleannais had
heard of the Holy Maid whom Providence had raised up for
their deliverance, and their messengers urgently implored the
dauphin to send her to them without delay.

Joan appeared at the camp at Blois, clad in a new suit of
brilliant white armor, mounted on a stately black war-horse,
and With a lance in her right hand, which she had learned to

.g .
' ;_‘_ .34 PF”.

228 DECISIVE BATTLES [I429

wield with skill and grace. Her head was unhelmeted; so
that all could behold her fair and expressive features, her
deep-set and earnest eyes, and her long black hair, which was
parted across her forehead and bound by a ribbon behind her
back. She wore at her side a small battle-ax, and‘ the con-
secrated sword, marked on the blade with ﬁve crosses, which
had at her bidding been taken for her from the shrine of St.
Catherine at F ierbois. A page carried her banner, which she
had caused to be made and embroidered as her voices enjoined.
It was white satin, strewn with ﬂeur—de-lis; and on it were the
words “ JHEsus MARIA,” and the representation of the Saviour
in his glory. Joan afterwards generally bore her banner her-
self in battle; she said that though she loved her sword
much, she loved her banner forty times as much; and she.
loved to carry it because it could not kill any one.

Thus accoutered, she came to lead the troops of France, who
looked with soldierly admiration on her well-proportioned and
upright ﬁgure, the skill with which she managed her war-horse,
and the easy grace with which she handled her weapons.
Her military education had been short, but she had availed ‘
herself of it well. She had also the good sense to interfere
little with the maneuvers of the troops, leaving those things
to Dunois and others whom she had the discernment to recog-
nize as the best ofﬁcers in the camp. Her tactics in action
were simple enough. As she herself described it, “I used to
say to them, ‘ Go boldly in among the English,’ and then I
used to go boldly in myself.” Such, as she told her inquisi—
tors, was the only spell she used; and it was one of power.
But while interfering little with the military discipline of the
. troops, in all matters of moral discipline she was inﬂexibly
strict. All the abandoned followers of the camp were driven
away. She compelled both generals and soldiers to attend
regularly at confessional. Her chaplain and other priests
marched with the army under her orders; and at every halt
an altar was set up and the sacrament administered. No oath
or foul language passed without punishment or censure.
Even the roughest and most hardened veterans obeyed her.
They put off for a time the bestial coarseness which had
grown on them during a life of bloodshed and rapine ; they
felt that they must go forth in a new Spirit to a new career,

 

 

1429] , RELIEF OF ORLEANS 229

and acknowledged the beauty of the holiness in which the
heaven~sent Maid was leading them to certain victory.

Joan marched from Blois on the 25th of April with a convoy
of provisions for Orleans, accompanied by Dunois, La Hire,
and the other chief captains of the French; and on the even-
ing of the 28th they approached the town. In the words of
the old chronicler Hall: “The Englishmen, perceiving that
they within could not long continue for faute of vitaile and
ponder, kepte not their watche so diligently as thei were
accustomed, nor scoured now the countrey environed as thei
before had ordained. Whiche negligence the citizens shut in
perceiving, sente worde thereof to the French captaines, which
with Pucelle in the dedde tyme of the nighte, and in a greate
rayne and thundere, with all their vitaile and artillery entered
into the citie.”

When it was day, the Maid rode in solemn procession
through the city, clad in complete armor, and mounted on a
white horse. Dunois was by her side, and all the bravest
knights of her army and of the garrison followed in her train.
. The whole population thronged around her; and men, women,
and children strove to touch her garments or her banner or
her charger. They poured forth blessings on her whom they
already considered their deliverer. In the words used by two
of them afterwards before the tribunal which reversed the
Sentence, but could not restore the life, of the Virgin-martyr
of France, “the people of Orleans, when they ﬁrst saw her in
their city, thought that it was an angel from heaven that had
come down to save them.” Joan spoke gently in reply to
their acclamations and addresses. She told them to fear God,
and trust in him for safety from the fury of their enemies.
She ﬁrst went to the principal church, where T e Deum was
chanted; and then she took up her abode in the house of
Jacques Bourgier, one of the principal citizens, and whose
wife was a matron of good repute. She refused to attend a
splendid banquet which had been provided for her, and passed
nearly all her time in prayer.

When it was known by the English that the Maid was in
Orleans, their minds were not less occupied about her than
were the minds of those in the city; but it was in a very
different spirit. The English believed in her supernatural

230 DECISIVE BATTLES [x429

mission as ﬁrmly as the French did; but they thought her a
sorceress who had come to overthrow them by her enchant—
ments. An old prophecy, which told that a damsel from
Lorraine was to save France, had long been current; and it
was known and applied to Joan by foreigners as well as by
the natives. For months the English had heard of the com-
ing Maid; and the tales of miracles which she was said to
have wrought had been listened to by the rough yeomen of
the English camp with anxious curiosity and secret awe. She
had sent a herald to the English generals before she marched
for Orleans; and he had summoned the English generals in
the name of the Most High to give up to the Maid who was
sent by Heaven the keys of the French cities which they had
wrongfully taken; and he also solemnly adjured the English
troops, whether archers, or men of the companies of war, or
gentlemen, or others, who were before the city of Orleans,
to depart thence to their homes, under peril of being visited
by the judgment of God. On her arrival in Orleans, Joan
sent another similar message ; but the English scoffed at her
from their towers, and threatened to burn her heralds. She~
determined before she shed the blood of the besiegers, to
repeat the warning with her own voice; and accordingly she
mounted one of the boulevards of the town, which was within
hearing of the Tourelles; and thence she spoke to the Eng-
lish, and bade them depart, otherwise they would meet with
shame and woe. Sir William Gladsdale (whom the French
call Glacz'das) commanded the English post at the Tourelles,
and he and another English ofﬁcer replied by bidding her go
home and keep her cows, and by ribald jests, that brought
tears of shame and indignation into her eyes. But though
the English leaders vaunted aloud, the effect produced on
their army by Joan’s presence in Orleans was proved four days
after her arrival; when, on the approach of reenforcements
and stores to the town, Joan and La Hire marched out to
meet them, and escorted the long train of provision wagons
safely into Orleans, between the bastilles of the English, who
cowered behind their walls, instead of charging ﬁercely and
fearlessly, as had been their wont, on any French band that
dared to show itself within reach.

Thus far she had prevailed without striking a. blow; but

 

1429] RELIEF OF ORLEANS 2 3!

the time was now come to test her courage amid the horrors
of actual slaughter. On the afternoon of the day on which
she had escorted the reenforcements into the city, While she
was resting fatigued at home, Dunois had seized an advan-
tageous opportunity of attacking the English bastille of St.
Loup; and a ﬁerce assault of the Orleannais had been made
on it, which the English garrison of the fort stubbornly re-
sisted. Joan was roused by a sound which she believed to
be that of her heavenly voices; she called for her arms and
horse, and, quickly equipping herself, she mounted to ride off
to where the ﬁght was raging. In her haste she had forgotten
her banner; she rode back, and, without dismounting, had it
given to her from the window, and then she galloped to the
gate, whence the sally had been made. On herway she met
some of the wounded French who had been carried back. from
the ﬁght. “Ha,” she exclaimed, “I never can see French
blood ﬂow without my hair standing on end.” She rode out
of the gate and met the tide of her countrymen, who had
been repulsed from the English fort and were ﬂying back to
Orleans in confusion. At the sight of the Holy Maid and
her banner they rallied, and renewed the assault. Joan rode
forward at their head, waving her banner and cheering them
on. The English quailed at what they believed to be the
charge of hell; St. Loup was stormed, and its defenders put
to the sword, except some few, whom Joan succeeded in sav-
ing. All her woman’s gentleness returned when the combat
was over. It was the ﬁrst time that she had ever seen a
battle-ﬁeld. She wept at the sight of so many blood—stained
and mangled corpses; and her tears ﬂowed doubly when she
reﬂected that they were the bodies of Christian men who had
died Without confession.

The next day was Ascension day, and it was passed by
Joan in prayer. But on the following morrow it was resolved
by the chiefs of the garrison to attack the English forts on
the south of the river. For this purpose they crossed the
river in boats, and after some severe ﬁghting, in which the
Maid was wounded in the heel, both the English bastilles of
the Augustins and St. Jean de Blanc were captured. The
Tourelles were now the only post which the besiegers held
on the south of the river. But that post was formidably

2 32 DECISIVE BATTLES [x429

strong, and by its command of the bridge it was the key to
the deliverance of Orleans. It was known that a fresh Eng-
lish army was approaching under Falstolfe to reenforce the
besiegers, and should that army arrive while the Tourelles
were yet in the possession of their comrades, there was great
peril of all the advantages which the French had gained be-
ing nulliﬁed, and of the siege being again actively carried on.

It was resolved, therefore, by the French, to assail the Tou—
relles at once, while the enthusiasm which the presence and
the heroic valor of the Maid had created was at its height.
But the enterprise was difﬁcult. The rampart of the téte—du-
pont, or landward bulwark, of the Tourelles was steep and
high; and Sir John Gladsdale occupied this all-important fort
with ﬁve hundred archers and men-at—arms who were the very
ﬂower of the English army.

Early in the morning of the 7th of May, some thousands of
the best French troops in Orleans heard mass and attended
the confessional by Joan’s orders; and then, crossing the
river in boats, as on the preceding day, they assailed the bul-
wark of the Tourelles, “with light hearts and heavy hands."
But Gladsdale’s men, encouraged by their bold and skilful
leader, made a resolute and able defense. The Maid planted
her banner on the edge of the fosse, and then, springing down
into the ditch, she placed the ﬁrst ladder against the wall, and
began to mount. An English archer sent an arrow at her,
which pierced her corselet and wounded her severely between
the neck and shoulder. She fell bleeding from the ladder;
and the English were leaping down from the wall to capture
her, but her followers bore her off. She was carried to the
rear, and laid upon the grass; her armor was taken off, and
the anguish of her wound and the sight of her blood made her
at ﬁrst tremble and weep. But her conﬁdence in her celes-
tial mission soon returned; her patron saints seemed to stand
before her and reassure her. She sat up and drew the arrow
out with her own hands. Some of .the soldiers who stood
by wished to stanch the blood, by saying a charm over the
wound; but she forbade them, saying that she did not wish
to be cured by unhallowed means. She had the wound
dressed with a little oil, and then, bidding her confessor
come to her, she betook herself to prayer.

 

 

x429] RELIEF OF ORLEANS 233

In the mean while, the English in the bulwark of the Tou-
relles had repulsed the oft-renewed efforts of the French to
scale the wall. Dunois, who commanded the assailants, was
at last discouraged, and gave orders for a retreat to be sounded.
Joan sent for him and the other generals, and implored them
not to despair. “ ‘ By my God,’ she said to them, ‘you shall
sOon enter in there. Do not doubt it. When you see my ban-
ner wave again up to the wall, to your arms again ! the fort is
yours. For the present rest a little, and take some food and
drink.’ They did so,” says the old chronicler of the siege, “ for
they obeyed her marvelously.” The faintness caused by her
wound had now passed off, and she headed the French in
another rush against the bulwark. The English, who had
thought her slain, were alarmed at her reappearance, while
the French pressed furiously and fanatically forward. A Bis-
cayan soldier was carrying Joan’s banner. She had told the
troops that directly the banner touched the wall they should
enter. The Biscayan waved the banner forward from the edge
of the fosse, and touched the wall with it; and then all the
French host swarmed madly up the ladders that now were
raised in all directions against the English fort. At this crisis,
the efforts of the English garrison were distracted by an attack
from another quarter. The French troops Who had been left
in Orleans had placed some planks over the broken part of the
bridge, and advanced across them to the assault of the Tou-
relles on the northern side. Gladsdale resolved to withdraw
his men from the landward bulwark, and concentrate his whole
force in the Tourelles themselves. He was passing for this
purpose across the drawbridge that connected the Tourelles
and the téte-du-pont, when Joan, who by this time had scaled
the wall of the bulwark, called out to him, “ Surrender, sur—
render to the King of Heaven. Ah, Glacidas, you have foully
wronged me with your words, but I have great pity on your
soul and the souls of your men.” The Englishman, disdain-
ful of her summons, was striding on across the drawbridge,
when a cannon-shot from the town carried it away, and Glads-

dale perished in the water that ran beneath. After his fall, -

the remnant of the English abandoned all further resistance.
Three hundred of them had been killed in the battle, and two
hundred were made prisoners.

2 34 DECISIVE BATTLES [I429

The broken arch was speedily repaired by the exulting
Orleannais; and Joan made her triumphal reentry into the
city by the bridge that had so long been closed. Every
church in Orleans rang out its gratulating peal; and through-
out the night the sounds of rejoicing echoed, and the bonﬁres
blazed up from the city. But in the lines and forts which the
besiegers yet retained on the northern shore, there was anx— ,
ious watching of the generals, and there was desponding
gloom among the soldiery. Even Talbot now counseled
retreat. On the following morning, the Orleannais, from
their walls, saw the great forts called “London” and “St.
Lawrence,” in ﬂames, and witnessed their invaders busy in
destroying the stores and munitions which had been relied on
for the destruction of Orleans. Slowly and sullenly the Eng-
lish army retired; but not before it had drawn up in battle
array opposite to the city, as if to challenge the garrison to
an encounter. The French troops were eager to go out and
attack, but Joan forbade it. The day was Sunday. “ In the
name of God,” she said, “let them depart, and let us return
thanks to God.” She led the soldiers and citizens forth from
Orleans, but not for the shedding of blood. They passed
in solemn procession round the city walls; and then, while
their retiring enemies were yet in sight, they knelt in thanks-
giving to God for the deliverance which he had vouchsafed
them.

Within three months from the time of her ﬁrst interview
with the dauphin, Joan had fulﬁlled the ﬁrst part of her
promise, the raising of the siege of Orleans. Within three
months more she fulﬁlled the second part also; and she
stood with her banner in her hand by the high altar at Rheims
while he was anointed and crowned as King Charles VII. of
France. In the interval she had taken Jargeau, Troyes, and
other strong places; and she had defeated an English army
in a fair ﬁeld at Patay. The enthusiasm of her countrymen
knew no bounds; but the importance of her services, and
especially of her primary achievement at Orleans, may per-
haps be best proved by the testimony of her enemies. There
is extant a fragment of a letter from the Regent Bedford to
his royal nephew, Henry VI., in which he bewails the turn
that the war had taken, and especially attributes it to the

 

 

2429] RELIEF OF ORLEANS 23 5

raising 0f the siege of Orleans by Joan. Bedford's own
words, which are preserved in Rymer, are as follows :—

“And alle Ming Mere prospered for you til Me tyme of Me
Siege of Orleans, taken in lzaad, God ImoweM by what adm's.

“At Me w/zic/ze tyme, after Me adventure fallen z‘o Me per-
soae of my cousin of Salisbury, w/zom God assoille, Merefelle,
by Me Izaaa’ of God as it seemeM, a great strooé upon your
peuple Mat was assemoled Mere in grez‘e nombre, caused in
grez‘e parz‘ie, as y trowe, of lalaée of sadde beleve, and of imleve-
falle doaéz‘e, Mat Mei hadde of a disciple and lyme of Me Feeade,
called Me Pitcelle, Mat used fals encaam‘mem‘s and sorcerie.

“ The waic/ze strooée and discomﬁmre not ooaly lessed in
grez‘e partie Me nombre of your peaple Mere, out as well wit/z-
drewe Me courage of Me remerzaizt iii merveilloas wyse, and
coaraiged your adverse partie and eaaemyspto assemole Mem
foeriM in grete aomore.”

When Charles had been anointed king of France, Joan
believed that her mission was accomplished. And in truth
the deliverance of France from the English, though not com-
pleted for many years afterwards, was then insured. The
ceremony of a royal coronation and anointment was not in
those days regarded as a mere costly formality. It was
believed to confer the sanction and the grace of Heaven upon
the prince, who had previously ruled with mere human author-
ity. Thenceforth he was the Lord’s Anointed. Moreover,
one of the difﬁculties that had previously lain in the way of
many Frenchmen when called on to support Charles VII.
was now removed. He had been publicly stigmatized, even
by his own parents, as no true son of the royal race of France.
The queen mother, the English, and the partisans of Burgundy
called him the “ Pretender to the title of Dauphin ”; but those
who had been led to doubt his legitimacy were cured of their
skepticism by the victories of the Holy Maid, and by the ful-
ﬁlment of her pledges. They thought that Heaven had now
declared itself in favor of Charles as the true heir of the crown
of St. Louis; and the tales about his being spurious were
thenceforth regarded as mere English calumnies. With this
strong tide of national feeling in his favor, with victorious
generals and soldiers round him, and a dispirited and divided
enemy before him, he could not fail to conquer; though his

236 DECISIVE BATTLES [I429

own imprudence and misconduct, and the stubborn valor
which some of the English still displayed, prolonged the war
in France nearly to the time when the civil war of the Roses
broke out in England, and insured for France peace and
repose.

Joan knelt before the new-crowned king in the cathedral of
Rheims, and shed tears of joy. She said that she had then
fulﬁlled the work which the Lord had commanded her. The
young girl now asked for her dismissal. She wished to return
to her peasant home, to tend her parent’s ﬂocks again, and to
live at her own will in her native village. She had always
believed that her career would be a short one. But Charles
and his captains were loath to lose the presence of one who
had such an inﬂuence upon the soldiery and the people. They
persuaded her to stay with the army. She still showed the
same bravery and zeal for the cause of France. She was
as fervent as before in her prayers, and as exemplary in all
religious duties. She still heard her heavenly voices, but she
now no longer thought herself the appointed minister‘of
Heaven to lead her countrymen to certain victory. Our
admiration for her courage and patriotism ought to be
increased a hundred-fold by her conduct throughout the lat-
ter part of her career, amid dangers against which she no
longer believed herself to be divinely secured. Indeed, she
believed herself doomed to perish in a little more than a year;
but she still fought on as resolutely, if not as exultingly, as
ever.

As in the case of Arminius, the interest attached to indi-
vidual heroism and virtue makes us trace the fate of Joan of
Arc after she had saved her country. She served well with
Charles’s army in the capture of Laon, Soissons, Compiegne,
Beauvais, and other strong places; but in a premature attack
on Paris, in September, I429, the French were repulsed and
Joan was severely wounded. In the winter she was again in
the ﬁeld with some of the French troops; and in the follow-
ing spring she threw herself into the fortress of Compiegne,
which she had herself won for the French king in the pre-
ceding autumn, and which was now besieged by a strong
Burgundian force.

She was taken prisoner in a sally from Compiégne, on the

 

 

1429] RELIEF OF ORLEANS 237

24th of May, and was imprisoned by the Burgundians ﬁrst at
Arras, and then at a place called Crotoy, on the Flemish
coast, until November, when for payment of a large sum of
money she was given up to the English, and taken to Rouen,
which was then their main stronghold in France.

“Sorrow it were, and shame to tell,
The butchery that there befell.”

And the revolting details of the cruelties practised upon this
young girl may be left to those whose duty as avowed biogra-
phers it is to describe them.2 She was tried before an eccle-
siastical tribunal on the charge of witchcraft, and on the 30th
of May, I431, she was burned alive in the market-place at
Rouen.

I will add but one remark on the character of the truest
heroine that the world has ever seen.

If any person can be found in the present age who would
join in the scoffs of Voltaire against the Maid of Orleans and
the heavenly voices by which she believed herself inspired,
let him read the life of the wisest and best man that the
heathen nations ever produced. Let him read of the heav-
enly voice by which Socrates believed himself to be con-
stantly attended; which cautioned him on his way from the
ﬁeld of battle at Delium, and which from his boyhood to the
time of his death visited him with unearthly warnings. Let
the modern reader reﬂect upon this; and then, unless he is
prepared to term Socrates either fool or impostor, let him not
dare to deride or vilify Joan of Arc.

NOTES

1 Southey, in one of the speeches which he puts in the mouth of his
Joan of Arc, has made her beautifully describe the effect on her mind of the
scenery in which she dwelt : —

“ Here in solitude and peace
My soul was nurst, amid the loveliest scenes
Of unpolluted nature. Sweet it was,
As the white mists of morning rolled away,
To see the mountain’s wooded heights appear
Dark in the early dawn, and mark its slope
With gorse—ﬂowers glowing, as the rising sun
0n the golden ripeness poured a deepening light.

238 DECISIVE BATTLES [1429

Pleasant at noon beside the vocal brook

To lay me down, and watch the ﬂoating clouds,
And shape to F ancy’s wild similitudes

Their ever—varying forms; and oh, how sweet,
To drive my ﬂock at evening to the fold,

And hasten to our little hut, and hear

The voice of kindness bid me welcome home!”

The only foundation for the story told by the Burgundian partisan Mon-
strelet, and adopted by Hume, of Joan having been brought up as servant
at an inn, is the circumstance of her having been once, with the rest of her
family, obliged to take refuge in an auberge in N eufchateau for ﬁfteen days,
when a party of Burgundian cavalry made an incursion in Domrémy.

2 The whole of the “ Proces de Condamnation et de Rehabilitation de
Jeanne d’Arc” has been published in ﬁve volumes by the Société de l‘His-
toire de France. All the passages from contemporary chroniclers and poets
are added; and the most ample materials are thus given for acquiring full
information on a subject which is, to an Englishman, one of painful interest.

SYNOPSIS OF EVENTS BETWEEN IOAN OF ARc’s VICTORY AT
ORLEANS, 1429, AND THE DEFEAT OF THE SPANISH AR-
MADA, 1588

1452. Final expulsion of the English from France.

145 3. Constantinople taken, and the Roman empire of the
East destroyed by the Turkish Sultan Mahomet II.

145 5. Commencement of the civil wars in England between
the houses of York and Lancaster.

1479. Union of the Christian kingdoms of Spain under
Ferdinand and Isabella.

1492. Capture of Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella, and
end of the Moorish dominion in Spain.

1492. Columbus discovers the New World.

1494. Charles VIII. of France invades Italy.

1497. Expedition of Vasco di Gama to the East Indies
round the Cape of Good Hope.

1503. Naples conquered from the French by the great
Spanish general, Gonsalvo of Cordova.

I 508. League of Cambray, by the pope, the emperor, and
the king of France, against Venice.

1509. Albuquerque establishes the empire of the Portu-
guese in the East Indies.

1516. Death of Ferdinand of Spain; he is succeeded by
his grandson Charles, afterwards the Emperor Charles V.

 

1429] , RELIEF OF ORLEANS 239

1517. Dispute between Luther and Tetzel respecting the
sale of indulgences, which is the immediate cause of the Ref—
ormation.

I 519. Charles V. is elected emperor of Germany.

1520. Cortez conquers Mexico.

I 525. Francis I. of France defeated and taken prisoner by
the imperial army at Pavia.

1529. League of Smalcald formed by the Protestant
princes of Germany.

I 533. Henry VIII. renounces the papal supremacy.

1533. Pizarro conquers Peru.

1556. Abdication of the Emperor Charles V. Philip II
becomes king of Spain, and Ferdinand I. emperor of Ger-
many.

I 5 57. Elizabeth becomes queen of England.

I 557. The Spaniards defeat the French at the battle of St.
Quentin.

1571. Don john of Austria at the head of the Spanish
ﬂeet, aided by the Venetian and the papal squadrons, defeats
the Turks at Lepanto.

1572. Massacre of the Protestants in France on St. Bar-
tholomew’s day.

I 579. The Netherlands revolt against Spain.

1580. Philip II. conquers Portugal.

CHAPTER X

T/ze Defeat of the Spanish Armada, I 588

“ In that memorable year, when the dark cloud gathered round our
coasts, when Europe stood by in fearful suspense to behold what should be
the result of that great cast in the game of human politics, what the craft of
Rome, the power of Philip, the genius of Farnese, could achieve against the
island queen, with her Drakes and Cecils — in that agony of the Protestant
faith and English name.”— HALLAM, Coast. Hist, vol. i., p. 220.

N the afternoon of the 19th of July, 1588, a group of
English captains was collected at the Bowling Green

on the Hoe at Plymouth, Whose equals have never
before or since been brought together, even at that favorite
mustering place of the heroes of the British navy. There was
Sir Francis Drake, the ﬁrst English circumnavigator of the
globe, the terror of every Spanish coast in the Old World and
the New; there was Sir John Hawkins, the rough veteran of
many a daring voyage on the African and American seas,
and of many a desperate battle; there was Sir Martin Fro-
bisher, one of the earliest explorers of the Arctic seas in search
of that Northwest Passage which is still the darling object of
England’s boldest mariners. There was the high admiral of
England, Lord Howard of Efﬁngham, prodigal of all things 7
in his country’s cause, and who had recently had the noble
daring to refuse to dismantle part of the ﬂeet, though the
queen had sent him orders to do so, in consequence of an
exaggerated report that the enemy had been driven back and
shattered by a storm. Lord Howard (whom contemporary
writers describe as being of a wise and noble courage, skilful
in sea matters, wary and provident, and of great esteem among
the sailors) resolved to risk his sovereign’s anger and to keep
the ships aﬂoat at his own charge, rather than that England
should run the peril of losing their protection.
Another of our Elizabethan sea-kings, Sir Walter Raleigh,
24o

 

 

1588] DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 24I

was at that time commissioned to raise and equip the land-
forces of Cornwall; but, as he was also commander of
Plymouth, we may well believe that he must have availed
himself of the opportunity of consulting with the lord admiral
and other high ofﬁcers which was offered by the English
ﬂeet putting into that port; and we may look on Raleigh as
one of the group that was assembled at the Bowling Green
on the Hoe. Many other brave men and skilful mariners,
besides the chiefs whose names have been mentioned, were
there, enjoying, with true sailor-like merriment, their tempo-
rary relaxation from duty. In the harbor lay the English
ﬂeet with which they had just returned from a cruise to Co-
runna in search of information respecting the real condition
and movements of the hostile Armada. Lord Howard had
ascertained that our enemies, though tempest-tossed, were
still formidably strong; and fearing that part of their ﬂeet
might make for England in his absence, he had hurried back
to the Devonshire coast. He resumed his station at Plymouth,
and waited there for certain tidings of the Spaniard’s approach.
A match at bowls was being played, in which Drake and
other high ofﬁcers of the ﬂeet were engaged, when a small
armed vessel was seen running before the wind into Plymouth
harbor, with all sails set. Her commander landed in haste,
and eagerly sought the place where the English lord admiral
and his captains were standing. His name was Fleming; he
was the master of a Scotch privateer; and he told the English
ofﬁcers that he had that morning seen the Spanish Armada
off the Cornish coast. At this exciting information the cap-
tains began to hurry down to the water, and there was a
shouting for the ships’ boats; but Drake coolly checked his
comrades, and insisted that the match should be played out.
He said that there was plenty of time both to win the game
and beat the Spaniards. The best and bravest match that
ever was scored was resumed accordingly. Drake and his
friends aimed their last bowls with the same steady, calculat-
ing coolness with which they were about to point their guns.
The winning cast was made; and then they went on board
and prepared for action, with their hearts as light and their
nerves as ﬁrm as they had been on the Hoe Bowling Green.

Meanwhile the messengers and signals had been despatched
16

242 DECISIVE BATTLES [1588'

fast and far through England, to warn each town and village
that the enemy had come at last. In every seaport there was
instant making ready by land and by sea; in every shire and
every city there was instant mustering of horse and man.
But England’s best defense then, as ever, was her ﬂeet; and
after warping laboriously out of Plymouth harbor against the
wind, the lord admiral stood westward under easy sail, keep—
ing an anxious lookout for the Armada, the approach of which
was soon announced by Cornish ﬁshing-boats and signals from
the Cornish cliffs.

The England of our own days is so strong, and the Spain
of our own days is so feeble, that it is not possible, without
some reﬂection and care, to comprehend the full extent of the
peril which England then ran from the power and the ambi—
tion of Spain, or to appreciate the importance of that crisis
in the history of the world. We had then no Indian or colo-
nial empire save the feeble germs of our North American
settlements, which Raleigh and Gilbert had recently planted.
Scotland was a separate kingdom ; and Ireland was then even
a greater source of weakness, and a worse nest of rebellion,
than she has been in after-times. Queen Elizabeth had found
at her accession an encumbered revenue, a divided people,
and an unsuccessful foreign war, in which the last remnant
of our possessions in France had been lost; she had also a
formidable pretender to her crown, whose interests were
favored by all the Roman Catholic powers; and even some
of her subjects were warped by religious bigotry to deny
her title and to look on her as an heretical usurper. It is
true that during the years of her reign which had passed away
before the attempted invasion of 1588, she had revived the
commercial prosperity, the national spirit, and the national
loyalty of England. But her resources, to cope with the colos-
sal power of Philip 11., still seemed most scanty; and she
had not a single foreign ally, except the Dutch, who were
themselves struggling hard, and, as it seemed, hopelessly, to
maintain their revolt against Spain.

On the other hand, Philip II. was absolute master of an
empire so superior to the other states of the world in extent,
in resources, and especially in military and naval forces, as
to make the project of enlarging that empire into a universal

 

 

I588] DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 243

monarchy seem a perfectly feasible scheme; and Philip had
both the ambition to form that project and the resolution
to devote all his energies and all his means to its realization.
Since the downfall of the Roman empire no such preponder-
ating power had existed in the world. During the medieval
centuries the chief European kingdoms were slowly molding
themselves out of the feudal chaos. And, though their wars
with each other were numerous and desperate, and several of
their respective kings ﬁgured for a time as mighty conquerors,
none of them in those times acquired the consistency and per-
fect organization which are requisite for a long-sustained
career of aggrandizement. After the consolidation of the
great kingdoms, they for some time kept each other in mu-
tual check. During the ﬁrst half of the sixteenth century,
the balancing system was successfully practised by European
statesmen. But when Philip II. reigned, France had become
so miserably weak through her civil wars that he had nothing
to dread from the rival state which had so long curbed his
father, the Emperor Charles V. In Germ-any, Italy, and
Poland he had either zealous friends and dependents, or weak
and divided enemies. Against the Turks he had gained great
and glorious successes; and he might look round the conti-
nent of Europe without discerning a single antagonist of whom
he could stand in awe. Spain, when he acceded to the throne,
was at the zenith of her power. The hardihood and spirit
which the Aragonese, the Castilians, and the other nations
of the Peninsula had acquired during centuries of free insti-
tutions and successful war against the Moors had not yet
become obliterated. Charles V. had, indeed, destroyed the
liberties of Spain; but that had been done too recently for
its full evil to be felt in Philip’s time. A people cannot be
debased in a single generation; and the Spaniards under
Charles V. and Philip II. proved the truth of the remark that
no nation is ever so formidable to its neighbors, for a time, as
is a nation which, after being trained up in self-government,
passes suddenly under a despotic ruler. The energy of demo-
cratic institutions survives for a few generations, and to it are
superadded the decision and certainty which are the attributes
of government when all its powers are directed by a single
mind. It is true that this preternatural vigor is short-lived:

 

1

~-.-.-“.._ (hm -.'-'

244 DECISIVE BATTLES i' [1588

national corruption and debasement gradually follow the loss
of the national liberties; but there is an interval before their
workings are felt, and in that interval the most ambitious
schemes of foreign conquest are often successfully undertaken.

Philip had also the advantage of ﬁnding himself at the
head of a large standing army in a perfect state of disci-
pline and equipment, in an age when, except some few insig-
niﬁcant corps, standing armies were unknown in Christendom.
The renown of the Spanish troops was justly high, and the
infantry in particular was considered the best in the world.
His ﬂeet, also, was far more numerous and better appointed
than that of any other European power; and both his sol-
diers and his sailors had the conﬁdence in themselves and
their commanders which a long career of successful warfare
alone can create.

Besides the Spanish crown, Philip succeeded to the king-
dom of Naples and Sicily, the Duchy of Milan, Franche-
Comte’, and the Netherlands. In Africa he possessed Tunis,
Oran, the Cape Verde and the Canary islands; and in Asia,
the Philippine and the Sunda islands, and a part of the Molu'c-
cas. Beyond the Atlantic he was lord of the most splendid
portions of the New World which “ Columbus found for
Castile and Leon.” The empires of Peru and Mexico, New
Spain, and Chile, with their abundant mines of the precious
metals, Hispaniola and Cuba, and many other of the American
islands, were provinces of the sovereign of Spain.

Philip had, indeed, experienced the mortiﬁcation of seeing
the inhabitants of the Netherlands revolt against his author-
ity, nor could he succeed in bringing back beneath the Span-
ish scepter all the possessions which his father had bequeathed
to him. But he had reconquered a large number of the towns
and districts that originally took up arms against him. Bel-
gium was brought more thoroughly into implicit obedience to
Spain than she had been before her insurrection, and it was
only Holland and the six other northern states that still held
out against his arms. The contest had also formed a compact
and veteran army on Philip’s side, which, under his great gen»
eral, the Prince of Parma, had been trained to act together
under all difﬁculties and all vicissitudes of warfare; and
on whose steadiness and loyalty perfect reliance might be

gmﬁga-sz'ﬂ / run», ‘ A, _ . ,

WT < ‘;2‘

1588] DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 245

placed throughout any enterprise, however difﬁcult and tedi-
ous. Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, captain-general
of the Spanish armies, and governor of the Spanish posses-
sions in the Netherlands, was beyond all comparison the
greatest military genius of his age. He was also highly dis-
tinguished for political wisdom and sagacity, and for his great

' administrative talents. He was idolized by his troops, whose

affections he knew how to win without relaxing their disci-
pline or diminishing his own authority. Preeminently cool
and circumspect in his plans, but swift and energetic when
the moment arrived for striking a decisive blow, neglecting
no risk that caution could provide against, conciliating even
the p0pulations of the districts which he attacked by his scru-
pulous good faith, his moderation, and his address, Farnese
was one of the most formidable generals that ever could be
placed at the head of an army designed not only to win bat-
tles, but to effect conquests. Happy it is for England and
the world that this island was saved from becoming an arena
for the exhibition of his powers.

Whatever diminution the Spanish empire might have sus-
tained in the Netherlands seemed to be more than com-
pensated by the acquisition of Portugal, which Philip had
completely conquered in I580. Not only that ancient king-
dom itself, but all the fruits of the maritime enterprises of
the Portuguese had fallen into Philip’s hands. All the Por-
tuguese colonies in America, Africa, and the East Indies
acknowledged the sovereignty of the king of Spain, who
thus not only united the whole Iberian peninsula under his
single scepter, but had acquired a transmarine empire, little
inferior in wealth and extent to that which he had inherited
at his accession. The splendid victory which his ﬂeet, in con-
junction with the papal and Venetian galleys, had gained at
Lepanto over the Turks had deservedly exalted the fame
of the Spanish marine throughout Christendom; and when
Philip had reigned thirty-ﬁve years the vigor of his empire
seemed unbroken, and the glory of the Spanish arms had
increased, and was increasing, throughout the world.

One‘ nation only had been his active, his persevering, and
his successful foe. England had encouraged his revolted
subjects in Flanders against him, and given them the aid

246 , DECISIVE BATTLES [1588

in men and money without which they must soon have been
humbled in the dust. English ships had plundered his colo-
nies, had deﬁed his supremacy in the New World as well
as the Old; they had inﬂicted ignominious defeats on his
squadrons; they had captured his cities, and burned his
arsenals on the very coasts of Spain. The English had
made Philip himself the object of personal insult. He was
held up to ridicule in their stage plays and masks, and these
scoffs at the man had (as is not unusual in such cases)
excited the anger of the absolute king, even more vehe-
mently than the injuries inﬂicted on his power. Personal as
well as political revenge urged him to attack England. Were
she once subdued, the Dutch must submit; France could not
cope with him, the empire would not oppose him; and uni-
versal dominion seemed sure to be the result of the conquest
of that malignant island. ,

There was yet another and a stronger feeling which armed
King Philip against England. He was one of the sincerest
and sternest bigots of his age. He looked on himself, and
was looked on by others, as the appointed champion to extir-
pate heresy and reestablish the papal power throughout
Europe. A powerful reaction against Protestantism had
taken place since the commencement of the second half of
the sixteenth century, and Philip believed that he was des~
tined to complete it. The Reform doctrines had been thor-
oughly rooted out from Italy and Spain. Belgium, which
had previously been half Protestant, had been reconquered
both in allegiance and creed by Philip, and had become one
of the most Catholic countries in the world. Half Germany
. had been won back to the old faith. In Savoy, in Switzer-
land, and many other countries, the progress of the counter-
Reformation had been rapid and decisive. The Catholic
league seemed victorious in France. The papal court itself
had shaken off the supineness of recent centuries, and, at
the head of the Jesuits and the other. new ecclesiastical

orders, was displaying a vigor and a boldness worthy of the
days of Hildebrand or Innocent III.

Throughout Continental Europe, the Protestants, discom-
ﬁted and dismayed, looked to England as their protector and
refuge. England was the acknowledged central point of

 

Mien-ﬁr“ ? -

x588] DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 247

Protestant power and policy; and to conquer England was
to stab Protestantism to the very heart. Sixtus V., the then
reigning pope, earnestly exhorted Philip to this enterprise.
And when the tidings reached Italy and Spain that the
Protestant queen of England had put to death her Catholic
prisoner, Mary Queen of Scots, the fury of the Vatican and
the Escurial knew no bounds.

The Prince of Parma, who was appointed military chief

of the expedition, collected on the coast of Flanders a vet-

eran force that was to play a principal part in the conquest
of England. Besides the troops who were in his garrisons,
or under his colors, ﬁve thousand infantry were sent to him
from Northern and Central Italy, four thousand from the
kingdom of Naples, six thousand from Castile, three thou-
sand from Aragon, three thousand from Austria and Ger-
many, together with four squadrons of heavy-armed horse;
besides which he received forces from the Franche—Comté
and the Walloon country. By his command, the forest of
Waes was felled for the purpose of building ﬂat-bottomed
boats, which, ﬂoating down the rivers and canals to Mein-
port and Dunkirk, were to carry this large army of chosen
troops to the mouth of the Thames, under the escort of the
great Spanish ﬂeet. Gun~carriages, fascines, machines used
in sieges, together with every material requisite for building
bridges, forming camps, and raising fortresses, were to be
placed on board the ﬂotillas of the Prince of Parma, who
followed up the conquest of the Netherlands while he was
making preparations for the invasion of this island. Favored
by the dissensions between the insurgents of the United Prov-
inces and Leicester, the Prince of Parma had recovered
Deventer, as well as a fort before Zutphen, which the Eng-
lish commanders, Sir William Stanley, the friend of Babing—
ton, and Sir Roland York, had surrendered to him when
with their troops they passed over to the service of Philip
11., after the death of Mary Stuart, and he had also made
himself master of the Sluys. His intention was to leave to
the Count de Mansfeldt sufﬁcient forces to follow up the
war with the Dutch, which had now become a secondary ob-
ject, while he himself went, at the head of ﬁfty thousand men

_ of the Armada and the ﬂotilla, to accomplish the principal

248 DECISIVE BATTLES [I588

enterprise—that enterprise which in the highest degree
affected the interests of the pontiﬁcal authority. In a bull,
intended to be kept secret until the day of landing, Sixtus V.,
renewing the anathema fulminated against Elizabeth by Pius
V. and Gregory XIII., affected to 'depose her from our throne.

Elizabeth was denounced as a murderous heretic whose
destruction was an instant duty. A formal treaty was con-
cluded (in June, 1587), by which the pope bound himself to
contribute a million of scudi to the expenses of the war; the
money to be paid as soon as the king had actual possession
of an English port. Philip, on his part, strained the resources
of his vast empire to the utmost. The French Catholic chiefs
eagerly cooperated with him. In the seaports of the Medi-
terranean, and along almost the whole coast from Gibraltar
to Jutland, the preparations for the great armament were
urged forward with all the earnestness of religious zeal as
well as of angry ambition. “Thus,” says the German his-
torian of the popes [Ranke], “ thus did the united powers of
Italy and Spain, from which such mighty inﬂuences had gone
forth over the whole world, now rouse themselves for an at-
tack upon England! The king had already compiled, from
the archives of Simancas, a statement of the claims which he
had to the throne of that country ,on the extinction of the
Stuart line; the most brilliant prospects, especially that of a
universal dominion of the seas, were associated in his mind
with this enterprise. Everything seemed to conspire to such
end: the predominance of Catholicism in Germany, the re-
newed attack upon the Huguenots in France, the attempt
upon Geneva, and the enterprise against England. At the
same moment a thoroughly Catholic prince, Sigismund III.,
ascended the throne of Poland, with the prospect also of
future succession to the throne of Sweden. But whenever
any principle or power, be it what it may, aims at unlimited
supremacy in Europe, some vigorous resistance to it, having
its origin in the deepest springs of human nature, invariably
arises. Philip II. had had to encounter newly awakened
powers, braced by the vigor of youth, and elevated by a sense
of their future destiny. The intrepid corsairs, who had ren-
dered every sea insecure, now clustered round the coastsof
their native island. The Protestants in a body—even the

 

a»?!

 

1588] DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 249

Puritans, although they had been subjected to as severe
oppressions as the Catholics — rallied round their queen,
who now gave admirable proof of her masculine courage and
her princely talent of winning the affections and leading the
minds and preserving the allegiance of men.”

Ranke should have added that the English Catholics at this
crisis proved themselves as loyal to their queen, and true to

their country, as were the most vehement anti-Catholic zealots

in the island. Some few traitors there were; but, as a body,
the Englishmen who held the ancient faith stood the trial of
their patriotism nobly. The lord admiral himself was a Cath-
olic, and (to adopt the words of Hallam) “then it was that
the Catholics in every county repaired to the standard of the
lord lieutenant, imploring that they might not be suspected of
bartering the national independence for their religion itself.”
The Spaniard found no partisans in the country which he
assailed, nor did England, self-wounded,

“ Lie at the proud foot of her enemy.”

For some time the destination of the enormous armament
of Philip was not publicly announced. Only Philip himself,
the Pope Sixtus, the Duke of Guise, and Philip’s favorite
minister, Mendoza, at ﬁrst knew its real object. Rumors
were sedulously spread that it was designed to proceed to
the Indies to realize vast projects of distant conquest. Some-
times hints were dropped by Philip’s ambassadors in foreign
courts that his master had resolved on a decisive effort to
crush his rebels in the Low Countries. But Elizabeth and
her statesmen could not view the gathering of such a storm
without feeling the probability of its bursting on their own
shores. As early as the spring of 1587, Elizabeth sent Sir
Francis Drake to cruise off the Tagus. Drake sailed into
the Bay of Cadiz and the Lisbon Roads, and burned much
shipping and military stores, causing thereby an important
delay in the progress of the Spanish preparations. Drake
called this “singeing the king of Spain’s beard.” Elizabeth
also increased her succors of troops to the Netherlanders, to
prevent the Prince of Parma from overwhelming them and
from thence being at full leisure to employ his army against
her dominions.

250 DECISIVE BATTLES [1588

Each party at this time thought it politic to try to amuse its
adversary by pretending to treat for peace, and negotiations
were opened at Ostend in the beginning of I 588, which were
prolonged during the ﬁrst six months of that year. Nothing
real was effected, and probably nothing real had been intended
to be effected, by them. But, in the mean time, each party
had been engaged in important communications with the
chief powers in France, in which Elizabeth seemed at ﬁrst to
have secured a great advantage, but in which Philip ultimately
prevailed. “ Henry III. of France was alarmed at the nego-
tiations that were going on at Ostend; and he especially
dreaded any accommodation between Spain and England, in
consequence of which Philip II. might be enabled to subdue
the United Provinces and make himself master of France.
In order, therefore, to dissuade Elizabeth from any arrange-
ment, he offered to support her, in case she were attacked by
the Spaniards, with twice the number of troops which he was
bound by the treaty of 1574 to send to her assistance. He
had a long conference with her ambassador, Stafford, upon
this subject, and told him that the pope and the Catholic king
had entered into a league against the queen, his mistress,
and had invited himself and the Venetians to join them, but
they had refused to do so. ‘If the queen of England,’ he
added, ‘ concludes a peace with the Catholic king, that peace
will not last three months, because the Catholic king will aid
the League with all his forces to overthrow her, and you may
imagine what fate is reserved for your mistress after that.’
On the other hand, in order most effectually to frustrate this
negotiation, he proposed to Philip II. to form a still closer
, union between the two crowns of France and Spain; and, at
the same time, he secretly despatched a conﬁdential envoy
to Constantinople to warn the sultan that, if he did not again
declare war against the Catholic king, that monarch, who
already possessed the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, the
Indies, and nearly all Italy, would soon make'himself master
of England, and would then turn the forces of all Europe
against the Turks.” [Mignet]

But Philip had an ally in France who was far more power-
ful than the French king. This was the Duke of Guise, the
chief of the League, and the idol of the fanatic partisans of

 

.vrr-rr-gr" \ ,v

1588] DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 25!

the Romish faith. Philip prevailed on Guise openly to take
up arms against Henry III. (who was reviled by the Leaguers
as a traitor to the true Church and a secret friend to the Hu-
guenots), and thus prevent the French king from interfering
in favor of Queen Elizabeth. “With this object, the com-
mander, Juan Iniguez Moreo, was despatched by him in the
early part of April to the Duke of Guise at Soissons. He
met with complete success. He offered the Duke of Guise,
as soon as he took the ﬁeld against Henry 111., three hundred
thousand crowns, six thousand infantry, and twelve hundred
pikemen, on behalf of the king his master, who would, in addi-
tion, withdraw his ambassador from the court of France, and
accredit an envoy to the Catholic party. A treaty was con-
cluded on these conditions, and the Duke of Guise entered
Paris, where he was expected by the Leaguers, and whence
he expelled Henry III. on the 12th of May by the insurrec-
tion of the barricades. A fortnight after this insurrection,
which reduced Henry III. to impotence, and, to use the lan-
guage of the Prince of Parma, did not even ‘permit him to
assist the queen of England with his tears, as he needed
them all to weep over his own misfortunes,’ the Spanish ﬂeet
left the Tagus and sailed towards the British isles.” [Mignet]

Meanwhile in England, from the sovereign on the throne to
the peasant in the cottage, all hearts and hands made ready
to meet the imminent deadly peril. Circular letters from the
queen were sent round to the lord lieutenants of the several
counties requiring them “to call together the best sort of
gentlemen under their lieutenancy, and to declare unto them
these great preparations and arrogant threatenings, now burst
forth in action upon the seas, wherein every man’s particular
state, in the highest degree, could be touched in respect of
country, liberty, wives, children, lands, lives, and (which was
specially to be regarded) the profession of the true and sin-
cere religion of Christ; and to lay before them the inﬁnite
and unspeakable miseries that would fall out upon any such
change, which miseries were evidently seen by the fruits of
that hard and cruel government holden in countries not far
distant. We do look,” said the queen, “that the most part
of them should have, upon this instant extraordinary occa-
sion, a larger proportion of furniture, both for horsemen and

252 DECISIVE BATTLES [1588

\

footmen, but especially horsemen, than hath been certiﬁed;
thereby to be in their best strength against any attempt, or to
be employed about our own person, or otherwise. Hereunto
as we .doubt not but by your good endeavors they will be the
rather conformable, so also we assure ourselves that Almighty
God will so bless these their loyal hearts borne towards us,
their loving sovereign and their natural country, that all the
attempts of any enemy whatsoever shall be made void and frus-
trate, to their confusion, your comfort, and to God’s high glory.”

Letters of a similar kind were also sent by the council to
each of the nobility and to the great cities. The primate
called on the clergy for their contributions; and by every
class of the community the appeal was responded to with lib-
eral zeal, that offered more even than the queen required.
The boasting threats of the Spaniards had roused the spirit
of the nation; and the whole people “were thoroughly irri-
tated to stir up their whole forces for their defense against
such prognosticated conquests; so that, in a very short time,
all the whole realm, and every corner, were furnished with
armed men, on horseback and on foot; and these continually
trained, exercised, and put into bands, in warlike manner, as
in no age ever was before in this realm. There was no spar-
ing of money to provide horse, armor, weapons, powder, and
all necessaries; no, nor want of provision of pioneers, car-
riages, and victuals, in every county of the realm, without
exception, to attend upon the armies. And to this general
furniture every man voluntarily offered, very many their
services personally without wages, others money for armor
and weapons, and to wage soldiers: a matter strange, and
never the like heard of in this realm or elsewhere. And this
general reason moved all men to large contributions, that
when a conquest was to be withstood wherein all should be
lost, it was no time to spare a portion.” [Southey]

Our lion-hearted queen showed herself worthy of such a
people. A camp was formed at Tilbury; and there Eliza-
beth rode through the ranks, encouraging her captains and
her soldiers by her presence and her words. One of the
speeches which she addressed to them during this crisis has
been preserved; and, though often quoted, it must not be
omitted here.

 

 

Wm’” _ i

1588] DEFEAT or THE ARMADA 253

“My loving people,” she said, “we have been persuaded
by some that are careful of our safety to take heed how we
commit ourselves to armed multitudes for fear of treachery;
but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faith-
ful and loving people. Let tyrants fear! I have always so
behaved myself, that, under God, I have placed my chiefest
strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of

.my subjects; and, therefore, I am come amongst you, as you

see, at this time, not for my recreation or disport, but— being
resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die
amongst you all, to lay down for my God, for my kingdom,
and for my people, my honor and my blood, even in the dust.
I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but
I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of
England too; and think it foul scorn that Parma, or Spain,
or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders
of my realm; to which, rather than any dishonor shall grow
by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your gen-
eral, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the
ﬁeld. I know already for your forwardness you have de-
served rewards and crowns; and we do assure you, on the
word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the mean
time my lieutenant-general shall be in my stead, than whom
never prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject, not
doubting but by your obedience to my general, by your con-
cord in the camp, and your valor in the ﬁeld, we shall shortly
have a famous victory over those enemies of my God, of my
kingdom, and of my people.”

We have minute proofs of the skill with which the govern-
ment of Elizabeth made its preparations ; for the documents
still exist which were drawn up at that time by the ministers
and military men who were cOnsulted by Elizabeth respecting
the defense of the country. Among those summoned to the
advice of their queen at this crisis were Sir Walter Raleigh,
Lord Grey, Sir Francis Knolles, Sir Thomas Leighton, Sir
John Norris, Sir Richard Grenville, Sir Richard Bingham,
and Sir Roger Williams; and the biographer of Sir Walter
Raleigh observes that “these councilors were chosen by
the queen, as being not only men bred to arms, and some of
them, as Grey, Norris, Bingham, and Grenville, of high mili-

2 54 DECISIVE BATTLES [x 588

tary talents, but of grave experience in affairs of state, and
in the civil government of provinces —— qualities by no means
unimportant, when the debate referred not merely to the lead-
ing of an army or the plan of a campaign, but to the organi-
zation of a militia, and the communication with the magistrates
for arming the peasantry, and encouraging them to a resolute
and simultaneous resistance. From some private papers of
Lord Burleigh, it appears that Sir Walter took a principal
share in these deliberations; and the abstract of their pro-
ceedings, a document still preserved, is supposed to have been
drawn up by him. They ﬁrst prepared a list of places where
it was likely the Spanish army might attempt a descent, as
well as of those which lay most exposed to the force under
the Duke of Parma. They next considered the speediest and
most effectual means of defense, whether by fortiﬁcation or
the muster of a military array; and, lastly, deliberated on the
course to be taken for ﬁghting the enemy if he should land.”

Some of Elizabeth’s advisers recommended that the whole
care and resources of the government should be devoted to

the equipment of the armies, and that the enemy, when he

attempted to land, should be welcomed with a battle on the
shore. But the wiser counsels of Raleigh and others pre-
vailed, who urged the importance of ﬁtting out a ﬂeet, that
should encounter the Spaniards at sea, and, if possible, pre-
vent them from approaching the land at all. In Raleigh’s
great work on the “History of the World,” he takes occa-
sion, when discussing some of the events of the ﬁrst Punic
war, to give his reasonings on the proper policy of England
when menaced with invasion. Without doubt, we have there
the substance of the advice which he gave to Elizabeth’s
council; and the remarks of such a man, on such a subject,
have a general and enduring interest, beyond the immediate
peril which called them forth. Raleigh says: “ Surely I hold
that the best way is to keep our enemies from treading upon
our ground: wherein if we fail, then must we seek to make
him wish that he had stayed at his own home. In such a
case if it should happen, our judgments are to weigh many
particular circumstances, that belongs not unto this discourse.
But making the question general, the positive, Whether Eng-
land, without the heép of her ﬂeet, be able to dehar an enemy

. 45.5..“

 

 

 

1588] DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 255

from landing,- I hold that it is unable so to do; and therefore
I think it most dangerous to make the adventure. For the
encouragement of a ﬁrst victory to an enemy, and the dis-
couragement of being beaten, to the invaded, may draw after
it a most perilous consequence.

“ Great difference I know there is, and a diverse considera-
tion to be had, between such a country as France is, strength-
ened with many fortiﬁed places, and this of ours, where our
ramparts are but the bodies of men. But I say that an army
to be transported over sea, and to be landed again in an
enemy’s country, and the place left to the choice of the
invader, cannot be resisted on the coast of England, without
a ﬂeet to impeach it ; no, nor on the coast of France, or any
other country; except every creek, port, or sandy bay had a
powerful army in each of them, to make opposition. For let
the supposition be granted that Kent is able to furnish twelve
thousand foot, and that those twelve thousand be layed in the
three best landing-places within that county, to wit, three
thousand at Margat, three thousand at the Nesse, and six
thousand at F oulkstone, that is, somewhat equally distant
from them both; as also that two of these troops (unless
some other order be thought more ﬁt) be directed to strengthen
the third, when they shall see the enemies’ ﬂeet to head
towards it: I say, that notwithstanding this provision, if the
enemy, setting sail from the Isle of Wight in the ﬁrst watch
of the night, and towing their long boats at their sterns, shall
arrive by dawn of day at the Nesse, and thrust their army on
shore there, it will be hard for those three thousand that are
at Margat (twenty-and-four long miles from thence) to come
time enough to reinforce their fellows at the Nesse. Nay,
how shall they at Foulkstone be able to do it, who are nearer
by more than half the way? seeing that the enemy, at his
ﬁrst arrival, will either make his entrance by force, with three
or four shot of great artillery, and quickly put the ﬁrst three
thousand that are entrenched at the Nesse to run, or else give
them so much to do that they shall be glad to send for help
to Foulkstone, and perhaps to Margat, whereby those places
will be left bare. Now let us suppose that all the twelve
thousand Kentish soldiers arrive at the Nesse, ere the enemy
can be ready to disembark his army, so that he will ﬁnd it

-1 .(

256 DECISIVE BATTLES ,_ [x 588

unsafe to land in the face of so many prepared to withstand
him, yet must we believe that he will play the best of his own
game (having liberty to go which way he list), and, under
covert of the night, set sail towards the east, where what
shall hinder him to take ground either at Margat, the
Downes, or elsewhere, before they, at the Nesse, can be well
aware of his departure? Certainly there is nothing more '
easy than to do it. Yea, the like may be said of Weymouth,
Purbeck, Poole, and of all landing-places on the southwest.
For there is no man ignorant that ships, without putting
themselves out of breath, will easily outrun the souldiers that
coast them. ‘ Les armies 1212 volem‘ point an paste ’ — ‘ Armies
neither ﬂye, nor run post’ —saith a marshal of France. And
I know it to be true, that a ﬂeet of ships may be seen at sun-
set, and after it at the Lizard, yet by the next morning they
may recover Portland, whereas an army of foot shall not be
able to march it in six dayes. Again, when those troops
lodged on the seashores shall be forced to run from place to
place in vain, after a ﬂeet of ships, they will at length sit
down in the midway, and leave all at adventure. But say it
were otherwise, that the invading enemy will offer to land in
some such place, where there shall be an army of ours ready
to receive him ; yet it cannot be doubted, but that when the
choice of all our trained bands, and the choice of our com-
manders and captains, shall be drawn together (as they were
at Tilbury in the year 1588) to attend the person of the
prince, and for the defence of the city of London, they that
remain to guard the coast can be of no such force as to
encounter an army like unto that wherewith it was intended
that the Prince of Parma should have landed in England.

“ For end of this digression, I hope that this question shall
never come to trial; his majestie’s many moveable forts will
forbid the experience. And although the English will no less
disdain that any nation under heaven can do, to be beaten,
upon their own ground, or elsewhere, by a foreign enemy; yet
to entertain those that shall assail us with their own beef in
their bellies, and before they eat of our Kentish capons, I take
it to be the wisest way; to do which his majestie, after God,

will employ his good ships on the sea, and not trust in any
intrenchment upon the shore.”

 

D:_:}-.‘j-Y:‘:"A?""-“ *“z‘

1588] DEFEAT or THE ARMADA 257

The introduction of steam as a propelling power at sea has
added tenfold weight to these arguments of Raleigh. On the
other hand, a well-constructed system of railways, especially
of coast lines, aided by the operation of the electric telegraph,
would give facilities for concentrating a defensive army to
oppose an enemy on landing, and for moving troops from
place to place in observation of the movements of the hostile
ﬂeet, such as would have astonished Sir Walter even more
than the sight of vessels passing rapidly to and fro without
the aid of wind or tide. The observation of the French mar—
shal, whom he quotes, is now no longer correct. Armies can
be made to pass from place to place almost with the speed of
wings, and far more rapidly than any post traveling that was
known in the Elizabethan or any other age. Still, the pres-
ence of a sufﬁcient armed force at the right spot, at the right
time, can never be made a matter of certainty; and even after
the changes that have taken place, no one can doubt but that
the policy of Raleigh is that which England should ever seek
to follow in defensive war. At the time of the Armada, that
policy certainly saved the country, if not from conquest, at
least from deplorable calamities. If indeed the enemy had
landed, we may be sure that he would have been heroically
opposed. But history shows us so many examples of the
superiority of veteran troops over new levies, however numer-
ous and brave, that without disparaging our countrymen’s
soldierly merits, we may well be thankful that no trial of
them was then made on English land. Especially must we
feel this when we contrast the high military genius of the
Prince of Parma, who would have headed the Spaniards, with
the imbecility of the Earl of Leicester, to whom the deplorable
Spirit of favoritism, which formed the greatest blemish in
Elizabeth’s character, had then committed the chief command
of the English armies.

The ships of the royal navy at this time amounted to no"

more than thirty-six ; but the most serviceable merchant ves-
sels were collected from all the ports of the country; and the
citizens of London, Bristol, and the other great seats of coma
merce showed as liberal a zeal in equipping and manning ves-
sels as the nobility and gentry displayed in mustering forces
by land. The seafaring population of the coast, of every

I7

258 DECISIVE BATTLES [x 588

rank and station, was animated by the same ready spirit; and
the whole number of seamen who came forward to man the
English ﬂeet was 17,472. The number of the ships that were
collected was IgI; and the total amount of their tonnage
31,985. There was one ship in the ﬂeet (the Triumph) of
I 100 tons, one of 1000, one of 900, two of 800 each, three of
600, ﬁve of goo, ﬁve of 400, six of 300, six of 250, twenty
of 200, and the residue of inferior burden. Application was
made to the Dutch for assistance; and, as Stowe expresses
it, “the Hollanders came roundly in, with threescore sail,
brave ships of war, ﬁerce and full of spleen, not so much
for England’s aid, as in just occasion for their own defense,
these men foreseeing the greatness of the danger that might
ensue if the Spaniards should chance to win the day and get

the mastery over them; in due regard whereof their manly
courage was inferior to none.”

We have more minute information of the numbers and
equipment of the hostile forces than we have of our own.
In the ﬁrst volume of Hakluyt’s “Voyages,” dedicated to
Lord Efﬁngham, who commanded against the Armada, there
is given (from the contemporary foreign writer Meteran) a
more complete and detailed catalogue than has perhaps ever
appeared of a similar armament.

“ A very large and particular description of this navie was
put in print and published by the Spaniards; wherein was set
downe the number, names, and burthens of the shippes, the
number of mariners and souldiers throughout the whole
ﬂeete; likewise the quantitie of their ordinance, of their
armour, of bullets, of match, of gun-poulder, of victuals,
and of all their navall furniture, was in the saide description
particularized. Unto all these were added the names of the
governours, captaines, noblemen, and gentlemen voluntaries,
of whom there was so great a multitude, that scarce was there
any family of accompt, or any one principall man throughout
all Spaine, that had not a brother, sonne, or kinsman in that
ﬂeete; who all of them were in good hope to purchase unto
themselves in that navie (as they termed it) invincible, end-
less glory and renown, and to possess themselves of great
seigniories and riches in England, and in the Low Countreys.
But because the said description was translated and published

 

rang» ‘ 4

1588] DEFEAT OF THE ARMADAi 259

out of Spanish into divers other languages, we will here only
make an abridgement or brief rehearsal thereof.

“Portugal furnished and set foorth under the conduct of
the Duke of Medina Sidonia, generall of the ﬂeete, ten
galeons, two zabraes, I300 mariners, 3300 souldiers, 300 great
pieces, with all requisite furniture.

“‘ Biscay, under the conduct of John Martines de Ricalde,
admiral of the whole ﬂeete, set forth tenne galeons, four
pataches, 700 mariners, 2000 souldiers, 260 great pieces, etc.

“ Guipusco, under the conduct of Michael de Orquendo,
tenne galeons, four pataches, 700 mariners, 2000 souldiers,
310 great pieces.

“ Italy with the Levant islands, under Martine de Verten-
dona, ten galeons, 800 mariners, 2000 souldiers, 310 great
pieces, &c.

“ Castile, under Diego Flores de Valdez, fourteen galeons,
two pataches, I700 mariners, 2400 souldiers, and 380 great
pieces, &c.

“Andaluzia, under the conduct of Petro de Valdez, ten
galeons, one patache, 800 mariners, 2400 souldiers, 280 great
pieces, &c.

“Item, under the conduct of John Lopez de Medina,
twenty-three great Flemish hulkes, with 700 mariners, 3200
souldiers, and 400 great pieces.

“ Item, under Hugo de Mongada, foure galliasses, contain-
ing 1200 gally-slaves, 46o mariners, 870 souldiers, 200 great
pieces, &c.

“Item, under Diego de Mandrana, foure gallies of Portu-
gall, with 888 gally-slaves, 360 mariners, twenty great pieces,

and other requisite furniture.
“ Item, under Anthonie de Mendoza, twenty-two pataches

and zabraes, with 574 mariners, 488 souldiers, and 193 great
pieces.

“ Besides the ships aforementioned, there were twenty
caravels rowed with oares, being appointed to perform neces-
sary services under the greater ships, insomuch that all the
ships appertayning to this navie amounted unto the summe
of I 50, eche one being sufﬁciently provided of furniture and

victuals.
“The number of mariners in the saide ﬂeete were above

 

«a at», A .r

1 «Lau— —« A

' “la" ‘

260 DECISIVE BATTLES V [I 588

8000, of slaves 2088, of 'souldiers 20,000 (besides noblem’en
and gentlemen voluntaries), of great cast pieces 2600; The
aforesaid ships were of an huge and‘incredible capacitie and
receipt : for the whole ﬂeete was large enough to containe the
burthen of 60,000 tunnes.

“The galeons were 64 in number, being of an huge big-
nesse, and very ﬂately built, being of marveilous force also,
and so high, that they resembled great castles, most ﬁt to de-‘
fend themselves and to withstand any assault, but in giving
any other ships the encounter farr inferiour unto the English
and Dutch ships, which can with great dexteritie weild' and
turne themselves at all assayes. The upperworke of the said
galeons wasof thicknesse and strength sufﬁcient to bear off
musket-shot. The lower worke and the timbers thereof were
out of measure strong, being framed of plankes and ribs foure
or ﬁve foote in thicknesse, insomuch that no bullets could
pierce them, but such as were discharged hard at hand;
which afterward prooved true, for a great number of bullets
were found to sticke fast within the massie substance of those
thicke plankes. Great and well pitched cables were twined
about the masts of their shippes, to strengthen them against
the battery of shot. i

“ The galliasses were of such bignesse, that they contained
within them chambers, chapels, turrets, pulpits, and other
commodities of great houses. The galliasses were rowed with
great oares, there being in eche one of them 300 slaves for
the same purpose, and were able to do great service with the
force of their ordinance. All these, together with the residue
aforenamed, were furnished and beautiﬁed with trumpets,
streamers, banners, warlike ensignes, and other such like
ornaments. L

“Their pieces of brazen ordinance were 1600, and of yron
1000.

“The bullets thereto belonging were 120 thousand.

:‘ Item of gun-poulder, 5600 quintals. Of matche, 1200
quintals. Of muskets and kaleivers, 7000. Of haleberts and
partisans, 10,000.

“ Moreover they had great store of canons, double-canons,
culvermgs and ﬁeld-pieces for land services.

“ Likewise they were provided of all instruments necessary

' :. ..: ‘iﬁ~"3._2‘i:al._t=z;

 

angle; wzwr‘a:

 

1588] DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 26x

on land to conveigh and transport their furniture from place
to place; as namely of carts, wheeles, wagons, &c. Also they
had spades, mattocks, and baskets, to 'set pioners to worke.
They had in like sort great store of mules and horses, and
whatsoever else was requisite for a land—armie. They were
so well stored of biscuit, that for the space of halfe a yeere,
they might allow eche person in the whole ﬂeete halfe a quin-
tall every month; whereof the whole summe amounteth unto
an hundreth thousand quintals.

“ Likewise of wine they had I47 thousand pipes, sufﬁcient
also for halfe a yeere’s expedition. Of bacon, 6500 quintals.
Of cheese, three thousand quintals. Besides ﬁsh, rise, beanes,
pease, oile, vinegar, &c.

“ Moreover they had 12,000 pipes of fresh water, and all
other necessary provision, as, namely, candles, lanternes,
lampes, sailes, hempe, oxe-hides, and lead to stop holes that
should be made with the battery of gun-shot. To be short,
they brought all things expedient, either for a ﬂeete by sea,
or for an armie by land.

“ This navie (as Diego Pimentelli afterward confessed) was
esteemed by the king himselfe to containe 32,000 persons,
and to cost him every day 30 thousand ducates.

“There were in the said navie ﬁve terzaes of Spaniards
(which terzaes the Frenchmen call regiments), under the
command of ﬁve governours, termed by the Spaniards mas-
ters of the ﬁeld, and amongst the rest there were many olde
and expert souldiers chosen out of the garrisons of Sicilie,
Naples, and Tergera. Their captaines or colonels were Diego
Pimentelli, Don Francisco de Toledo, Don Alongo de Lucon,
Don Nicolas de Isla, Don Augustin de Mexia ; who had each
of them thirty-two companies under their conduct. Besides
the which companies, there were many bands also of Castil—
ians and Portugals, every one of which had their peculiar
governours, captains, ofﬁcers, colours, and weapons.”

While this huge Armada was making ready in the southern
ports of the Spanish dominions, the Prince of Parma, with
almost incredible toil and skill, collected a squadron of war-
ships at Dunkirk, and his ﬂotilla of other ships and of ﬂat-
bottomed boats for the transport to England of the picked
troops, which were designed to be the main instruments in

252 DECISIVE BATTLES [1588

subduing England. Thousands of workmen were employed,
night and day, in the construction of these vessels, in the
ports of Flanders and Brabant. One hundred of the kind
called hendes, built at Antwerp, Bruges, and Ghent, and
laden with provision and ammunition, together with sixty
ﬂat-bottomed boats, each capable of carrying thirty horses,
were brought, by means of canals and fosses dug expressly
for the purpose, to Nieuport and Dunkirk. One hundred
smaller vessels were equipped at the former place, and thirty-
two at Dunkirk, provided with twenty thousand empty bar-
rels, and with materials for making pontoons, for stopping up
the harbors, and raising forts and entrenchments. The army
which these vessels were designed to convey to England
amounted to thirty thousand strong, besides a body of four
thousand cavalry, stationed at Courtroi, composed chieﬂy of
the ablest veterans of Europe; invigorated by rest (the siege
of Sluys having been the only enterprise in which they were
employed during the last campaign) and excited by the hopes
of plunder and the expectation of certain conquest. And
“to this great enterprise and imaginary conquest, divers
princes and noblemen came from divers countries; out of
Spain came the Duke of Pestraﬁa, who was said to be the
son of Ruy Gomez de Silva, but was held to be the king’s
bastard; the Marquis of Bourgou, one of the Archduke
Ferdinand’s sons, by Philippina Welserine; Don Vespasian
Gonzaga, of the house of Mantua, a great soldier, who had
been Viceroy in Spain; Giovanni de Medici, Bastard of Flor-
ence ; Amedo, Bastard of Savoy, with many such like, besides
others of meaner quality.” [Grimstone]

Philip had been advised by the deserter, Sir William Stan-
ley, not to attack England in the ﬁrst instance, but ﬁrst to
effect a landing and secure a strong position in Ireland; his
admiral, Santa Cruz, had recommended him to make sure, in
the ﬁrst instance, of some large harbor on the coast of H01-
land or Zealand, where the Armada, having entered the
Channel, might ﬁnd shelter in case of storm, and whence it
could sail without difﬁculty for England; but Philip rejected
both these counsels, and directed that England itself should
be made the immediate object of attack; and on the 20th of
May the Armada left the Tagus, in the pomp and pride of

 

Ll '1
231-.
if.

 

I588] DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 263

supposed invincibility, and amid the shouts of thousands, who
believed that England was already conquered. But steering
to the northward, and before it was clear of the coast of
Spain, the Armada was assailed by a violent storm, and
driven back with considerable damage to the ports of Biscay
and Galicia. It had, however, sustained its heaviest loss before
it left the Tagus, in the death of the veteran admiral Santa
Cruz, who had been destined to guide it against England.

This experienced sailor, notwithstanding his diligence and
success, had been unable to keep pace with the impatient
ardor of his master. Philip II. had reproached him with his
dilatoriness, and had said with ungrateful harshness, “You
make an ill return for all my kindness to you.” These words
cut the veteran’s heart, and proved'fatal to Santa Cruz.
Overwhelmed with fatigue and grief, he sickened and died.
Philip II. had replaced him by Alonzo Perez de Gusman,
Duke of Medina Sidonia, one of the most powerful of the
Spanish grandees, but wholly unqualiﬁed to command such
an expedition. He had, however, as his lieutenants, two sea—
men of proved skill and bravery, Juan de Martinez Recalde
of Biscay, and Miguel Orquendo of Guipuzcoa.

The report of the storm which had beaten back the Armada
reached England with much exaggeration, and it was supposed
by some of the queen’s counselors that the invasion would
now be deferred to another year. But Lord Howard of
Efﬁngham, the lord high admiral of the English ﬂeet, judged
more wisely that the danger was not yet passed, and, as
already mentioned, had the moral courage to refuse to dis-
mantle his principal ships, though he received orders to that
effect. But it was not Howard’s design to keep the English
ﬂeet in costly inaction, and to wait patiently in our own har-
bors till the Spaniards had recruited their strength and sailed
forth again to attack us. The English seamen of that age
(like their successors) loved to strike better than to parry,
though, when emergency required, they could be patient and
cautious in their bravery. It was resolved to proceed to
Spain to learn the enemy’s real condition, and to deal him
any blow for which there might be opportunity. In this bold
policy we may well believe him to have been eagerly seconded
by those who commanded under him. Howard and Drake

264 DECISIVE BATTLES [1588

sailed accordingly to Corunna, hoping to surprise and attack
some part of the Armada in that harbor; but when near the
coast of Spain, the north wind, which had blown up to that
time, veered suddenly to the south; and fearing that the
Spaniards might put to sea and pass him unobserved, How-
ard returned to the entrance of the Channel, where he cruised
for some time on the lookout for the enemy. In part of a
letter written by him at this period, he speaks of the difﬁculty
of guarding so large a breadth of sea———a difﬁculty that ought
not to be forgotten when modern schemes of defense against
hostile ﬂeets from the south are discussed. “I myself,” he
wrote, “ do lie in the midst of the Channel, with the greatest
force; Sir Francis Drake hath twenty ships and four or ﬁve
pinnaces, which lie towards Ushant ; and Mr. Hawkins, with
as many more, lieth towards Scilly. Thus we are fain to do,
or else with this wind they might pass us by, and we never
the Wiser. The Sleeve is another manner of thing than it
was taken for: we ﬁnd it by experience and daily observation
to be 100 miles over—a large room for me to look untol”.
But after some time further reports that the Spaniards were
inactive in their harbor, where they were suffering severely
from sickness, caused Howard also to relax in his vigilance;
and he returned to Plymouth with the greater part of his
ﬂeet.

On the 12th of July, the Armada having completely reﬁtted,
sailed again for the Channel, and reached it without obstruc-
tion or observation by the English.

The design of the Spaniards was, that the Armada should
give them, at least for a time, the command of the sea, and
that it should join the squadron which Parma had collected
off Calais. Then, escorted by an overpowering naval force,
Parma and his army were to embark in their ﬂotilla, and cross
the sea to England, where they were to be landed, together
with the troops which the Armada brought from the ports
of Spain. The scheme was not dissimilar to one formed
against England a little more than two centuries afterwards.

As Napoleon, in 1805, waited with his army and ﬂotilla at
Boulogne, looking for Villeneuve to drive away the English
cruisers, and secure him a passage across the Channel, so
Parma, in I 588, waited for Medina Sidonia to drive away the

 

\1588] DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 265

Dutch and English squadrons that watched his ﬂotilla, and
to enable his veterans to cross the sea to the land that they
were to conquer. Thanks to Providence, in each case Eng-
land’s enemy waited in vain !

Although the numbers of sail which the queen’s government

‘ and the patriotic zeal of volunteers had collected for the
defense of England exceeded the number of sail in the
* Spanish ﬂeet, the English ships were, collectively, far infe-
rior in size to their adversaries, their aggregate tonnage
being less by half than that of the enemy. In the number
of guns and weight of metal the disproportion was still
greater. The English admiral was also obliged to subdivide
his force; and Lord Henry Seymour, with forty of the best
Dutch and English ships, was employed in blockading the
hostile ports in Flanders, and in preventing the Prince of
Parma from coming out of Dunkirk.

The orders of King Philip to the Duke of Medina Sidonia.
were that he should, on entering the Channel, keep near the
French coast, and, if attacked by the English ships, avoid an
action, and steer on to Calais roads, where the Prince of
Parma’s squadron was to join him. The hope of surprising
and destroying the English ﬂeet in Plymouth led the Spanish
admiral to deviate from these orders, and to stand across to
the English shore; but, on ﬁnding that Lord Howard was
coming out to meet him, he resumed the original plan, and
determined to bend his way steadily towards Calais and
Dunkirk, and to keep merely on the defensive against such
squadrons of the English as might come up with him.

It was on Saturday, the 20th of July, that Lord Efﬁngham
came in sight of his formidable adversaries. The Armada
was drawn up in form of a crescent, which from horn to
horn measured some seven miles. There was a southwest
wind; and before it the vast vessels sailed slowly on. The
English let them pass by; and then, following in the rear,
commenced an attack on them. A running ﬁght now took
place, in which some of the best ships of the Spaniards were
captured; many more received heavy damage; while the
English vessels, which took care not to close with their huge
antagonists, but availed themselves of their superior celerity
in tacking and maneuvering, suffered little comparative loss.

 

266 DECISIVE BATTLES [1588

Each day added not only to the spirit, but to the number of
Efﬁngham’s force. Raleigh, Oxford, Cumberland, and Shef-
ﬁeld joined him; and “the gentlemen of England hired ships
from all parts at their own charge, and with one accord came
ﬂocking thither as to a set ﬁeld, where glory was to be attained
and faithful service performed unto their prince and their
country.”

Raleigh justly praises the English admiral for his skilful
tactics. He says: “ Certainly, he that will happily perform
a ﬁght at sea must be skilful in making choice of vessels to
ﬁght in; he must believe that there is more belonging to a
good man-of—war upon the waters than great daring; and
must know that there is a great deal of difference between
ﬁghting loose or at large and grappling. The guns of a
slow ship pierce as well and make as great holes as those
in a swift. To clap ships together, without consideration,
belongs rather to a madman than to a man-of—war; for by
such an ignorant bravery was Peter Strossie lost at the
Azores, when he fought against the Marquis of Santa Cruza.
In like sort had the Lord Charles Howard, Admiral of Eng-
land, been lost in the year 1588, if he had not been better
advised than a great many malignant fools were, that found
fault with his demeanor. The Spaniards had an army aboard
them, and he had none; they had more ships than he had,
and of higher building and charging; so that, had he
entangled himself with those great and powerful vessels, he
had greatly endangered this kingdom of England. For
twenty men upon the defences are equal to a hundred that
board and enter; whereas then, contrariwise, the Spaniards
‘ had a hundred for twenty of ours to defend themselves withall.
But our admiral knew his advantage, and held it: which, had
he not done, he had not been worthy to have held his head.”

The Spanish admiral also showed great judgment and ﬁrm-
ness in following the line of conduct that had been traced out
for him; and on the 27th of July he brought his ﬂeet
unbroken, though sorely distressed, to anchor in Calais roads.
But the king of Spain had calculated ill the number and
activity of the English and Dutch ﬂeets; as the old historian
Hakluyt expresses it, “It seemeth that the Duke of Parma
and the Spaniards grounded upon a vain and presumptuous

 

 

1588] DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 267

expectation, that all the ships of England and of the Low
Countreys would at the ﬁrst sight of the Spanish and Dun-
kerk navie have betaken themselves to ﬂight, yeelding them
sea-room, and endeavoring only to defend themselves, their
havens, and sea-coasts from invasion. Wherefore their intent
and purpose was, that the Duke of Parma, in his small and
ﬂat-bottomed ships should, as it were, under the shadow and
wings of the Spanish ﬂeet, convey over all his troupes,
armour, and warlike provisions, and with their forces so
united, should invade England; or, while the English
ﬂeet were busied in ﬁght against the Spanish, should enter
upon any part of the coast which he thought to be most con-
venient. Which invasion (as the captives afterwards con-
fessed) the Duke of Parma thought ﬁrst to have attempted
by the river of Thames; upon the banks whereof, having at
the ﬁrst arrivall landed twenty or thirty thousand of his prin-
cipall souldiers, he supposed that he might easily have wonne
the citie of London; both because his small shippes should
have followed and assisted his land-forces, and also for that
the citie itselfe was but meanely fortiﬁed and easie to ouer—
come, by reason of the citizens’ delicacie and discontinuance
from the warres, who, with continuall and constant labour,
might be vanquished, if they yielded not at the ﬁrst assault.”

But the English and Dutch found ships and mariners
enough to keep the Armada itself in check and at the same
time to block up Parma’s ﬂotilla. The greater part of Sey-
mour’s squadron left its cruising-ground off Dunkirk to join
the English admiral off Calais; but the Dutch manned about
ﬁve-and-thirty sail of good ships, with a strong force of sol-
diers on board, all well seasoned to the sea-service, and with
these they blockaded the Flemish ports that were in Parma’s
power. Still it was resolved by the Spanish admiral and the
prince to endeavor to effect a junction, which the English
seamen were equally resolute to prevent; and bolder measures
on our side now became necessary.

The Armada lay off Calais, with its largest ships ranged
outside, “like strong castles fearing no assault; the lesser
placed in the middle ward.” The English admiral could not
attack them in their position without great disadvantage; but
on the night of the 29th he sent eight ﬁre-ships among them,

 

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268 DECISIVE BATTLES [1588

with almost equal effect to that of the ﬁre-ships which the
Greeks so often employed against the Turkish ﬂeets in their
late war of independence. The Spaniards cut their cables
and put to sea in confusion. One of the largest galleasses
ran foul of another vessel and was stranded. The rest of
the ﬂeet was scattered about on the Flemish coast, and when
the morning broke it was with difﬁculty and delay that they
obeyed their admiral’s signal to range themselves round him
near Gravelines. Now was the golden opportunity for the
English to assail them, and prevent them from ever letting
loose Parma’s ﬂotilla against England; and nobly was that
opportunity used. Drake and Fenner were the ﬁrst English
captains who attacked the unwieldy leviathans; then came
Fenton, Southwell, Burton, Cross, Raynor, and then the lord
admiral, with Lord Thomas Howard and Lord Shefﬁeld. The
Spaniards only thought of forming and keeping close together,
and were driven by the English past Dunkirk, and far away
from the Prince of Parma, who, in watching their defeat from
the coast, must, as Drake expressed it, have chafed like a

bear robbed of her whelps. This was indeed the last and '

the decisive battle between the two ﬂeets. It is, perhaps,
best described in the very words of the contemporary writer
as we may read them in Hakluyt : —-

“Upon the 29th of July, in the morning, the Spanish ﬂeet,
after the forsayd tumult, having arranged themselues againe
into order, were, within sight of Greveling, most bravely and
furiously encountered by the English; where they once again
got the wind of the Spaniards; who suffered themselues to
be deprived of the commodity of the place in Caleis road,
, and of the advantage of the wind neer unto Dunkerk, rather
than they would change their array or Separate their forces
now conjoyned and united together, standing only upon'their
defence.

“And howbeit there were many excellent and warlike ships
in the English ﬂeet, yet scarce were there 22 or 23 among
them all, which matched 90 of the Spanish ships in the big-
ness, or could conveniently assault them. Wherefore the

English ships using their prerogative of nimble steerage,

whereby they could turn and wield themselues with the wind
which way they listed, came often times very near upon the

 

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1588] DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 269

Spaniards,.and charged them so sore, that now and then they
were but a pike’s length asunder: and so continually giving
them one broadside after another, they discharged all their
shot both great and small upon them, spending one whole
day from morning till night in that violent kind of conﬂict,
untill such time as powder and bullets failed them. In regard
of which want they thought it convenient not to pursue the
Spaniards any longer, because they had many great vantages
of the English, namely, for the extraordinary bigness of their
ships, and also for that they were so neerley conjoyned, and
kept together in so good array, that they could by no means
be fought withall one to one. The English thought, there-
fore, that they had right well acquitted themselues, in chasing
the Spaniards ﬁrst from Caleis, and then from Dunkerk, and
by that meanes to have hindered them from joyning with the
Duke of Parma his forces, and getting the Wind of them, to
have driven them from their own coasts.

“ The Spaniards that day sustained great loss and damage,
having many of their shippes shot thorow and thorow, and
they discharged likewise great store of ordinance against the
English; who, indeed, sustained some hindrance, but not
comparable to the Spaniard’s loss: for they lost not any one
ship or person of account, for very diligent inquisition being
made, the English men all that time wherein the Spanish
navy sayled upon their seas, are not found to haue wanted
aboue one hundred of their people: albeit Sir Francis Drake’s
ship was pierced with shot aboue forty times, and his very
cabben was twice shot thorow, and about the conclusion of
the ﬁght, the bed of a certaine gentleman lying weary there-
upon, was taken quite from under him with the force of a
bullet. Likewise, as the Earle of Northumberland and Sir
Charles Blunt were at dinner upon a time, the bullet of a
demy-culverin brake thorow the middest of their cabben,
touched their feet, and strooke downe two of the standers
by, with many such accidents befalling the English shippes,
which it were tedious to rehearse.”

It reﬂects little credit on the English government that the
English ﬂeet was so deﬁciently supplied with ammunition as
to be unable to complete the destruction of the invaders. But
enough was done to insure it. Many of the largest Spanish

270 DECISIVE BATTLES [1588

ships were sunk or captured in the action of this day. And
at length the Spanish admiral, despairing of success, ﬂed
northward with a southerly wind, in the hope of rounding
Scotland, and so returning to Spain without a further en-
counter with the English ﬂeet. Lord Efﬁngham left a squadron
to continue the blockade of the Prince of Parma’s armament;
but that Wise general soon withdrew his troops to more promis-
ing ﬁelds of action. Meanwhile the lord admiral himself and
Drake chased the vincible Armada, as it was now termed, for
some distance northward; and then, when it seemed to bend
away from the Scotch coast towards Norway, it was thought
best, in the words of Drake, “to leave them to those bois-
‘ terous and uncouth northern seas.” .

The sufferings and losses which the unhappy Spaniards
sustained in their ﬂight round Scotland and Ireland are well
known. Of their whole Armada only ﬁfty-three shattered
vessels brought back their beaten and wasted crews to the
Spanish coast which they had quitted in such pageantry and
pride.

Some passages from the writings of those who took part
in the struggle have been already quoted; and the most
spirited description of the defeat of the Armada which ever
was penned may perhaps be taken from the letter which our
brave vice-admiral Drake wrote in answer to some menda-
cious stories by which the Spaniards strove to hide their shame.
Thus does he describe the scenes in which he played so im-
portant a part: ——

“They were not ashamed to publish, in sundry languages
in print, great victories in words, which they pretended to
have obtained against this realm, and spread the same in a
most false sort over all parts of France, Italy, and elsewhere;
when, shortly afterwards, it was happily manifested in very
deed to all nations, how their navy, which they termed invin-
cible, consisting of one hundred and forty sail of ships, not
only of their own kingdom, but strengthened with the great-
est argosies, Portugal carraks, Florentines, and large hulks
of other countries, were by thirty of her majesty’s own ships
of war, and a few of our own merchants, by the wise, valiant,
and advantageous conduct of the Lord Charles Howard, high
admiral of England, beaten and shufﬂed together even from

 

 

1588] DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 271

the Lizard in Cornwall, ﬁrst to Portland, when they shamefully
left Don Pedro de Valdez with his mighty ship; from Port-
land to Calais, where they lost Hugh de Moncado, with the
galleys of which he was captain; and from Calais driven with
squibs from their anchors, were chased out of the sight of
England, round about Scotland and Ireland. Where, for the
sympathy of their religion, hOping to ﬁnd succour and assist-
ance, a great part of them were crushed against the rocks,
and those others that landed, being very many in number,
were, notwithstanding, broken, slain, and taken; and so sent
from village to village, coupled in halters, to be shipped into
England, where her majesty, of her princely and invincible
disposition, disdaining to put them to death, and scorning
either to retain or to entertain them, they were all sent back
again to their countries, to witness and recount the worthy
achievement of their invincible and dreadful navy. Of which
the number of soldiers, the fearful burthen of their ships, the
commanders’ names of every squadron, with all others, their
magazines of provisions, were put in print, as an army and
navy irresistible and disdaining prevention: with all which
their great and terrible ostentation, they did not in all their
sailing round about England so much as sink or take one
ship, bark, pinnace, or cockboat of ours, or even burn so

much as one sheep-cote on this land.”

SYNOPSIS OF EVENTS BETWEEN THE DEFEAT OF THE SPAN-
ISH ARMADA, 1588, AND THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM, 1704

1594. Henry IV. of France conforms to the Roman Catho-
lic Church, and ends the civil wars that had long desolated

France.
1598. Philip II. of Spain dies, leaving a ruined navy and

an exhausted kingdom.
1603. Death of Queen Elizabeth. The Scotch dynasty of

the Stuarts succeeds to the throne of England.

I619. Commencement of the Thirty Years’ war in Ger-
many.

1624 to 1642. Cardinal Richelieu is minister of France.
He breaks the power of the nobility, reduces the Huguenots
to complete subjection, and, by aiding the Protestant German

272 DECISIVE BATTLES [1588

princes in the latter part of the Thirty Years’ war, he humil-
iates France’s ancient rival, Austria.

1630. Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, marches into
Germany to the assistance of the Protestants, who were nearly
crushed by the Austrian armies. He gains several great vic-
tories, and, after his death, Sweden, under his statesmen and
generals, continues to take a leading part in the war.

1640. Portugal throws off the Spanish yoke, and the
house of Braganza begins to reign.

1642. Commencement of the civil war in England between
Charles I. and his parliament.

I648. The Thirty Years’ war in Germany ended by the
Treaty of Westphalia. '

1653. Oliver Cromwell lord protector of England.

1660. Restoration of the Stuarts to the English throne.

1661. Louis XIV. takes the administration of affairs in
France into his own hands.

1667 to I668. Louis XIV. makes war in Spain, and con-
quers a large part of the Spanish Netherlands.

1672. Louis makes war upon Holland, and almost over-
powers it. Charles II. of England is his pensioner, and
England helps the French in their attacks upon Holland until
1674. Heroic resistance of the Dutch under the Prince of
Orange.

1674. Louis conquers Franche-Comté.

1679. Peace of Nimeguen.

1681. Louis invades and occupies Alsace.

1682. Accession of Peter the Great to the throne of
Russia.

168 5. Louis commences a merciless persecution of his
Protestant subjects.

I688. The Glorious Revolution in England. Expulsion of
James II. William of Orange is made king of England.
James takes refuge at the French court, and Louis under-
takes to restore him. General war in the west of Europe.

1697. Treaty of Ryswick. Charles XII. becomes king of
Sweden.

I700. Charles II. of Spain dies, having bequeathed his do-
minions to Philip of Anjou, Louis XIV.’s grandson. Defeat
of the Russians at Narva, by Charles XII.

 

  
 

  

1588] \DEFEATf0F THE ARMADA 273
‘ 1701. ‘William III. forms a “Grand Alliance ” of Austria,
the Empire, the United Provinces, England, and other powers,
against France.

1702. King William dies; but his successor, Queen Anne,

adheres to the Grand Alliance, and war is proclaimed against
France. ’

 

CHAPTER XI

2716 Battle of Blenheim, I704

“The decisive blow struck at Blenheim resounded through every part
of Europe: it at once destroyed the vast fabric of power which it had
taken Louis XIV., aided by the talents of Turenne and the genius of Vau-
ban, so long to construct.”—ALISON.

than the empire of Napoleon, the power which Louis

XIV. had acquired and was acquiring at the commence-
ment of the eighteenth century was almost equally menacing
to the general liberties of Europe. If tested by the amount
of permanent aggrandizement which each procured for France,
the ambition of the royal Bourbon was more successful than
were the enterprises of the imperial Corsican. All the prov-
inces that Bonaparte conquered were rent again from France
within twenty years from the date when the very earliest of
them was acquired. France is not stronger by a single city
or a single acre for all the devastating wars of the Consulate
and the Empire. But she still possesses Franche—Comté,
Alsace, and a part of Flanders. She has still the extended
boundaries which Louis XIV. gave her. And the royal Span-
ish marriages, a few years ago, proved clearly how enduring
has been the political inﬂuence which the arts and arms of
France’s “ Grand Monarque ” obtained for her southward of
the Pyrenees.

When Louis XIV. took the reins of government into his own
hands, after the death of Cardinal Mazarin, there was a union
of ability with opportunity such as France had not seen since
the days of Charlemagne. Moreover, Louis’s career was no
brief one. For upwards of forty years, for a period nearly
equal to the duration of Charlemagne’s reign, Louis steadily
followed an aggressive and generally successful policy. He
passed a long youth and manhood of triumph before the

274

THOUGH more slowly molded and less imposingly vast

 

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1704] BATTLE OF BLENHEIM 275

military genius of Marlborough made him acquainted with
humiliation and defeat. The great Bourbon lived too long.
He should not have outstayed our two English kings—one his
dependent, James 11., the other his antagonist, William III.
Had he died in the year within which they died, his reign
would be cited as unequaled in the French annals for its pros-
perity. But he lived on to see his armies beaten, his cities
captured, and his kingdom wasted by disastrous war. It is
as if Charlemagne had survived to be defeated by the North-
men and to witness the misery and shame that actually fell
to the lot of his descendants.

Still, Louis XIV. had forty years of success; and from the
permanence of their fruits we may judge what the results
would have been if the last ﬁfteen years of his reign had been
equally fortunate. Had it not been for Blenheim, all Europe
might at this day suffer under the effect of French conquests
resembling those of Alexander in extent, and those of the
Romans in durability.

When Louis XIV. began to govern, he found all the mate-
rials for a strong government ready to his hand. Richelieu
had completely tamed the turbulent spirit of the French
nobility, and had subverted the “ imperium in imperio ” of the
Huguenots. The faction of the Frondeurs in Mazarin’s time
had had the effect of making the Parisian parliament utterly
hateful and contemptible in the eyes of the nation. The
Assemblies of the States-General were obsolete. The royal
authority alone remained. The king was the state. Louis
knew his position. He fearlessly avowed it, and he fearlessly
acted up to it.

Not only was his government a strong one, but the country
which he governed was strong: strong in its geographical
situation, in the compactness of its territory, in the number
and martial spirit of its inhabitants, and in their complete
and undivided nationality. Louis had neither a Hungary nor
an Ireland in his dominions. And it was not till late in his
reign, when old age had made his bigotry more gloomy, and
had given fanaticism the mastery over prudence, that his per-
secuting intolerance caused the civil war in the Cevennes.

. Like Napoleon in after-times, Louis XIV. saw clearly that
the great wants of France were “ships, colonies, and com-

276 DECISIVE BATTLES [x704

)

merce.’ But Louis did more than see these wants: by the
aid of his great minister, Colbert, he supplied them. One of
the surest proofs of the genius of Louis was his skill in ﬁnd-
ing out genius in others, and his promptness in calling it into
action. Under him, Louvois organized, Turenne, Condé, Vil-
lars, and Berwick led the armies of France; and Vauban
fortiﬁed her frontiers. Throughout his reign, French diplo-
macy was marked by skilfulness and activity, and also by
comprehensive far-sightedness, such as the representatives of
no other nation possessed. Guizot’s testimony to the vigor
that was displayed through every branch of Louis XIV.’s
government, and to the extent to which France at present is
indebted to him, is remarkable. He says that, “taking the
public services of every kind, the ﬁnances, the departments
of roads and public works, the military administration, and all
the establishments which belong to every branch of adminis-
tration, there is not one that will not be found to have had its
origin, its development, or its greatest perfection, under the
reign of Louis XIV.” And he points out to us that “ the gov-
ernment of Louis XIV. was the ﬁrst that presented itself to
the eyes of Europe as a power acting upon sure grounds,
which had not to dispute its existence with inward enemies,
but was at ease as to its territory and its people, and solely
occupied with the task of administering government, properly
so called. All the European governments had been pre-
viously thrown into incessant wars, which deprived them of
all security as well as of all leisure, or so harassed by internal
parties or antagonists that their time was passed in ﬁghting
for existence. The government of Louis XIV. was the ﬁrst
to appear as a busy, thriving administration of affairs, as a
power at once deﬁnitive and progressive, which was not afraid
to innovate, because it could reckon securely on the future.
There have been in fact very few governments equally innovat—
ing. Compare it with a government of the same nature, the
unmixed monarchy of Philip II. in Spain ; it was more absolute
than that of Louis XIV., and yet it was far less regular and
tranquil. How did Philip II. succeed in establishing absolute
power in Spain? By stiﬂing all activity in the country, op—
posing himself to every species of amelioration, and render-
ing the state of Spain completely stagnant. The government

”Ff" ‘ .‘rs‘r

I704] BATTLE OF BLENHEIM 277

of Louis XIV., on the contrary, exhibited alacrity for all sorts
of innovations, and showed itself favorable to the progress of
letters, arts, wealth,—in short, of civilization. This was the
veritable cause of its preponderance in Europe, which arose
to such a pitch that it became the type of a government not
only to sovereigns, but also to nations, during the seventeenth
century.”

While France was thus strong and united in herself, and
ruled by a martial, an ambitious, and (with all his faults) an
enlightened and high-spirited sovereign, what European power
was there ﬁt to cope with her, or keep her in check?

“As to Germany, the ambitious projects of the German
branch of Austria had been entirely defeated, the peace of
the empire had been restored, and almost a new constitution
formed, or an old one revived, by the treaties of Westphalia ;
nay, the imperial eagle was not ore/y fallen, 6a! leer wings were
clip/Jed.”

As to Spain, the Spanish branch of the Austrian house
had sunk equally low. Philip II. left his successors a ruined
monarchy. He left them something worse : he left them his
example and his principles of government, founded in ambi-
tion, in pride, in ignorance, in bigotry, and all the pedantry
of state.

It is not, therefore, to be wondered at that France, in the
ﬁrst war of Louis XIV., despised the opposition of both
branches of the once predominant house of Austria. Indeed,
in Germany the French king acquired allies among the
princes of the empire against the emperor himself. He had
a still stronger support in Austria’s misgovernment of her
own subjects. The words of Bolingbroke on this are remark-
able, and some of them sound as' if written within the last
three years. Bolingbroke says: “It was not merely the want
of cordial cooperation among the princes of the empire that
disabled the emperor from acting with vigor in the cause of
his family then, nor that has rendered the house of Austria
a dead weight upon all her allies ever since. Bigotry, and
its inseparable companion, cruelty, as well as the tyranny and
avarice of the court of Vienna, created in those days, and has
maintained in ours, almost a perpetual diversion of the impe-
rial arms from all effectual opposition to France. I mean to

278 DECISIVE BATTLES [1704

speak of the trouhles in Hungary. Whatever they hecaine in
their progress, they were caused originally by the usurpations
and persecutions of the emperor; and when the Hungarians
were called rebels ﬁrst, they were called so for no other reason
than this, that they would not he slaves. The dominion of
the emperor being less supportable than that of the Turks,
this unhappy people opened a door to the latter to infest the
empire, instead of making their country, what it had been
before, a barrier against the Ottoman power. France became
a sure though secret ally of the Turks, as well as the Hunga-
rians, and has found her account in it, by keeping the emperor
in perpetual alarms on that side, while she has ravaged the
empire and the Low Countries ‘on the other.”

If, after having seen the imbecility of Germany and Spain
against the France of Louis XIV., we turn to the two only
remaining European powers of any importance at that time,
to England and to Holland, we ﬁnd the position of our own
country as to European politics, from 1660 to 1688, most painful
to contemplate. From I660 to 1688, “England, by the return .
of the Stuarts, was reduced to a nullity.” The words are
Michelet’s, and though severe, they are just. They are, in
fact, not severe enough; for when England, under her re-
stored dynasty of the Stuarts, did take any part in European
politics, her conduct, or rather her king’s conduct, was ‘
almost invariably wicked and dishonorable.

Bolingbroke rightly says that, previous to the revolution of
1688, during the whole progress that Louis XIV. made in
obtaining such exorbitant power as gave him well-grounded
hopes of acquiring at last to his family the Spanish monarchy,
England had been either an idle spectator of what passed on
the Continent, or a faint and uncertain ally against France, or
a warm and sure ally on her side, or a partial mediator between
her and the powers confederated together in their common
defense. But though the court of England submitted to abet
the usurpations of France, and the king of England stooped
to be her pensioner, the crime was not national. On the
contrary, the nation cried out loudly against it even whilst
it was being committed.

Holland alone, of all the European powers, opposed from
the very beginning a steady and uniform resistance to the

 

1704] BATTLE or BLENHEIM 279

ambition and power of the French king. It was against
Holland that the ﬁercest attacks of France were made, and
though often apparently on the eve of complete success, they
were always ultimately bafﬂed by the stubborn bravery of
the Dutch, and the heroism of their leader, William of
Orange. When he became king of England, the power
of this country was thrown decidedly into the scale against
France; but though the contest was thus rendered less un-
equal, though William acted throughout “ with invincible
ﬁrmness, like a patriot and a hero,” France had the general
superiority in every war and in every treaty; and the com-
mencement of the eighteenth century found the last league
against her dissolved, all the forces of the confederates
against her dispersed, and many disbanded; while France

. continued armed, with her veteran forces by sea and land

5

l.’

increased and held in readiness to act on all sides, when-
ever the opportunity should arise for seizing on the great
prizes which, from the very beginning of his reign, had never
been lost sight of by her king.

This is not the place for any narrative of the ﬁrst essay
which Louis XIV. made of his power in the war of 1667;
of his rapid conquest of Flanders and Franche-Comté; of the
Treaty of Aix—la-Chapelle, which, says Bolingbroke, “was noth-
ing more than a composition between the bully and the
bullied”; of his attack on Holland in 1672; of the districts
and barrier towns of the Spanish Netherlands which were
secured to him by the Treaty of Nimeguen in 1678; of how,
after this treaty, he “ continued to vex both Spain and the
empire, and to extend his conquests in the Low Countries
and on the Rhine, both by the pen and the sword; how he
took Luxemburg by force, stole Strasburg, and bought
Casal”; of how the league of Augsburg was formed against
him in 1686, and the election of William of Orange to the
English throne in 1688 gave a new spirit to the opposition
which France encountered; of the long and checkered war
that followed, in which the French armies were generally
victorious on the Continent, though his ﬂeet was beaten at La
Hogue, and his dependent, James II., was defeated at the
Boyne, or of the treaty of Ryswick, which left France in pos-
session of Roussillon, Artois, and Strasburg, which gave

 

 

 

280 DECISIVE BATTLES [1704

Europe no security against her claims on the Spanish succes-
sion, and which Louis regarded as a mere truce, to gain breath-
ing time before a more decisive struggle. It must be borne
in mind that the ambition of Louis in these wars was two-
fold. It had its immediate and its ulterior objects. Its im-
mediate object was to conquer and annex to France the
neighboring provinces and towns that were most convenient
for the increase of her strength; but the ulterior object of
Louis, from the time of his marriage to the Spanish Infanta
in 1659, was to acquire for the house of Bourbon the whole
empire of Spain. A formal renunciation of all right to the
Spanish succession had been made at the time of the mar-
riage; but such renunciations were never of any practical
effect, and many casuists and jurists of the age even held

them to be intrinsically void. As time passed on, and the ‘

prospect of Charles II. of Spain dying without lineal heirs
became more and more certain, so did the claims of the house
of Bourbon to the Spanish crown after his death become
matters of urgent interest to French ambition on the one
hand, and to the other powers of Europe on the other. At
length the unhappy king of Spain died. By his will he
appointed Philip, Duke of Anjou, one of Louis XIV.’s grand-
sons, to succeed him on the throne of Spain, and strictly for-
bade any partition of his dominions. Louis well knew that
a general European war would follow if he accepted for his
house the crown thus bequeathed. But he had been pre-
paring for this crisis throughout his reign. He sent his
grandson into Spain as King Philip V. of that country, ad-
dressing to him on his departure the memorable words,
“There are no longer any Pyrenees.”

The empire, which now received the grandson of Louis as
its king, comprised, besides Spain itself, the strongest part of
the Netherlands, Sardinia, Sicily, Naples, the principality of
Milan, and other possessions in Italy, the Philippine and
Manilla islands in Asia, and in the New World, besides Cali-
fornia and Florida, the greatest part of Central and of South-
ern America. Philip was well received in Madrid, where he
was crowned as King Philip V. in the beginning of I 701. The
distant portions of his empire sent in their adhesion; and the
house of Bourbon, either by its French or Spanish troops, now

I704] BATTLE OF BLENHEIM 281

had occupation both of the kingdom of Francis I. and of the
fairest and amplest portion of the empire of the great rival of
Francis, Charles V.

Loud was the wrath of Austria, whose princes were the
rival claimants of the Bourbons for the empire of Spain. The
indignation of William 111., though not equally loud, was far
more deep and energetic. By his exertions a league against
the house of Bourbon was formed between England, Holland,
and the Austrian emperor, which was subsequently joined by
the kings of Portugal and Prussia, by the Duke of Savoy, and
by Denmark. Indeed, the alarm throughout Europe was
general and urgent. It was clear that Louis aimed at consoli-
dating France and the Spanish dominions into one prepon-
derating empire. At the moment when Philip was departing
to take possession of Spain, Louis had issued letters patent
in his favor to the effect of preserving his rights to the throne
of France. And Louis had himself obtained possession of
the important frontier of the Spanish Netherlands, with its
numerous fortiﬁed cities, which were given up to his troops
under pretense of securing them for the young king of Spain.
Whether the formal union of the two crowns was likely to
take place speedily or not, it was evident that the resources
of the whole Spanish monarchy were now virtually at the
French king’s disposal.

The peril that seemed to menace the empire, Eng-
land, Holland, and the other independent powers, is well
summed up by Alison: “Spain had threatened the liberties
of Europe in the end of the sixteenth century, France
had all but overthrown them in the close of the seven-
teenth. What hope was there of their being able to make
head against them both, united under such a monarch as
Louis XIV. ? ”

Our knowledge of the decayed state into which the Spanish
power had fallen ought not to make us regard their alarms
as chimerical. Spain possessed enormous resources, and her
strength was capable of being regenerated by a vigorous ruler.
We should remember what Alberoni effected, even after the
close of the War of Succession. By what that minister did
in a few years, we may judge what Louis XIV. would have
done in restoring the maritime and military power of that

282 DECISIVE BATTLES [1704

great country which nature has so largely gifted, and which
man’s misgovernment has so debased.

The death of King William on the 8th of March, I 702, at
ﬁrst seemed likely to paralyze the league against France, for
“notwithstanding the ill success with which he made war
generally, he was looked upon as the sole center of union
that could keep together the great confederacy then forming;
and how much the French feared from his life had appeared
a few years before, in the extravagant and indecent joy they
expressed on a false report of his death. A short time showed
how vain the fears of some and the hopes of others were.”
[Bolingbroke] Queen Anne, within three days after her
accession, went down to the House of Lords, and there
declared her resolution to support the measures planned by
her predecessor, who had been “the great support, not only
of these kingdoms, but of all Europe.” Anne was married
to Prince George of Denmark, and by her accession to the
English throne the confederacy against Louis obtained the

aid of the troops of Denmark; but Anne’s strong attachment

to one of her female friends led to far more important advan-
tages to the anti-Gallican confederacy than the acquisition of
many armies, for it gave them Marlborough as their captain-
general.

There are few successful commanders on whom Fame has
shone so unwillingly as upon John Churchill, Duke of Marl-
borough, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire—victor of Blen-
heim, Ramilies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet—-—captor of Liege,
Bonn, Limburg, Landau, Ghent, Bruges, Antwerp, Oudenarde,
Ostend, Menin, Dendermonde, Ath, Lille, Tournay, Mons,
Douay, Aire, Bethune, and Bouchain; who never fought a
battle that he did not win, and never besieged a place that
he did not take. Marlborough’s own private character is the
cause of this. Military glory may, and too often does, dazzle
both contemporaries and posterity, until the crimes as well as
the vices of heroes are forgotten. But even a few stains of
personal meanness will dim a soldier’s reputation irreparably;
and Marlborough’s faults were of a peculiarly base and mean
order. Our feelings towards historical personages are in this
respect like our feelings towards private acquaintances. There
are actions of that shabby nature that, however much they

 

, W

1704] L BATTLE OF BLENHEIM 283

may be outweighed by a man’s good deeds on a general esti-
mate of his character, we never can feel any cordial liking for
the person who has been guilty of them. Thus, with respect
to the Duke of Marlborough, it goes against our feelings to
admire the man who owed his ﬁrst advancement in life to the
court favor which he and his family acquired through his sis-
ter becoming one of the mistresses of the Duke of York. It
is repulsive to know that Marlborough laid the foundation of
his wealth by being the paid lover of one of the fair and frail
favorites of Charles 11. His treachery and ingratitude to'his
patron and benefactor, James 11., stand out in dark relief,
even in that age of thankless perﬁdy. He was almost equally
disloyal to his new master, King William; and a more un-Eng-
lish act cannot be recorded than Godolphin’s and Marlbor-
ough’s betrayal to the French court in 1694 of the expedition
then designed against Brest, an act of treason which caused
some hundreds of English soldiers and sailors to be helplessly
slaughtered on the beach in Camaret Bay.

It is, however, only in his military career that we have now
to consider him; and there are very few generals, of either
ancient or modern times, whose campaigns will bear a com-
parison with those of Marlborough, either for the masterly
skill with which they were planned, or for the bold yet pru-
dent energy with which each plan was carried into execution.
Marlborough had served while young under Turenne, and
had obtained the marked praise of that great tactician. It
would be difﬁcult, indeed, to name a single quality which a
general ought to have, and with which Marlborough was not
eminently gifted. What principally attracted the notice of
contemporaries was the imperturbable evenness of his spirit.
Voltaire says of him : —

“ He had, to a degree above all other generals of his time,
that calm courage in the midst of tumult, that serenity of soul
in danger, which the English call a cool head, and it was per-
haps this quality, the greatest gift of nature for command,
which formerly gave the English so many advantages over
the French in the plains of Cressy, Poictiers, and Agincourt.”

King William’s knowledge of Marlborough’s high abilities,
though he knew his faithlessness equally well, is said to have
caused that sovereign in his last illness to recommend Marl-

284 DECISIVE BATTLES [1704

borough to his successor as the ﬁttest person to command
her armies ; but Marlborough’s favor with the new queen by
means of his wife was so high that he was certain of obtain-
ing the highest employment; and the war against Louis
opened to him a glorious theater for the display of those mili-
tary talents which he had before only had an opportunity of
exercising in a subordinate character, and on far less con-
spicuous scenes.

He was not only made captain-general of the English
forces at home and abroad, but such was the authority of
England in the council of the Grand Alliance, and Marl-
borough was so skilled in winning golden opinions from all
whom he met with, that, on his reaching the Hague, he was
received with transports of joy by the Dutch, and it was
agreed by the heads of that republic, and the minister of the
emperor, that Marlborough should have the chief command
of all the allied armies.

It must indeed, in justice to Marlborough, be borne in
mind that mere military skill was by no means all that was
required of him in this arduous and invidious station. Had
it not been for his unrivaled patience and sweetness of
temper, and his marvelous ability in discerning the character
of those with whom he had to act, his intuitive perception
of those who were to be thoroughly trusted, and of those who
were to be amused with the mere semblance of respect and
conﬁdence—had not Marlborough possessed and employed, -
while at the head of the allied armies, all the qualiﬁcations
of a polished courtier and a great statesman, he never would
have led the allied armies to the Danube. The Confederacy
would not have held together for a single year. His great
political adversary, Bolingbroke, does him ample justice here.
Bolingbroke, after referring to the loss which King William’s
death seemed to inﬂict on the cause of the Allies, observes
that: “ By his death, the Duke of Marlborough was raised to
the head of the army, and, indeed, of the confederacy; where
he, a new, a private man, a subject, acquired by merit and by
management a more deciding inﬂuence than high birth, con-
ﬁrmed authority, and even the crown of Great Britain had
given to King William. Not only all the parts of that vast
machine, the Grand Alliance, were kept more compact and

 

 

”041‘ ~ BATTLE OF BLENHEIM 285

entire; but a more rapid and vigorous motion was given to
the whole; and instead of languishing and disastrous cam-
paigns, we saw every scene of the war full of action. All
those wherein he appeared, and many of those wherein he
was not then an actor, but abettor, however, of their action,
were crowned with the most triumphant success.

“I take with pleasure this opportunity of doing justice to
that great man, whose faults I knew, whose virtues I admired;
and whose memory, as the greatest general and as the great-
est minister that our country, or perhaps any other, has pro-
duced, I honor.”

War was formally declared by the Allies against France
on the 4th of May, 1702. The principal scenes of its opera-
tion were, at ﬁrst, Flanders, the Upper Rhine, and North
Italy. Marlborough headed the allied troops in Flanders
during the ﬁrst two years of the war, and took some towns
from the enemy, but nothing decisive occurred. Nor did any
actions of importance take place during this period between
the rival armies in Italy. But in the center of that line from
north to south, from the mouth of the Scheldt to the mouth
of the Po, along which the war was carried on, the generals
of Louis XIV. acquired advantages in 1703 which threatened
one chief member of the Grand Alliance with utter destruction.
France had obtained 'the important assistance of Bavaria as
her confederate in the war. The elector of this powerful
German state made himself master of the strong fortress of
Ulm, and opened a communication with the French armies
on the Upper Rhine. By this junction the troops of Louis
were enabled to assail the emperor in the very heart of
Germany. In the autumn of the year 1703, the combined
armies of the elector and French king completely defeated
the Imperialists in Bavaria; and in the following winter they
made themselves masters of the important cities of Augsburg
and Passau. Meanwhile the French army of the Upper
Rhine and Moselle had beaten the allied armies opposed to
them, and taken Treves and Landau. At the same time the
discontents in Hungary with Austria again broke out into
open insurrection, so as to distract the attention and complete
the terror of the emperor and his council at Vienna.

Louis XIV. ordered the next campaign to be commenced

286 DECISIVE BATTLES [1704

by his troops on a scale of grandeur and with a boldness of
enterprise such as even Napoleon’s military schemes have
seldom equaled. On the extreme left of the line of the war,
in the Netherlands, the French armies were to act only on
the defensive. The fortresses in the hands of the French
there were so many and so strong that no serious impression
seemed likely to be made by the Allies on the French frontier
in that quarter during one campaign; and that one campaign
was to give France such triumphs elsewhere as would (it was
hoped) determine the war. Large detachments were, there-
fore, to be made from the French force in Flanders, and they
were to be led by Marshal Villeroy to the Moselle and Upper
Rhine. The French army already in the neighborhood of
those rivers was to march under Marshal Tallard through the
Black Forest, and join the Elector of Bavaria and the French
troops that were already with the elector under Marshal Mar-
sin. Meanwhile the French army of Italy was to advance
through the Tyrol into Austria, and the whole forces were to
combine between the Danube and the Inn. A strong body
of troops was to be despatched into Hungary, to assist and
organize the insurgents in that kingdom; and the French
grand army of the Danube was then, in collected and irre-
sistible might, to march upon Vienna, and dictate terms of
peace to the emperor. High military genius was shown in
the formation of this plan, but it was met and bafﬂed by a
genius higher still.

Marlborough had watched, with the deepest anxiety, the
progress of the French arms on the Rhine and in Bavaria,
and he saw the futility of carrying on a war of posts and sieges
in Flanders while death-blows to the empire were being dealt
on the Danube. He resolved, therefore, to let the war in
Flanders languish for a year, while he moved with all the dis-
posable forces that he could collect to the central scenes of
decisive operations. Such a march was in itself difﬁcult, but
Marlborough had, in the ﬁrst instance, to overcome the still
greater difﬁculty of obtaining the consent and cheerful co-
operation of the Allies, especially of the Dutch, whose frontier
it was proposed thus to deprive of the larger part of the force
which had hitherto been its protection. Fortunately, among
the many slothful, the many foolish, the many timid, and the

 

I704] BATTLE OF BLENHEIM 287

not few treacherous rulers, statesmen, and generals of different
nations with whom he had to deal, there were two men, emi-
nent both in ability and integrity, who entered fully into Marl-
borough’s projects, and who, from the stations which they
occupied, were enabled materially to forward them. One of
these was the Dutch statesman Heinsius, who had been the
cordial supporter of King William, and who now, with equal
zeal and good faith, supported Marlborough in the councils
of the Allies; the other was the celebrated general, Prince
Eugene, whom the Austrian cabinet had recalled from the
Italian frontier, to take the command of one of the emperor’s
armies in Germany. To these two great men, and a few
more, Marlborough communicated his plan freely and unre-
servedly; but to the general councils of his allies he only dis-
closed part of his daring scheme. He proposed to the Dutch
that he should march from Flanders to the Upper Rhine and
Moselle with the British troops and part of the foreign auxili-
aries, and commence vigorous operations against the French
armies in that quarter, while General Auverquerque, with the
Dutch and the remainder of the auxiliaries, maintained a
defensive war in the Netherlands. Having with difﬁculty
obtained the consent of the Dutch to this portion of his proj-
ect, he exercised the same diplomatic zeal, with the same
success, in urging the king of Prussia, and other princes of
the empire, to increase the number of the troops which they
supplied, and to post them in places convenient for his own
intended movements.

Marlborough commenced his celebrated march on the 19th
of May. The army which he was to lead had been assembled
by his brother, General Churchill, at Bedburg, not far from
Maestricht, on the Meuse; it included sixteen thousand Eng-
lish troops, and consisted of ﬁfty-one battalions of foot and
ninety-two squadrons of horse. Marlborough was to collect
and join with him on his march the troops of Prussia, Lune-
burg, and Hesse, quartered on the Rhine, and eleven Dutch
battalions that were stationed at Rothweil. He had only
marched a single day, when a series of interruptions, com-
plaints, and requisitions from the other leaders of the Allies
began, to which he seemed doomed throughout his enterprise,
and which would have caused its failure in the hands of any

288 DECISIVE BATTLES ‘ [1704

one not gifted with the ﬁrmness and the exquisite temper of
Marlborough. One specimen of these annoyances and Marl-
borough’s mode of dealing with them may sufﬁce. On his
encamping at Kupen, on the 20th, he received an express
from Auverquerque pressing him to halt, because Villeroy,
who commanded the French army in Flanders, had quitted
the lines which he had been occupying, and crossed the Meuse
at Namur with thirty-six battalions and forty-ﬁve squadrons,
and was threatening the town of Huys. At the same time
Marlborough received letters from the Margrave of Baden
and Count Wratislaw, who commanded the Imperialist forces
at Stollhoffen, near the left bank of the Rhine, stating that
Tallard had made a movement as if intending to cross the
Rhine, and urging him to hasten his march towards the lines
of Stollhoffen. Marlborough was not diverted by these appli-
cations from the prosecution of his grand design. Conscious
that the army of Villeroy would be too much reduced to under-
take offensive operations by the detachments which had
already been made towards the Rhine and those which must
follow his own march, he halted only a day to quiet the alarms
of Auverquerque. To satisfy also the margrave he ordered
the troops of Hompesch and Bulow to draw towards Philips-
burg, though with private injunctions not to proceed beyond
a certain distance. He even exacted a promise to the same
effect from Count Wratislaw, who at this juncture arrived at
the camp to attend him during the whole campaign.
Marlborough reached the Rhine at Coblentz, where he
crossed that river, and then marched along its right bank to
Broubach and Mentz. His march, though rapid, was admira-
bly conducted, so as to save the troops from all unnecessary
fatigue; ample supplies of provisions were ready, and the
most perfect discipline was maintained. By degrees Marl-
borough obtained more reenforcements from the Dutch and
the other confederates, and he also was left more at liberty
by them to follow his own course. Indeed, before even a
blow was struck, his enterprise had paralyzed the enemy, and
had materially relieved Austria from the pressure of the war.
Villeroy, with his detachments from the French-Flemish army,
was completely bewildered by Marlborough’s movements;
and, unable to divine where it was that the English general.

 

)rnu‘, :4; ..

:704] \ BATTLE OF BLENHEIM 289

meant to strike his blow, wasted away the early part of the
summer between Flanders and the Moselle Without effecting
anything.1

Marshal Tallard, who commanded forty-ﬁve thousand men
at Strasburg, and who had been destined by Louis to march
early in the year into Bavaria, thought that Marlborough’s
march along the Rhine was preliminary to an attack upon
Alsace; and the marshal therefore kept his forty-ﬁve thousand
men back in order to support France in that quarter. Marl-
borough skilfully encouraged his apprehensions by causing a
bridge to be constructed across the Rhine at Philipsburg, and
by making the Landgrave of Hesse advance his artillery at
Mannheim, as if for a siege of Landau. Meanwhile the Elector
of Bavaria and Marshal Marsin, suspecting that Marlborough’s
design might be what it really proved to be, forbore to press
upon the Austrians opposed to them, or to send troops into
Hungary; and they kept back so as to secure their communi-
cations with France. Thus, when Marlborough, at the begin-
ning of June, left the Rhine and marched for the Danube,
the numerous hostile armies were uncombined, and unable to
check him.

“ With such skill and science had this enterprise been con-
certed that at the very moment when it assumed a Speciﬁc
direction the enemy was no longer enabled to render it abor-
tive. As the march was now to be bent towards the Danube,
notice was given for the Prussians, Palatines, and Hessians,
who were stationed on the Rhine, to order their march so as
to join the main body in its progress. At the same time
directions were sent to accelerate the advance of the Danish
auxiliaries who were marching from the Netherlands.”
[CoXe]

Crossing the river Neckar, Marlborough marched in a south-
eastern direction to Mundelshene, where he had his ﬁrst per-
sonal interview with Prince Eugene, who was destined to be
his colleague on so many glorious ﬁelds. Thence, through a
difﬁcult and dangerous country, Marlborough continued his
march against the Bavarians, whom he encountered on the
2d of July, on the heights of the Schullenberg, near Donau—
wert. Marlborough stormed their entrenched camp, crossed
the Danube, took several strong places, in Bavaria, and made

I9

 

290 DECISIVE BATTLES [I704

himself completely master of the elector’s dominions, except
the fortiﬁed cities of Munich and Augsburg. But the elector’s
army, though defeated at Donauwert, was still numerous and
strong; and at last Marshal Tallard, when thoroughly
apprised of the real nature of Marlborough’s movements,
crossed the Rhine. He was suffered, through the supineness
of the German general at Stollhoffen, to march without loss
through the Black Forest, and united his powerful army at
Biberach near Augsburg with that of the elector and the
French troops under Marshal Marsin, who had previously
been cooperating with the Bavarians. On the other hand,
Marlborough recrossed the Danube, and on the 11th of
August united his army with the Imperialist forces under
Prince Eugene. The combined armies occupied a position
near Hochstadt, a little higher up the left bank of the Danube
than Donauwert, the scene of Marlborough’s recent victory,
and almost exactly on the ground where Marshal Villars and
the elector had defeated an Austrian army in the preceding
year. The French marshals and the elector were now in
position a little farther to the east, between Blenheim and
Lutzingen, and with the little stream of the Nebel between
them and the troops of Marlborough and Eugene. The
Gallo-Bavarian army consisted of about sixty thousand men,
and had sixty-one pieces of artillery. The army of the Allies
was about ﬁfty-six thousand strong, with ﬁfty-two guns.2
Although the French army of Italy had been unable to
penetrate into Austria, and although the masterly strategy of
Marlborough had hitherto warded off the destruction with
which the cause of the Allies seemed menaced at the begin-
ning of the campaign, the peril was still most serious. It
was absolutely necessary for Marlborough to attack the
enemy before Villeroy should be roused into action. There
was nothing to stop that general and his army from marching
into Franconia, whence the Allies drew their principal sup-
plies ; and, besides thus distressing them, he might, by march-
ing on and joining his army to those of Tallard and the
elector, form a mass which would overwhelm the force under
Marlborough and Eugene. On the other hand, the chances
of a battle seemed perilous, and the fatal consequences of a
defeat were certain. The inferiority of the Allies in point of

 

1704] L BATTLE OF BLENHEIM 291

number was not very great, but still it was not to be disre-
garded; and the advantage which the enemy seemed to have
in the composition of their troops was striking. Tallard and
Marsin had forty-ﬁve thousand Frenchmen under them, all
veterans, and all trained to act together: the elector’s own
troops, also, were good soldiers. Marlborough, like Welling-
ton at Waterloo, headed an army, of which the larger propor-
tion consisted not of English, but of men of many different
nations and many different languages. He was also obliged
to be the assailant in the action, and thus to expose his troops
to comparatively heavy loss at the commencement of the
battle, while the enemy would ﬁght under the protection of
the villages and lines which they were actively engaged in
strengthening. The consequences of a defeat of the confed—
erated army must have broken up the Grand Alliance and
realized the proudest hopes of the French king. Mr. Alison,
in his admirable military history of the Duke of Marlborough,
has truly stated the effects which would have taken place if
France had been successful in the war. And when the posi-
tion of the confederates at the time when Blenheim was
fought is remembered; when we recollect the exhaustion of
Austria, the menacing insurrection of Hungary, the feuds
and jealousies of the German princes, the strength and activ-
ity of the Jacobite party in England, the imbecility of nearly
all the Dutch statesmen of the time, and the weakness of
Holland if deprived of her allies, we may adopt his words in
speculating on what would have ensued if France had been
victorious in the battle, and “if a power animated by the
ambition, guided by the fanaticism, and directed by the ability
of that of Louis XIV. had gained the ascendency in Europe.
Beyond all question, a universal despotic dominion would
have been established over the bodies, a cruel spiritual thra1~
dom over the minds of men. France and Spain united under
Bourbon princes, and in a close family alliance—the empire
of Charlemagne with that of Charles V.; the power which
revoked the Edict of Nantes and perpetrated the massacre of
St. Bartholomew, with that which banished the Moriscoes
and established the Inquisition, would have proved irresisti-
ble, and beyond example destructive to the best interests of
mankind.

 

 

*éwrv . —- .' .

292 DECISIVE BATTLES [1704

“The Protestants might have been driven, like the pagan
heathens of old by the son of Pepin, beyond the Elbe; the
Stuart race, and with them Romish ascendency, might have
been reestablished in England; the ﬁre lighted by Latimer
and Ridley might have been extinguished in blood; and the
energy breathed by religious freedom into the Anglo-Saxon
race might have expired. The destinies of the world would
have been changed. Europe, instead of a variety of independ-
ent states whose mutual hostility kept alive courage while
their national rivalry stimulated talent, would have sunk into
the slumber attendant on universal dominion. The colonial
empire of England would have withered away and perished,
as that of Spain has done in the grasp of the Inquisition.
The Anglo—Saxon race would have been arrested in its mission
to overspread the earth and subdue it. The centralized des-
potism of the Roman empire would have been renewed on
Continental Europe; the chains of Romish tyranny, and with
them the general inﬁdelity of France before the Revolution,
would have extinguished or perverted thought in the British
islands.”

Marlborough’s words at the council of war, when a battle
was resolved on, are remarkable, and they deserve recording.
We know them on the authority of his chaplain, Mr. (after-
wards Bishop) Hare, who accompanied him throughout the
campaign, and in whose journal the biographers of Marl-
borough have found many of their best materials. Marl-
borough’s words to the ofﬁcers who remonstrated with him
on the seeming temerity of attacking the enemy in their _
position were, “ I know the danger, yet a battle is absolutely
necessary; and I rely on the bravery and discipline of the
troops, which will make amends for our disadvantages.” In
the evening orders were issued for a general engagement,
and received by the army with an alacrity which justiﬁed his
conﬁdence. '

The French and Bavarians were posted behind a little
stream called the Nebel, which runs almost from north to
south into the Danube immediately in front of the village of
Blenheim.‘ The Nebel ﬂows along a little valley, and the
French occupied the rising ground to the west of it. The
'village of Blenheim was the extreme right of their position,

 

mérﬁi‘iff'fi rat-T: . ‘A

1704] BATTLE OF BLENHEIM 293

and the village of Lutzingen, about three miles north of
Blenheim, formed their left. Beyond Lutzingen are the
rugged high grounds of the Godd Berg, and Eich Berg, on
the skirts of which some detachments were posted so as to
secure the Gallo-Bavarian position from being turned on the
left ﬂank. The Danube protected their right ﬂank; and it
was only in front that they could be attacked. The villages
of Blenheim and Lutzingen had been strongly palisaded and
entrenched. Marshal Tallard, who held the chief command,
took his station at Blenheim; Prince Maximilian the Elector
and Marshal Marsin commanded on the left. Tallard gar-
risoned Blenheim with twenty-six battalions of French infantry
and twelve squadrons of French cavalry. Marsin and the
elector had twenty-two battalions of infantry, and thirty-six
squadrons of cavalry in front of the village of Lutzingen.
The center was occupied by fourteen battalions of infantry,
including the celebrated Irish brigade. These were posted
in the little hamlet of Oberglau, which lies somewhat nearer
to Lutzingen than to Blenheim. Eighty squadrons of cavalry
and seven battalions of foot were ranged between Ober-
glau and Blenheim. Thus the French position was very
strong at each extremity, but was comparatively weak in'
the center. Tallard seems to have relied on the swampy
state of the part of the valley that reaches from below Ober-
glau to Blenheim for preventing any serious attack on this
part of his line.

The army of the Allies was formed into two great divisions;
the largest being commanded by the duke in person, and
being destined to act against Tallard, While Prince Eugene
led the other division, which consisted chieﬂy of cavalry, and
was intended to oppose the enemy under Marsin and the
elector. As they approached the enemy, Marlborough’s
troops formed the left and the center, while Eugene’s formed
the right of the entire army. Early in the morning of the
13th of August, the Allies left their own camp and marched

towards the enemy. A thick haze covered the ground, and

it was not until the allied right and center had advanced
nearly within cannon-shot of the enemy that Tallard was
aware of their approach. He made his preparations with
what haste he could, and about eight o’clock a heavy ﬁre of

294 DECISIVE BATTLES [I704

artillery was opened from the French right on the advancing
left wing of the British. Marlborough ordered up some of
his batteries to reply to it, and while the columns that were
to form the allied left and center deployed, and took up their
proper stations in the line, a warm cannonade was kept up
by the guns on both sides. ,

The ground which Eugene’s columns had to traverse was
peculiarly difﬁcult, especially for the passage of the artillery;
and it was nearly midday before he could get his troops into
line opposite to Lutzingen. During this interval, Marl-
borough ordered divine service to be performed by the chap-
lains at the head of each regiment, and then rode along the
lines, and found both ofﬁcers and men in the highest spirits,
and waiting impatiently for the signal for the attack. At
length an aide-de-camp galloped up from the right with the
welcome news that Eugene was ready. Marlborough instantly
sent Lord Cutts, with a strong brigade of infantry, to assault
the village of Blenheim, while he himself led the main body
down the eastward slope of the valley of the Nebel, and pre—
pared to effect the passage of the stream.

The assault on Blenheim, though bravely made, wasre’pulsed
with severe loss; and Marlborough, ﬁnding how strongly that
village was garrisoned, desisted from any further attempts to
carry it, and bent all his energies to breaking the enemy’s line
between Blenheim and Oberglau. Some temporary bridges
had been prepared, and planks and fascines had been col-
lected; and by the aid of these, and a little stone bridge which
crossed the Nebel, near a hamlet called Unterglau, that lay in
the center of the valley, Marlborough succeeded in getting
. several squadrons across the Nebel, though it was divided into
several branches, and the ground between them was soft and
in places little better than a mere marsh. But the French
artillery was not idle. The cannon-balls plunged incessantly
among the advancing squadrons of the Allies; and bodies of
French cavalry rode frequently down from the western ridge,
to charge them before they had time to form on the ﬁrm
ground. It was only by supporting his men by fresh troops,
and by bringing up infantry, who checked the advance of the
enemy’s horse by their steady ﬁre, that Marlborough was able
to save his army in this quarter from a repulse, which, follow-

 

 

I704] - BATTLE OF BLENHEIM 295

ing the failure of the attack upon Blenheim, would probably
have been fatal to the Allies. By degrees his cavalry strug-
gled over the blood-stained streams; the infantry were also
now brought across, so as to keep in check the French troops
who held Blenheim, and who, when no longer assailed in
front, had begun to attack the Allies on their left with com
siderable effect.

Marlborough had thus at last succeeded in drawing up the
whole left wing of his army beyond the Nebel, and was about
to press forward with it, when he was called away to another
part of the ﬁeld by a disaster that had befallen his center.
The Prince of Holstein-Beck had, with eleven Hanoverian bat-
talions, passed the Nebel opposite to Oberglau, when he was
charged and utterly routed by the Irish brigade which held
that village. The Irish drove the Hanoverians back with
heavy slaughter, broke completely through the line of the
Allies, and nearly achieved a success as brilliant as that which
the same brigade afterwards gained at Fontenoy. But at
Blenheim their ardor in pursuit led them too far. Marl-
borough came up in person, and dashed in upon their exposed
ﬂank with some squadrons of British cavalry. The Irish
reeled back, and as they strove to regain the height of Ober-
glau, their column was raked through and through by the ﬁre
of three battalions of the Allies, which Marlborough had
summoned up from the reserve. Marlborough having re-
established the order and communication of the Allies in this
quarter, now, as he returned to his own left wing, sent to learn
how his colleague fared against Marsin and the elector, and
to inform Eugene of his own success.

Eugene had hitherto not been equally fortunate. He had
made three attacks on the enemy opposed to him, and had
been thrice driven back. It was only by his own desperate
personal exertions, and the remarkable steadiness of the regi«
ments of Prussian infantry which were under him, that he
was able to save his wing from being totally defeated. But
it was on the southern part of the battle-ﬁeld, on the ground
which Marlborough had won beyond the Nebel with such
difﬁculty, that the crisis of the battle was to be decided.

Like Hannibal, Marlborough relied principally on his cavalry
for achieving his decisive successes, and it was by his cavalry

296 DECISIVE BATTLES [1704

that Blenheim, the greatest of his victories, was won. The
battle had lasted till ﬁve in the afternoon. Marlborough had
now eight thousand horsemen drawn up in two lines, and in
the most perfect order for a general attack on the enemy’s
line along the space between Blenheim and Oberglau. The
infantry was drawn up in battalions in their rear, so as to sup-
port them if repulsed, and to keep in check the large masses
of the French that still occupied the village of Blenheim.
Tallard now interlaced his squadrons of cavalry with battalions .
of infantry; and Marlborough, by a corresponding movement,
brought several regiments of infantry and some pieces of
artillery to his front line, at intervals between the bodies of
horse. A little after ﬁve, Marlborough commenced the decisive
movement, and the allied cavalry, strengthened and supported
by foot and guns, advanced slowly from the lower ground
near the Nebel up the slope to where the French cavalry,
ten thousand strong, awaited them. On riding over the sum-
mit of the acclivity, the Allies were received with so hot a ﬁre
from the French artillery and small arms that at ﬁrSt the
cavalry recoiled, but without abandoning the high ground.
The guns and the infantry which they had brought with them
maintained the contest with Spirit and effect. The French
ﬁre seemed to slacken. Marlborough instantly ordered a
Charge along the line. The allied cavalry galloped forward
at the enemy’s squadrons, and the hearts of the French horse-
men failed them. Discharging their carbines at an idle dis—
tance, they wheeled round and spurred from the ﬁeld, leaving
the nine infantry battalions of their comrades to be ridden
down by the torrent of the allied cavalry. The battle was
now won. Tallard and Marsin, severed from each other,
thought only of retreat. Tallard drew up the squadrons of
horse which he had left, in a line extended towards Blenheim,
and sent orders to the infantry in that village to leave and join
him without delay. But long ere his orders could be obeyed
the conquering squadrons of Marlborough had wheeled to the
left and thundered down on the feeble army of the French
marshal. Part of the force which Tallard had drawn up for
this last effort were driven into the Danube; part fled with
their general to the village of Sonderheim, where they were
soon surrounded by the victorious Allies and compelled to

 

 

I704] BATTLE OF BLENHEIM 297

surrender. Meanwhile, Eugene had renewed his attack upon
the Gallo-Bavarian left, and Marsin, ﬁnding his colleague
utterly routed, and his own right ﬂank uncovered, prepared to
retreat. He and the elector succeeded in withdrawing a con-
siderable part of their troops in tolerable order to Dillingen;
but the large body of French who garrisoned Blenheim were
left exposed to certain destruction. Marlborough speedily
occupied all the outlets from the village with his victorious
. troops, and then, collecting his artillery round it, he com-
menced a cannonade that speedily would have destroyed Blen-
heim itself and all who were in it. After several gallant but
unsuccessful attempts to cut their way through the Allies, the
French in Blenheim were at length compelled to surrender
at discretion; and twenty-four battalions, and twelve squad-
rons, with all their ofﬁcers, laid down their arms and became
the captives of Marlborough. ‘

“Such,” said Voltaire, “was the celebrated battle which
the French call the battle of Hochstet, the Germans Plentheim,
and the English Blenheim. The conquerors had about ﬁve
thousand killed and eight thousand wounded, the greater
part being on the side of Prince Eugene. The French army
was almost entirely destroyed : of sixty thousand men, so long
victorious, there never reassembled more than twenty thousand
effective. About twelve thousand killed, fourteen thousand
prisoners, all the cannon, a prodigious number 0f colors and
standards, all the tents and equipages, the general of the
. army, and one thousand two hundred officers of mark in the
power of the conqueror, signalized that day! ”

Ulm, Landau, Treves, and Traerbach surrendered to the
allies before the close of the year. Bavaria submitted to the
emperor, and the Hungarians laid down their arms. Germany
Was completely delivered from France; and the military as-
cendency of the arms of the Allies was completely established.
Throughout the rest of the war Louis fought only in defense.
Blenheim had dissipated forever his once proud visions of

almost universal conquest.

NOTES

1 “Marshal Villeroy,” says Voltaire, “who had wished to follow Marl-
borough on his ﬁrst marches, suddenly lost sight of him altogether and

298 DECISIVE BATTLES [1704

only learned where he really was on hearing of his victory at Donauwert.”
—— Sz'écle de Louis XIV.

2 A short time before the War of the Succession the musket and bayonet
had been made the arms of all the French infantry. It had formerly been
usual to mingle pikemen with musketeers. The other European nations
followed the example of France, and the weapons used at Blenheim were
substantially the same as those still employed.

SYNOPSIS OF EVENTS BETWEEN THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM,
1704, AND THE BATTLE OF PULTOWA, I 709

I705. The Archduke Charles lands in Spain with a small
English army under Lord Peterborough, who takes Barcelona.

I706. Marlborough’s victory at Ramilies.

I707. The English army in Spain IS defeated at the battle
of Almanza.

I708. Marlborough’s victory at Oudenarde.

 

 

CHAPTER XII

The Battle of Puliowa, r709

“Dread Pultowa’s day,
When fortune left the royal Swede,
Around a slaughtered army lay,
No more to combat and to bleed.
The power and fortune of the war
Had passed to the triumphant Czar.” —- BYRON.

would soon be either Cossack or Republican. Four

years ago, the fulﬁlment of the last of these alterna-
tives appeared most probable. But the democratic move-
ments of 1848 were sternly repressed in 1849. The absolute
authority of a single ruler, and the austere stillness of martial
law, are now paramount in the capitals of the Continent,
which lately owned no sovereignty save the will of the multi-
tude, and where that which the democrat calls his sacred right
of insurrection was so loudly asserted and so often ﬁercely
enforced. Many causes have contributed to bring about this
reaction, but the most effective and the most permanent have
been Russian inﬂuence and Russian arms. Russia is now
the avowed and acknowledged champion of Monarchy against
Democracy—of constituted authority, however acquired,
against revolution and change, for whatever purpose desired ;
of theimperial supremacy of strong states over their weaker
neighbors against all claims for political independence and all
striving for separate nationality. She has crushed the heroic
Hungarians; and Austria, for whom nominally she crushed
them, is now one of her dependents. Whether the rumors of
her being about to engage in fresh enterprises be well or ill
founded, it is certain that recent events must have fearfully
augmented the power of the Muscovite empire, which, even

299

N APOLEON prophesied at St. Helena that all Europe

300 DECISIVE BATTLES [x709

previously, had been the object of well-founded anxiety to all
Western Europe.

It was truly stated, twelve years ago, that “ the acquisitions
which Russia has made within the [then] last sixty-four years
are equal in extent and importance to the whole empire she
had in Europe before that time; that the acquisitions she has
made from Sweden are greater than what remains of that
ancient kingdom; that her acquisitions from Poland are as
large as the whole Austrian empire; that the territory she
has wrested from Turkey in Europe is equal to the dominions
of Prussia, exclusive of her Rhenish provinces; and that her
acquisitions from Turkey in Asia are equal in extent to all the
smaller states of Germany, the Rhenish provinces of Prussia,
Belgium, and Holland taken together; that the country she has
conquered from Persia is about the size of England; that her ac-
quisitions in Tartary have an area equal to Turkey in Europe,
Greece, Italy, and Spain. In sixty-four years she has advanced
her frontier eight hundred and ﬁfty miles towards Vienna, Ber-
lin, Dresden, Munich, and Paris; she has approached four
hundred and ﬁfty miles nearer to Constantinople; she has pos-
sessed herself of the capital of Poland, and has advanced
to within a few miles of the capital of Sweden, from which,
when Peter the Great mounted the' throne, her frontier was
distant three hundred miles. Since that time she has stretched
herself forward about one thousand miles towards India, and
the same distance towards the capital of Persia.”

Such, at that period, had been the recent aggrandizement
of Russia; and the events of the last few years, by weakening
and disuniting all her European neighbors, have immeasurably
augmented the relative superiority of the Muscovite empire
over all the other Continental powers. ,

With a population exceeding sixty millions, all implicitly
obeying the impulse of a single ruling mind; with a territorial
area of six millions and a half of square miles; with a stand-
ing army eight hundred thousand strong; with powerful ﬂeets
on the Baltic and Black seas; with a skilful host of diplomatic
agents planted in every court and among every tribe ; with the
conﬁdence which unexpected success creates, and the sagacity
which long experience fosters, Russia now grasps with an
armed right hand the tangled thread of European politics

 

:7o9] ‘ BATTLE or PULTOWA 301

and issues her mandate as the arbitress of the movements of
the age. Yet a century and a half have hardly elapsed since
she was ﬁrst recognized as a member of the drama of modern
European history—previously to the battle of Pultowa, Russia
played no part. Charles V. and his great rival, our Elizabeth
and her adversary, Philip of Spain, the Guises, Sully, Riche-
lieu, Cromwell, De Witt, William of Orange, and the other lead-
ing spirits of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, thought
no more about the Muscovite czar than we now think about the
king of Timbuctoo. Even as late as 1735, Lord Bolingbroke,
in his admirable “ Letters on History,” speaks of the history
of the Muscovites as having no relation to the knowledge
which a practical English statesman ought to acquire. It may
be doubted whether a cabinet council often takes place now in
our Foreign Ofﬁce without Russia being uppermost in every
English statesman’s thoughts.

But though Russia remained thus long unheeded amid her
snows, there was a northern power the inﬂuence of which
was acknowledged in the principal European quarrels, and
whose good-will was sedulously courted by many of the bold—
est chiefs and ablest councilors of the leading states. This
was Sweden; Sweden, on whose ruins Russia has risen, but
whose ascendency over her semibarbarous neighbors was com-
plete until the fatal battle that now forms our subject.

As early as I 542 France had sought the alliance of Sweden
to aid her in her struggle against Charles V. And the name
of Gustavus Adolphus is of itself sufﬁcient to remind us that
in the great contest for religious liberty of which Germany was
for thirty years the arena, it was Sweden that rescued the fall-
ing cause of Protestantism; and it was Sweden that princi-
pally dictated the remodeling of the European state system
at the peace of Westphalia.

From the proud preeminence in which the valor of the
“ Lion of the North,” and of Torstenston, Bannier, Wrangel,
and the other generals of Gustavus, guided by the wisdom of
Oxenstiern, had placed Sweden, the defeat of Charles XII. at
Pultowa hurled her down at once'and forever. Her efforts dur-
ing the wars of the French Revolution to assume a leading part
in European politics met with instant discomﬁture, and almost
provoked derision. But the Sweden whose scepter was be-

302 DECISIVE BATTLES [1709

queathed to Christina, and whose alliance Cromwell valued
so highly, was a different power from the Sweden of the pres-
ent day. Finland, Ingria, Livonia, Esthonia, Carelia, and other
districts east of the Baltic then were Swedish provinces; and
the possession of Pomerania, Rugen, and Bremen made her
an important member of the Germanic empire. These terri-
tories are now all reft from her; and the most valuable of them
form the staple of her victorious rival’s strength. Could she
resume them, could the Sweden of 1648 be reconstructed, we
should have a ﬁrst-class Scandinavian state in the north,
well qualiﬁed to maintain the balance of power and check
the progress of Russia; whose power, indeed, never could
have become formidable to Europe save by Sweden becom-
ing weak.

The decisive triumph of Russia over Sweden at Pultowa
was therefore all-important to the world, on account of what
it overthrew as well as for what it established; and it is the
more deeply interesting because it was not merely the crisis
of a struggle between two states, but it was a trial of strength

between two great races of mankind. We must bear in'

mind that while the Swedes, like the English, the Dutch, and
others, belong to the Germanic race, the Russians are a
Sclavonic people. Nations of Sclavonian origin have long
occupied the greater part of Europe eastward of the Vistula,
and the populations also of Bohemia, Croatia, Servia, Dalma-
tia, and other important regions westward of that river are
Sclavonic. In the long and varied conﬂicts between them
and the Germanic nations that adjoin them, the Germanic
race had, before Pultowa, almost always maintained a superi-
ority. With the single but important exception of Poland,
no Sclavonic state had made any considerable ﬁgure in
history before the time when Peter the Great won his great
victory over the Swedish king.1 What Russia has done since
that time we know and we feel. And some of the wisest and
best men of our own age and nation, who have watched with
deepest care the annals and the destinies of humanity, have

believed that the Sclavonic element in the population of

Europe has as yet only partially developed its powers; that,
while other races of mankind (our own, the Germanic, in~

cluded) have exhausted their creative energies and completed

   
 

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1709] BATTLE or PULTOWA 303

their allotted achievements, the Sclavonic race has yet a great
career to run; and that the narrative of Sclavonic ascend-
ency is the remaining page that will conclude the history of
the world.

Let it not be supposed that in thus regarding the primary
triumph of Russia over Sweden as a victory of the Sclavonic
over the Germanic race we are dealing with matters of mere
ethnological pedantry, or with themes of mere speculative
curiosity. The fact that Russia is a Sclavonic empire is a
fact of. immense practical inﬂuence at the present moment.
Half the inhabitants of the Austrian empire are Sclavonian.
The population of the, larger part of Turkey in Europe is of
the same race. Silesia, Posen, and other parts of the Prus-
sian dominions are principally Sclavonic. And during late
years an enthusiastic zeal for blending all Sclavonians into
one great united Sclavonic empire has been growing up in
these countries, which, however we may deride its principle,
is not the less real and active, and of which Russia, as the
head and champion of the Sclavonic race, knows well how to
take her advantage.2

It is a singular fact that Russia owes her very name to a
band of Swedish invaders who conquered her a thousand
years ago. They were soon absorbed in the Sclavonic popu-
lation, and every trace of the Swedish character had disap-
peared in Russia for many centuries before her invasion by
Charles XII. She was long the victim and the slave of the
Tartars; and for many considerable periods of years the
Poles held her in subjugation. Indeed, if we except the ex-
peditions of some of the early Russian chiefs against Byzan-

tium, and the reign of Ivan Vasilovitch, the history of Russia-

before the time of Peter the Great is one long tale of suffer-
ing and degradation.

But whatever may have been the amount of national
injuries that she sustained from Swede, from Tartar, or from
Pole in the ages of her weakness, she has certainly retaliated
tenfold during the century and a half of her strength. Her
rapid transition at the commencement of that period from
being the prey of every conqueror to being the conqueror of
all with whom she comes into contact, to being the oppressor
instead of the oppressed, is almost without a parallel in the

304 DECISIVE BATTLES [1709

history of nations. It was the work of a single ruler; who,
himself without education, promoted science and literature
among barbaric millions; who gave them ﬂeets, commerce,
arts, and arms; who, at Pultowa, taught them to face and
beat the previously invincible Swedes; and who made stub-
born valor and implicit subordination from that time forth
the distinguishing characteristics of the Russian soldiery,
which had before his time been a mere disorderly and irreso-
lute rabble.

The career of Philip of Macedon resembles most nearly
that of the great Muscovite czar; but there is this important
difference, that Philip had, while young, received in Southern
Greece the best education in all matters of peace and war
that the ablest philosophers and generals of the age could
bestow. Peter was brought up among barbarians and in
barbaric ignorance. He strove to remedy this when a grown
man, by leaving all the temptations to idleness and sensuality
which his court offered and by seeking instruction abroad.
He labored with his own hands as a common artisan in
Holland and in England, that he might return and teach his
subjects how ships, commerce, and civilization could be
acquired. There is a degree of heroism here superior to
anything that we know of in the Macedonian king. But
Philip’s consolidation of the long disunited Macedonian
empire; his raising a people which he found the scorn of
their civilized southern neighbors to be their dread; his
organization of a brave and well-disciplined army, instead of
a disorderly militia; his creation of a maritime force, and his
systematic skill in acquiring and improving seaports and
arsenals; his patient tenacity of purpose under reverses; his
personal bravery, and even his proneness to coarse amuse-
ments and pleasures—all mark him out as the prototype of
the imperial founder of the Russian power. In justice, how-
ever, to the ancient hero, it ought to be added that we ﬁnd in
the history of Philip no examples of that savage cruelty which
deforms so grievously the character of Peter the Great.

In considering the effects of the overthrow which the
Swedish arms sustained at Pultowa, and in speculating on
the probable consequences that would have followed if the
invaders had been successful, we must. not only bear in mind

 

 

1709] BATTLE OF PULTOWA 305

the wretched state in which Peter found Russia at his acces-
sion, compared with her present grandeur, but we must also
keep in view the fact that, at the time when Pultowa was
fought, his reforms were yet incomplete and his new institu-
tions immature. He had broken up the old Russia; and the
new Russia, which he ultimately created, was still in embryo.
Had he been crushed at Pultowa, his mighty schemes would
have been buried with him ; and (to use the words of Voltaire)
“ the most extensive empire in the world would have relapsed
into the chaos from which it had been so lately taken.” It
is this fact that makes the repulse of Charles XII. the critical
point in the fortunes of Russia. The danger which she in-
curred a century afterwards from her invasion by Napoleon
was in reality far less than her peril when Charles attacked
her; though the French emperor, as a military genius, was
inﬁnitely superior to the Swedish king, and led a host against
her compared with which the armies of Charles seem almost
insigniﬁcant. But, as Fouché well warned his imperial
master, when he vainly endeavored to dissuade him from his
disastrous expedition against the empire of the czars, the
difference between the Russia of 1812 and the Russia of 1709
was greater than the disparity between the power of Charles
and the might of Napoleon. “If that heroic king,” said
Fouché, “had not, like your imperial majesty, half Europe
inarms to back him, neither had his opponent, the Czar
Peter, 400,000 soldiers and 50,000 Cossacks.” The historians
who describe the state of the Muscovite empire when revolu-
tionary and imperial France encountered it narrate with truth
and justice how “ at the epoch of the French Revolution this
immense empire, comprehending nearly half of Europe and
Asia within its dominions, inhabited by a patient and indomi-
table race, ever ready to exchange the luxury and adventure
of the south for the hardships and monotony of the north,
was daily becoming more formidable to the liberties of
Europe. The Russian infantry had then long been cele-
brated for its immovable ﬁrmness. Her immense popula-
tion, amounting then in Europe alone to nearly thirty-ﬁve
millions, afforded an inexhaustible supply of men. Her sol-
diers, inured to heat and cold from their infancy, and actuated

by a blind devotion to their czar, united the steady valor of
20

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306 DECISIVE BATTLES [1709

the English to the impetuous energy of the French troops.”
[Alison] So, also, we read how the haughty aggressions of
Bonaparte “went to excite a national feeling, from the banks
of the Borysthenes to the wall of China, and to unite against
him the wild and uncivilized inhabitants of an extended
empire, possessed by a love to their religion, their govern-
ment, and their country, and having a character of stern
devotion, which he was incapable of estimating.” But the
Russia of I709 had no such forces to oppose an assailant.
Her whole population then was below sixteen millions; and,
what is far more important, this population had acquired
neither military spirit nor strong nationality; nor was it
united in loyal attachment to its ruler.

Peter had wisely abolished the old regular troops of the
empire, the Strelitzes; but the forces which he had raised in
their stead on a new and foreign plan, and principally ofﬁcered
with foreigners, had, before the Swedish invasion, given no
proof that they could be relied on. In numerous encounters
with the Swedes, Peter’s soldiery had run like sheep before
inferior numbers. Great discontent, also, had been excited
among all classes of the community by the arbitrary changes
which their great emperor introduced, many of which clashed
with the most cherished national prejudices of his sub-
jects. A career of victory and prosperity had not yet
raised Peter above the reach of that disaffection, nor had
superstitious obedience to the czar yet become the character-
istic of the Muscovite mind. The victorious occupation of
Moscow by Charles XII. would have quelled the Russian
nation as effectually as had been the case when Baton Khan,
and other ancient invaders, captured the capital of primitive
Muscovy. How little such a triumph could effect towards
subduing modern Russia, the fate of Napoleon demonstrated
at once and forever.

The character of Charles XII. has been a favorite theme
with historians, moralists, philosophers, and poets. But it
is his military conduct during the campaign in Russia that
alone requires comment here. Napoleon, in the memoirs dic-
tated by him at St. Helena, has given us a systematic criti-
cism on that, among other celebrated campaigns, his own
Russian campaign included. He labors hard to prove that

 

 

 

 

1709] BATTLE OF PULTOWA 307

he himself observed all the true principles of offensive war;
and probably his censures 0f Charles’s generalship were
rather highly colored, for the sake of making his own mili-
tary skill stand out in more favorable relief. Yet, after mak-
ing all allowances, we must admit the force of Napoleon’s
strictures on Charles’s tactics, and own that his judgment,
though severe, is correct, when he pronounces that the Swed-
ish king, unlike his great predecessor Gustavus, knew nothing
of the art of war, and was nothing more than a brave and
intrepid soldier. Such, however, was not the light in which
Charles was regarded by his contemporaries at the commence-
ment of his Russian expedition. His numerous victories, his
daring and resolute spirit, combined with the ancient renown
of the Swedish arms, then ﬁlled all Europe with admiration
and anxiety. As Johnson expresses it, his name was then
one at which the world grew pale. Even Louis le Grand
earnestly solicited his assistance; and our own Marlborough,
then in the full career of his victories, was specially sent by
the English court to the camp of Charles, t0 propitiate the
hero of the North in favor of the cause of the Allies, and to
prevent the Swedish sword from being ﬂung into the scale in
the French king’s favor. But Charles at that time was solely
bent on dethroning the sovereign of Russia, as he had
already dethroned the sovereign of Poland, and all Europe
fully believed that he would entirely crush the czar, and dic-
tate conditions of peace in the Kremlin.3 Charles himself
looked on success as a matter of certainty; and the romantic
extravagance of his views was continually increasing. “ One
year, he thought, would sufﬁce for the conquest of Russia.
The court of Rome was next to feel his vengeance, as the
pope had dared to oppose the concession of religious liberty to
the Silesian Protestants. No enterprise at that time appeared
impossible to him. He had even despatched several ofﬁcers
privately into Asia and Egypt to take plans of the towns and
examine into the strength and resources of those countries.”
[Crighton]

Napoleon thus epitomizes the earlier operations of Charles’s
invasion of Russia:—

“ That prince set out from his camp at Aldstadt, near Leip-
sic, in September, I 707, at the head of 45,000 men, and trav-

308 DECISIVE BATTLES [1709‘

ersed Poland; 20,000 men, under Count Lewenhaupt, dis~
embarked at Riga, and 15,000 were in Finland. He was
therefore in a condition to have brought together 80,000 of
the best troops in the world. He left 10,000 men at Warsaw
to guard King Stanislaus, and in January, I 708, arrived at
Grodno, where he wintered. In June, he crossed the forest of
Minsk, and presented himself before Borisov; forced the
Russian army which occupied the left bank of the Beresina;
defeated 20,000 Russians who were strongly entrenched
behind marshes; passed the Borysthenes at Mohiloev, and
vanquished a corps of 16,000 Muscovites near Smolensko, on
the 22d of September. He was now advanced to the conﬁnes
of Lithuania, and was about to enter Russia proper. The
czar, alarmed at his approach, made him proposals of peace.
Up to this time all his movements were conformable to rule, _
and his communications were well secured. He was master

of Poland and Riga, and only ten days’ march distant from
Moscow; and it is probable that he would have reached that ’
capital, had he not quitted the highroad thither and directed
his steps towards the Ukraine, in order to form a junction
with Mazeppa, who brought him only 6000 men. By this
movement his line of operations, beginning at Sweden,
exposed his ﬂank to Russia for a distance of four hundred
leagues, and he was unable to protect it, or to receive either
reenforcement or assistance.”

Napoleon severely censures this neglect of one of the great
rules of war. He points out that Charles had not organized
. his war like Hannibal, on the principle of relinquishing all
communications with home, keeping all his forces concen-
trated, and creating a base of operations in the conquered
country. Such had been the bold system of the Carthaginian
general; but Charles acted on no such principle, inasmuch as
he caused Lewenhaupt, one of his generals, who commanded
a considerable detachment and escorted a most important
convoy, to follow him at a distance of twelve days’ march.
By this dislocation of his forces he exposed Lewenhaupt to
be overwhelmed separately by the full force of the enemy,
and deprived the troops under his own command of the aid
which that general’s men and stores might have afforded at
the very crisis of the campaign.

 

1709] BATTLE OF PULTOWA 309

The czar had collected an army of about a hundred thousand
effective men; and though the Swedes intthe beginning of the
invasion were successful in every encounter, the Russian troops
were gradually acquiring discipline; and Peter and his ofﬁcers
were learning generalship from their victors, as the Thebans
of old learned it from the Spartans. When Lewenhaupt, in the
October of I 708, was striving to join Charles in the Ukraine,
the czar suddenly attacked him near the Borysthenes with an
overwhelming force of ﬁfty thousand Russians. Lewenhaupt
fought bravely for three days, and succeeded in cutting his
way through the enemy, with about four thousand of his
men, to where Charles awaited him near the river Desna;
but upwards of eight thousand Swedes fell in these battles;
Lewenhaupt’s cannon and ammunition were abandoned, and
the whole of his important convoy of provisions, on which
Charles and his half-starved troops were relying, fell into the
enemy’s hands. Charles was compelled to remain in the
Ukraine during the winter; but in the spring of I709 he
moved forward towards Moscow, and invested the fortiﬁed
town of Pultowa, on the river Vorskla, a place where the czar
had stored up large supplies of provisions and military stores,
and which commanded the roads leading towards Moscow.
The possession of this place would have given Charles the
means of supplying all the wants of his suffering army, and
would also have furnished him with a secure base of opera-
tions for his advance against the Muscovite capital. The
siege was therefore hotly pressed by the Swedes; the garrison
resisted obstinately; and the czar, feeling the importance of
saving the town, advanced in June to its relief, at the head of
an army from ﬁfty to sixty thousand strong.

Both sovereigns now prepared for the general action which
each perceived to be inevitable, and which each felt would be
decisive of his own and of his country’s destiny. The czar,
by some masterly maneuvers, crossed the Vorskla, and posted
his army on the same side of that river with the besiegers,
but a little higher up. The Vorskla falls into the Borysthenes
about ﬁfteen leagues below Pultowa, and the czar arranged
his forces in two lines, stretching from one river towards the
other; so that if the Swedes attacked him and were repulsed,
they would be driven backwards into the acute angle formed

3 IO DECISIVE BATTLES [r709

by the two streams at their junction. He fortiﬁed these lines
with several redoubts, lined with heavy artillery; and his troops,
both horse and foot, were in the best possible condition, and
amply provided with stores and ammunition. Charles’s forces
were about twenty-four thousand strong. But not more than
half of these were Swedes; so much had battle, famine, fatigue,
and the deadly frosts of Russia thinned the gallant bands
which the Swedish king and Lewenhaupt had led to the
Ukraine. The other twelve thousand men under Charles
were Cossacks and Wallachians, who had joined him in that
country. On hearing that the czar was about to attack him,
he deemed that his dignity required that he himself should
be the assailant; and, leading his army out of their entrenched
lines before the town, he advanced with them against the
Russian redoubts.

He had been severely wounded in the foot in a skirmish a
few days before, and was borne in a litter along the ranks,
into the thick of the ﬁght. Notwithstanding the fearful dis-
parity of numbers and disadvantage of position, the Swedes
never showed their ancient valor more nobly than on that
dreadful day. Nor do their Cossack and Wallachian allies
seem to have been unworthy of ﬁghting side by side with
Charles’s veterans. Two of the Russian redoubts were actu-
ally entered, and the Swedish infantry began to raise the cry
of victory. But on the other side, neither general nor soldiers
ﬂinched in their duty. The Russian cannonade and mus-
ketry were kept up; fresh masses of defenders were poured
into the fortiﬁcations, and at length the exhausted remnants
of the Swedish columns recoiled from the blood-stained
redoubts. Then the czar led the infantry and cavalry of his
ﬁrst line outside the works, drew them up steadily and skil—
fully, and the action was renewed along the whole fronts of
the two armies on the open ground. Each sovereign exposed
his life freely in the world-winning battle; and on each side
the troops fought obstinately and eagerly under their ruler’s
eye. It was not till two hours from the commencement of
the action that, overpowered by numbers, the hitherto invin«
cible Swedes gave way. All was then hopeless disorder and
irreparable rout. Driven downward to where the rivers join,
the fugitive Swedes surrendered to their victorious pursuers,

 

 

 

1709] BATTLE OF PULTOWA 3 1 I

or perished in the waters of the Borysthenes. Only a few
hundreds swam that river with their king and the Cossack
Mazeppa, and escaped into the Turkish territory. Nearly
ten thousand lay killed and wounded in the redoubts and on
the ﬁeld of battle.

In the joy of his heart the czar exclaimed, when the strife
was over, “ that the son of the morning had fallen from
heaven; and that the foundations of St. Petersburg at length
stood ﬁrm.” Even on that battle-ﬁeld, near the Ukraine, the
Russian emperor’s ﬁrst thoughts were of conquests and ag-
grandizement of the Baltic. The peace of Nystadt, which
transferred the fairest provinces of Sweden to Russia, ratiﬁed
the judgment of battle which was pronounced at Pultowa.
Attacks on Turkey and Persia by Russia commenced almost
directly after that victory. And though the czar failed in his.
ﬁrst attempts against the sultan, the successors of Peter have,
one and all, carried on a uniformly aggressive and uniformly
successful system of policy against Turkey, and against every
other state, Asiatic as well as European, which has had the
misfortune of having Russia for a neighbor.

Orators and authors who have discussed the progress of
Russia have often alluded to the similitude between the
modern extension of the Muscovite empire and the extension
of the Roman dominions in ancient times. But attention has
scarcely been drawn to the closeness of the parallel between
conquering Russia and conquering Rome, not only in the
extent of conquests, but in the means of effecting conquest.
The history of Rome during the century and a half which
followed the close of the second Punic war, and during which
her largest acquisitions of territory were made, should be
minutely compared with the history of Russia for the last one
hundred and ﬁfty years. The main points of similitude can
only be indicated in these pages; but they deserve the fullest
consideration. Above all, the sixth chapter of Montesquieu’s
great treatise on Rome, the chapter “De la conduz'te que [es
Romaz'm tz'nrent pour sozmzettre 1e: peuples,” should be care-
fully studied by every one who watches the career and policy
of Russia. The classic scholar will remember the statecraft
of the Roman senate, which took, care in every foreign war
to appear in the character of a Protector. Thus Rome pro-

3 12 DECISIVE BATTLES [I709

tectm’ the [Etolians and the Greek cities against Macedon;
she protected Bithynia and other small Asiatic states against
the Syrian kings; she protected Numidia against Carthage;
and in numerous other instances assumed the same specious
character. But “woe to the people whose liberty depends
on the continued forbearance of an over-mighty protector.”
Every state which Rome protected was ultimately subjugated
and absorbed by her. And Russia has been the protector of
Poland, the protector of the Crimea, the protector of Cour-
land, the protector of Georgia, Immeritia, Mingrelia, the
Tcherkessian and Caucasian tribes. She has ﬁrst protected
and then appropriated them all. She protects Moldavia and
Wallachia. A few years ago she became the protector of
Turkey from Mehemet Ali; and since the summer of 1849
she has made herself the protector of Austria.

When the partisans of Russia speak of the disinterestedness
with which she withdrew her protecting troops from Constan-
tinople and from Hungary, let us here also mark the ominous
exactness of the parallel between her and Rome. While the
ancient world yet contained a number of independent states,

which might have made a formidable league against Rome if .

she had alarmed them by openly avowing her ambitious
schemes, Rome’s favorite policy was seeming disinterested-
ness and moderation. After her ﬁrst war against Philip, after
that against Antiochus, and many others, victorious Rome
promptly withdrew her troops from the territories which they
occupied. She affected to employ her arms only for the good
of others; but, when the favorable moment came, she always
found a pretext for marching her legions back into each cov-
eted district and making it a Roman province. Fear, not
moderation, is the only effective check on the ambition of
. such powers as ancient Rome and modern Russia. The
amount of that fear depends on the amount of timely vigilance
and energy which other states choose to employ against the
common enemy of their freedom and national independence.

NOTES

1 The Hussite wars may, perhaps, entitle Bohemia to be distinguished.

2 “ The idea of Panslavism had a purely literary origin. It was started
by Kollar, a Protestant clergyman of the Sclavonic congregation at Pesth,
in Hungary, who wished to establish a national literature bysirculating all

 

 

1709] p BATTLE OF PULTOWA 3 I 3

works written in the various Sclavonic dialects through every country where
any of them are spoken. He suggested that all the Sclavonic literati should
become acquainted with the sister dialects, so that a Bohemian or other
work might be read on the shores of the Adriatic as well as on the banks
of the Volga, or any other place where a Sclavonic language was spoken;
by which means an extensive literature might be created, tending to advance
knowledge in all Sclavonic countries; and he supported his arguments by
observing that the dialects of ancient Greece differed from each other, like
those of his own language, and yet that they formed only one Hellenic
literature. The idea of an intellectual union of all those nations naturally
led to that of a political one; and the Sclavonians, seeing that their numbers
amounted to about one third part of the whole population of Europe and
occupied more than half its territory, began to be sensible that they might
claim for themselves a position to which they had not hitherto aspired.

“The opinion gained ground; and the question now is, whether the
Sclavonians can form a nation independent of Russia; or whether they
ought to rest satisﬁed in being part of one great race, with the most powerful
member of it as their chief. The latter, indeed, is gaining ground among
them; and some Poles are disposed to attribute their sufferings to the
arbitrary will of the czar, without extending the blame to the Russians
themselves. These begin to think that if they cannot exist as Poles, the
best thing to be done is to rest satisﬁed with a position in the Sclavonic
empire; and they hope that, when once they give up the idea of restoring
their country, Russia may grant some concessions to their separate nation-
ality.

“ The same idea has been put forward by writers in the Russian interest;
great efforts are making among other Sclavonic people to induce them to
look upon Russia as their future head; and she has already gained con-
siderable inﬂuence over the Sclavonic populations of Turkey.”-——WILKIN-
SON’S Dalmatia.

3 Voltaire attests, from personal inspection of the letters of several public
ministers to their respective courts, that such was the general expectation.

SYNOPSIS OF EVENTS BETWEEN THE BATTLE OF PULTOWA,
1709, AND THE DEFEAT 0F BURGOYNE AT SARATOGA, 1777

I713. Treaty of Utrecht. Philip is left by it in posses-
sion of the throne of Spain. But Naples, Milan, the Spanish
territories on the Tuscan coast, the Spanish Netherlands, and
some parts of the French Netherlands are given torAustria.
France cedes to England Hudson’s Bay and Straits, the island
of St. Christopher, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland in
America. Spain cedes to England Gibraltar and Minorca,
which the English had taken during the war. The king of
Prussia and the Duke of Savoy both obtain considerable
additions of territory to their dominions.

.m. .. Mn.» .

3 14 DECISIVE BATTLES [1709

1714. Death of Queen Anne. The house of Hanover be-
gins to reign in England. A rebellion in favor of the Stuarts
is put down. Death of Louis XIV.

1718. Charles XII. killed at the siege of Frederickshall.

I72 5. Death of Peter the Great of Russia.

I740. Frederick II., king of Prussia, begins his reign. He
attacks the Austrian dominions, and conquers Silesia.

1742. War between France and England.

1743. Victory of the English at Dettingen.

I 745 Victory of the French at Fontenoy. Rebellion in
Scotland in favor of the house of Stuart; ﬁnally quelled by
the battle of Culloden 1n the next year.

I748. Peace of Aix—la- Chapelle.

1756 to 1763. The Seven Years’ war, during which Prussia
makes an heroic resistance against the armies of Austria,
Russia, and France. England, under the administration of
the elder Pitt (afterwards Lord Chatham), takes a glorious
part in the war in opposition to France and Spain. Wolfe
wins the battle of Quebec, and the English conquer Canada,
Cape Breton, and St. John. Clive begins his career of con-
quest in India. Cuba is taken by the English from Spain.

I763. Treaty of Paris, which leaves the power of Prussia
increased and its military reputation greatly exalted.

“ France, by the Treaty of Paris, ceded to England Canada
and the island of Cape Breton, with the islands andcoasts of
the gulf and river of St. Lawrence. The boundaries between
the two nations in North America were ﬁxed by a line drawn
along the middle of the Mississippi, from its source to its
mouth. All on the left or eastern bank of that river was
given up to England, except the city of New Orleans, which
was reserved to France; as was also the liberty of the ﬁsh-
eries on a part of the coasts of Newfoundland and the Gulf
‘of St. Lawrence. The islands of St. Peter and Miquelon
were given them as a shelter for their ﬁshermen, but without
permission to raise fortiﬁcations. The islands of Martinique,
Guadeloupe, Marie Galante, Desirade, and St. Lucia were
surrendered to France; while Grenada, the Grenadines, St.
Vincent, Dominica, and Tobago were ceded to England. This
latter power retained her conquests on the Senegal, and re-
stored to France the island of Goree, on the coast of Africa.

 

 

17o9] BATTLE OF PULTOWA 3 15

France was put in possession of the forts and factories which
belonged to her in the East Indies, on the coasts of Coroman-
del, Orissa, Malabar, and Bengal, under the restriction of
keeping up no military force in Bengal.

“In Europe, France restored all the conquests she had
made in Germany, as also the island of Minorca. England
gave up to her Belleisle, on the coast of Brittany; while
Dunkirk was kept in the same condition as had been deter-
mined by the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. The island of Cuba,
with the Havana, was restored to the king of Spain, who,
on his part, ceded to England Florida, with Port Augustine
and the Bay of Pensacola. The king of Portugal was re-
stored to the same state in which he had been before the war.
The colony of St. Sacrament in America, which the Spaniards
had conquered, was given back to him.

“The peace of Paris, of which we have just now spoken,
was the era of England’s greatest prosperity. Her commerce
and navigation extended over all parts of the globe, and were
supported by a naval force so much the more imposing, as
it was no longer counterbalanced by the maritime power of
France, which had been almost annihilated in the preceding
war. The immense territories which that peace had secured
her, both in Africa and America, opened up new channels
for her industry: and what deserves specially to be remarked
is that she acquired at the same time vast and important

possessions in the East Indies.” [Koch]

CHAPTER XIII

Victory (31’ the Americans over Burgoyne at Saratoga, 1777

“Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The ﬁrst four acts already past,
A ﬁfth shall close the drama with the day:
Time’s noblest offspring is its last.”
— BISHOP BERKELEY.

“Even of those great conﬂicts in which hundreds of thousands have
been engaged and tens of thousands have fallen, none has been more fruit-
ful of results than this surrender of thirty-ﬁve hundred ﬁghting men at
Saratoga. It not merely changed the relations of England and the feelings
of Europe towards these insurgent colonies, but it has modiﬁed, for all time
to come, the connection between every colony and every parent state.”—
LORD MAHON.

F the four great powers that now principally rule the '
political destinies of the world, France and England

are the only two Whose inﬂuence can be dated back
beyond the last century and a half. The third great power,
Russia, was a feeble mass of barbarism before the epoch of
Peter the Great; and the very existence of the fourth great
power, as an independent nation, commenced within the
memory of living men. By the fourth great power of the
world I mean the mighty commonwealth of the Western con-
tinent, which now commands the admiration of mankind.
That homage is sometimes reluctantly given, and accompa-
‘ nied with suspicion and ill will. But none can refuse it. All
the physical essentials for national strength are undeniably
to be found in the geographical position and amplitude of
territory which the United States possess: in their almost
inexhaustible tracts of fertile but hitherto untouched soil; in
their stately forests, in their mountain chains and their rivers,
their beds of coal, and stores of metallic wealth; in their ex-

tensive seaboard along the waters of two oceans, and in their
316

 

 

r777] BATTLE OF SARATOGA 3 17

already numerous and rapidly increasing population. And
when we examine the character of this population, no one
can look on the fearless energy, the sturdy determination,
the aptitude for local self-government, the versatile alacrity,
and the unresting spirit of enterprise which characterize the
Anglo-Americans without feeling that he here beholds the
true moral elements of progressive might.

Three quarters of a century have not yet passed away since
the United States ceased to be mere dependencies of Eng-
land. And even if we date their origin from the period when
the ﬁrst permanent European settlements, out of which they
grew, were made on the western coast of the North Atlantic,
the increase of their strength is unparalleled, either in rapidity
or extent.

The ancient Roman boasted, with reason, of the growth of
Rome from humble beginnings to the greatest magnitude
which the world had then ever witnessed. But the citizen of
the United States is still more justly entitled to claim this
praise. In two centuries and a half his country has acquired
ampler dominion than the Roman gained in ten. And, even
if we credit the legend of the band of shepherds and outlaws
with which Romulus is said to have colonized the Seven Hills,
we ﬁnd not there so small a germ of future greatness as we
ﬁnd in the group of a hundred and ﬁve ill-chosen and disunited
emigrants who founded Jamestown in 1607, or in the scanty
band of Pilgrim Fathers who, a few years later, moored their
bark on the wild and rock-bound coast of the wilderness that
was to become New England. The power of the United
States is emphatically the “ Imperium quo neque ab exordio
ullum fere minus, neque incrementis toto orbe amplius humana
potest memoria recordari.” [Eutropius]

Nothing is more calculated to impress the mind with a sense
of the rapidity with which the resources of the American
republic advance than the difﬁculty which the historical
inquirer ﬁnds in ascertaining their precise amount. If he
consults the most recent works, and those written by the
ablest investigators of the subject, he ﬁnds in them admiring
comments on the change which the last few years, before
those books were written, had made; but when he turns to
apply the estimates in those books to the present moment, he

3 I 8 DECISIVE BATTLES [I 777

ﬁnds them wholly inadequate. Before a book on the subject
of the United States has lost its novelty, those states have
outgrown the description which it contains. The celebrated
work of the French statesman De Tocqueville appeared about
ﬁfteen years ago. In the passage which I am about to quote,
it will be seen that he predicts the constant increase of the
Anglo-American power, but he looks on the Rocky Moun-
tains as their extreme western limit for many years to come.
He had evidently no expectation of himself seeing that power
dominant along the Paciﬁc as well as along the Atlantic coast.
He says : ~—

“ The distance from Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico
extends from the 47th to the 30th degree of latitude, a dis-
tance of more than 1200 miles, as the bird ﬂies. The frontier
of the United States winds along the whole of this immense
line; sometimes falling within its limits, but more frequently
extending far beyond it into the waste. It has been calculated
that the Whites advance every year a mean distance of seven-
teen miles along the whole of this vast boundary. Obstacles,
such as an unproductive district, a lake, or an Indian nation
unexpectedly encountered, are sometimes met with. The
advancing column then halts for a while; its two extremities

fall back upon themselves, and as soon as they are reunited

they proceed onward. This gradual and continuous progress
of the European race towards the Rocky Mountains has the
solemnity of a Providential event : it is like a deluge of men
rising unabatedly, and daily driven onward by the hand of
God.

“ Within this ﬁrst line of conquering settlers towns are
built and vast estates founded. In I 790 there were only a
few thousand pioneers sprinkled along the valleys of the Mis-
sissippi; and at the present day these valleys contain as many
inhabitants as were to be found in the whole Union in 1790.
Their population amounts to nearly four millions. The city
of Washington was founded in 1800, in the very center of the
Union; but such are the changes which have taken place,
that it now stands at one of the extremities; and the dele-
gates of the most remote Western states are already obliged
to perform a journey as long as that from Vienna to Paris.

“It must not, then, be imagined that the impulse of the

"f - 5 . A
Wmmﬁm .Lua , I ‘

 

 

1-777] BATTLE OF SARATOGA 3 19

British race in the New World can be arrested. The dis-
memberment of the Union, and the hostilities which might
ensue; the abolition of republican institutions, and the tyran-
niCal government which might succeed it, may retard this
impulse, but they cannot prevent it from ultimately fulﬁlling
the destinies to which that race is reserved. No power upon
earth can close upon the emigrants that fertile wilderness,
which offers resources to all industry and a refuge from all
want. Future events, of whatever nature they may be, will
not deprive the Americans of their climate or of their
inland seas, or of their great rivers, or of their exuberant
soil. Nor will bad laws, revolutions, and anarchy be able
to obliterate that love of prosperity and that spirit of enter-
prise which seem to be the distinctive characteristics of their
race, or to extinguish that knowledge which guides them on
their way.

“ Thus, in the midst of the uncertain future, one event at '
least is sure. At a period which may be said to be near (for
we are speaking of the life of a nation), the Anglo-Americans
will alone cover the immense space contained between the
polar regions and the tropics, extending from the coast of the
Atlantic to the shores of the Paciﬁc Ocean; the territory
which will probably be occupied by the Anglo-Americans at
some future time may be computed to equal three quarters of
Europe in extent. The climate of the Union is, upon the
whole, preferable to that of Europe, and its natural advan-
tages are not less great ; it is therefore evident that its popu-
lation will at some future time be proportionate to our own.
Europe, divided as it is between so many different nations,
and torn as it has been by incessant wars and the barbarous
manners of the Middle Ages, has notwithstanding attained a
population of 410 inhabitants to the square league. What
cause can prevent the United States from having as numerous
a population in time?

“The time will therefore come when one hundred and
ﬁfty millions of men will be living in North America, equal
in condition, the progeny of one race, owing their origin to
the same'cause, and preserving the same civilization, the
same language, the same religion, the same habits, the same
manners, and imbued with the same opinions, propagated

320 DECISIVE BATTLES [1777

under the same forms. The rest is uncertain, but this is cer-
tain; and it is a fact new to the world, a fact fraught with
such portentous consequences as to bafﬂe the efforts even of
the imagination.” ,

Let us turn from the French statesman, writing in 1835,
to an English statesman, who is justly regarded as the high-
est authority on all statistical subjects, and who described the
United States only seven years ago. Macgregor tells us, —

“The states which, on the ratiﬁcation of independence,
formed the American Republican Union, were thirteen, viz. :—

“ Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode
Island, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Penn-
sylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and
Georgia.

“The foregoing thirteen states (the whole inhabited terri-
tory of which, with the exception of a few small settlements,
was conﬁned to the region extending between the Alleghany
Mountains and the Atlantic) were those which existed at the
period when they "became an acknowledged separate and in-
dependent federal sovereign power. The thirteen stripes of
the standard or ﬂag of the United States continue to rep-
resent the original number. The stars have multiplied to
twenty-six,1 according as the number of states has increased.

“ The territory of the thirteen original states of the Union,
including Maine and Vermont, comprehended a superﬁcies
of 371,124 English square miles; that of the Whole United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, 120,354; that of
France, including Corsica, 214,910; that of the Austrian em-
pire, including Hungary and all the imperial states, 257,540
square miles.

“The present superﬁcies of the twenty-six constitutional
states of the Anglo-American Union, and the District of
Columbia and territories of Florida, include 1,029,025 square
miles ; to which if we add the Northwest or Wisconsin terri-
tory, east of the Mississippi, and bounded by Lake Superior
on the north and Michigan on the east, and occupying at
least 100,000 square miles, and then add the great western
region, not yet well-deﬁned territories, but at the most limited
calculation comprehending 700,000 square miles—the whole
unbroken in its vast length and breadth by foreign nations

 

I777] BATTLE OF SARATOGA 321

——it comprehends aportion of the earth’s surface equal to
1,729,025 English, or 1,296,770 geographical, square miles.”

We may add that the population of the states, when they
declared their independence, was about two millions and a
half ; it is now twenty-three millions.

I have quoted Macgregor, not only on account of the clear
and full View which he gives of the progress of America to
the date when he wrote, but because his description may be
contrasted with what the United States have become even
since his book appeared. Only three years after the time
when Macgregor thus wrote, the American President truly
stated :— '

“Within less than four years the annexation of Texas to
the Union has been consummated; all conﬂicting title to the
Oregon territory, south of the 49th degree of north latitude,
adjusted; and New Mexico and Upper California have been
acquired by treaty. The area of these several territories
contains 1,193,061 square miles, or 763,559,040 acres; while
the area of the remaining twenty-nine states, and the terri-
tory not yet organized into states east of the Rocky Moun.
tains, contains 2,059, 51 3 square miles, or 1,318,126,058 acres.
These estimates show that the territories recently acquired,
and over which our exclusive jurisdiction and dominion have
been extended, constitute a country more than half as large
as all that which was held by the United States before their
acquisition. If Oregon be excluded from the estimate, there
will still remain within the limits of Texas, New Mexico, and
California 851,598 square miles, or 545,012,720 acres ; being
an addition equal to more than one third of all the territory
owned by the United States before their acquisition; and,
including Oregon, nearly as great an extent of territory as
the Whole of Europe, Russia only excepted. T ne levsz'ssz'ppz',
so late/y the frontier of our country, is now only its center.
With the addition of the late acquisitions, the United States
are now estimated to be nearly as large as the whole of
Europe. The extent of the seacoast of Texas, on the Gulf
of Mexico, is upward of 400 miles; of the coast of Upper Cali-
fornia, on the Paciﬁc, of 970 miles; and of Oregon, including
the straits of Fuca, of 650 miles ; making tne whole extent of
seacoast on the Pact/it 1620 miles, and the whole extent on

21

\ 322 DECISIVE BATTLES [1777

both the Paciﬁc and the Gulf of Mexico 2020 miles. The
length of the coast on the Atlantic, from the northern limits
of the United States, round the Capes of Florida to the
Sabine, on the eastern boundary of Texas, is estimated to be
3100 miles, so that the addition of seacoast, including Ore-
gon, is very nearly two thirds as great as all we possessed
before ; and, excluding Oregon, is an addition of 13 70 miles
—— being nearly equal to one half of the extent of coast which
we possessed before these acquisitions. We have now three
great maritime fronts — on the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico,
and the Paciﬁc; making, in the whole, an extent of seacoast
exceeding 5000 miles. This is the extent of the seacoast of
the United States, not including bays, sounds, and small ir-
regularities of the main shore, and of the sea islands. If
these be included, the length of the shore line of coast, as
estimated by the superintendent of the Coast Survey, in his
report, would be 33,063 miles.”

The importance of the power of the United States being,
then, ﬁrmly planted along the Paciﬁc applies not only to the
New World, but to the Old. Opposite to San Francisco, on
the coast of that ocean, lie the wealthy but decrepit empires
of China and Japan. Numerous groups of islets stud the
larger part of the intervening sea, and form convenient step-
ping-stones for the progress of commerce or ambition. The
intercourse of trafﬁc between these ancient Asiatic mon-
archies and the young Anglo-American republic must be
rapid and extensive. Any attempt of the Chinese or Jap—
anese rulers to check it will only accelerate an armed col-
lision. The American will either buy or force his way.
Between such populations as that of China and Japan on
the one side and that of the United States on the other——
the former haughty, formal, and insolent; the latter bold,
intrusive, and unscrupulous—causes of quarrel must, sooner
or later, arise. The results of such a quarrel cannot be
doubted. America will scarcely imitate the forbearance
shown by England at the end of our late war with the
Celestial Empire; and the conquest of China and Japan by
the ﬂeets and armies of the United States are events which
many now living are likely .to witness. Compared with the
magnitude of such changes in the dominion of the Old

i
f,
if.
t.
i

 

1777] BATTLE or SARATOGA 32 3

World, the certain ascendency of the Anglo-Americans over
Central and Southern America seems a matter of secondary
importance. Well may we repeat De Tocqueville’s words,
that the growing power of this commonwealth is, “Un fait
entierement nouveau dans le monde, et dont l’imagination
elle-méme ne saurait saisir la portée.”2

An Englishman may look, and ought to look, on the grow-
ing grandeur of the Americans with no small degree of gen-
erous sympathy and satisfaction. They, like ourselves, are
members of the great Anglo-Saxon nation “whose race and
language are now overrunning the world from one end of it
to the other.” And whatever differences of form of gov-
ernment may exist between us and them—whatever rem-
iniscences of the days when, though brethren, we strove
together may rankle in the minds of us, the defeated party
——we should cherish the bonds of common nationality that
still exist between us. We should remember, as the Athe-
nians remembered of the Spartans at a season of jealousy
and temptation, that our race is one, being of the same blood,
Speaking the same language, having an essential resemblance
in our institutions and usages, and worshiping in the temples
of the same God. All this may and should be borne in mind.
And yet an Englishman can hardly watch the progress of
America without the regretful thought that America once was
English, and that but for the folly of our rulers she might be
English still. It is true that the commerce between the two
countries has largely and beneﬁcially increased; but this is
no proof that the increase would not have been still greater
had the states remained integral portions of the same great
empire. By giving a fair and just participation in political
rights, these, “the fairest possessions” of the British crown,
might have been preserved to it. “This ancient and most
noble monarchy” would not have been dismembered; nor
should we see that which ought to be the right arm of our
strength now menacing us in every political crisis, as the most
formidable rival of our commercial and maritime ascendency.

The war which rent away the North American colonies of
England is, of all subjects in history, the most painful for an
Englishman to dwell on. It was commenced and carried on
by the British ministry in iniquity and folly, and it was con-

324 DECISIVE BATTLES [I777

cluded in disaster and shame. - But the contemplation of it
cannot be evaded by the historian, however much it may be
abhorred. Nor can any military event be said to have exer-
cised more important inﬂuence on the future fortunes of man-
kind than the complete defeat of Burgoyne’s expedition in
1777; a defeat which rescued the 'revolted colonistsfrom cer-
tain subjection; and which, by inducing the courts of France
and Spain to attack England in their behalf, insured the inde-
pendence of the United States and the formation of that trans-
Atlantic power which not only America, but both Europe and
Asia, now see and feel

Still, in proceeding to describe this “ decisive battle of the
world,” a very brief recapitulation of the earlier events of the
war may be sufﬁcient; nor shall I linger unnecessarily on a
painful theme.

The ﬁve northern colonies of Massachusetts,Connecticut,
Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Vermont, usually classed
together as the New England colonies, were the strongholds
of the insurrection against the mother country. The feeling
of resistance was less vehement and general in the central
settlement of New York; and still less so in Pennsylvania,
Maryland, and the other colonies of the south, although every-
where it was formidably active. Virginia should, perhaps, be
particularized for the zeal which its leading men displayed in
the American cause; but it was among the descendants of the
stern Puritans that the spirit of Cromwell and Vane breathed
in all its fervor; it was from the New Englanders that the ﬁrst
armed opposition to the British crown had been offered; and
it was by them that the most stubborn determination to ﬁght
to the last, rather than waive a single right or privilege, had
been displayed. In I775 they had succeeded 1n forcing the
British troops to evacuate Boston; and the events of 1776 '
had made New York (which the royalists captured in that
year) the principal basis of operations for the armies of the
mother country.

A glance at the map will show that the Hudson River,
which falls into the Atlantic at New York, runs down from
the north at the back of the New England states, forming an
angle of about forty-ﬁve degrees with the line of the coast of
the Atlantic, along which the New England states are situate.

 

:777] BATTLE OF SARATOGA 32 5

Northward of the Hudson we see .a small chain of lakes com-
municating with. the Canadian frontier. It is necessary to
attend closely to these geographical points, in order to under-
stand the plan of the operations which the English attempted
in 1777, and which the battle of Saratoga defeated.

The English had a considerable force in Canada, and in
1776 had completely repulsed an attack which the Americans
had made upon that province. The British ministry resolved
to avail themselves, in the next year, of the advantage which
the occupation of Canada gave them, not merely for the pur-
pose of defense, but for the purpose of striking a Vigorous
and crushing blow against the revolted colonies. With this
View, the army in Canada was largely reenforced. Seven
thousand veteran troops were sent out from England, with a
corps of artillery abundantly supplied, and led by select and
experienced ofﬁcers. Large quantities of military stores were
also furnished for the equipment of the Canadian volunteers
who were expected to join the expedition. It was intended
that the force thus collected should march southward by the
line of the lakes, and thence along the banks of the Hudson
River. The British army in New York (or a large detach-
ment of it) was to make a simultaneous movement northward
up the line of the Hudson, and the two expeditions were to
unite at Albany, a town on that river. By these operations
all communication between the northern colonies and those
of the center and south would be cut off. An irresistible
force would be concentrated, so as to crush all further oppo-
sition in New England; and when this was done, it was
believed that the other colonies would speedily submit. The
Americans had no troops in the ﬁeld that seemed able to
bafﬂe these movements. Their principal army, under Wash-
ington, was occupied in watching over Pennsylvania and the
south. At any rate, it was believed that, in order to oppose
the plan intended for the new campaign, the insurgents must
risk a pitched battle, in which the superiority of the royalists
in numbers, in discipline, and in equipment seemed to promise
to the latter a crowning victory. Without question the plan
was ably formed; and had the success of the execution been
equal to the ingenuity of the design, the re-conquest or sub—
mission of the thirteen United States must, in all human prob—

326 DECISIVE BATTLES [I777

ability, have followed; and the independence which they
proclaimed in I 776 would have been extinguished before it
existed a second year. No European power had as yet come
forward to aid America. It is true that England was gener-
ally regarded with jealousy and ill will, and was thought to
have acquired, at the Treaty of Paris, a preponderance of
dominion which was perilous to the balance of power; but
though many were willing to wound, none had yet ventured
to strike; and America, if defeated in 1777, would have been
suffered to fall unaided.3

Burgoyne had gained celebrity by some bold and dashing
exploits in Portugal during the last war; he was personally
as brave an ofﬁcer as ever headed British troops; he had
considerable skill as a tactician; and his general intellectual
abilities and acquirements were of a high order. He had sev-
eral very able and experienced ofﬁcers under him, among
whom were Major-general Phillips and Brigadier-general
Fraser. His regular troops amounted, exclusively of the
corps of artillery, to about seven thousand two hundred men,
rank and ﬁle. Nearly half of these were Germans. He had
also an auxiliary force of from two to three thousand Cana-
dians. He summoned the warriors of several tribes of the
red Indians near the western lakes to join his army. Much
eloquence was poured forth, both in America and in England,
in denouncing the use of these savage auxiliaries. Yethur-
goyne seems to have done no more than Montcalm, Wolfe,
and other French, American, and English generals had done
before him. But, in truth, the lawless ferocity of the Indians,
their unskilfulness in regular action, and the utter impossi-
bility of bringing them under any discipline, made their ser-
vices of little or no value in times of difﬁculty; while the
indignation which their outrages inspired went far to rouse
the whole population of the invaded districts into active hos-
tilities against Burgoyne’s force.

Burgoyne assembled his troops and confederates near the
river Bouquet, on the west side of Lake Champlain. He
then, on the 2ISt of June, I 777, gave his red allies a war-
feast, and harangued them on the necessity of abstaining
from their usual cruel practises against unarmed people and
prisoners. At the same time he published a pompous mani-

 

I777] BATTLE OF SARATOGA 327

festo to the Americans, in which he threatened the refractory
with all the horrors of war, Indian as well as European.
The army proceeded by water to Crown Point, a fortiﬁcation
which the Americans held at the northern extremity of the
inlet by which the water from Lake George is conveyed to
Lake Champlain. He landed here without opposition; but
the reduction of Ticonderoga, a fortiﬁcation about twelve
miles to the south of Crown Point, was a more serious mat-
ter, and was supposed to be the critical part of the expedi~
tion. Ticonderoga commanded the passage along the lakes,
and was considered to be the key to the route which Bur-
goyne wished to follow. The English had been repulsed
in an attack on it in the war with the French in I 758 with
severe loss. But Burgoyne now invested it with great skill;
and the American general, St. Clair, who had only an ill-
equipped army of about three thousand men, evacuated it
on the 5th of July. It seems evident that a different course
would have caused the destruction or capture of his whole
army, which, weak as it was, was the chief force then in the
ﬁeld for the protection of the New England states. When
censured by some of his countrymen for abandoning Ticon-
deroga, St. Clair truly replied, “ that he had lost a post but
saved a province.” Burgoyne’s troops pursued the retiring
Americans, gained several advantages over them, and took a
large part of their artillery and military stores.

The loss of the British in these engagements was triﬂing.
The army moved southward along Lake George to Skenes-
borough; and thence slowly, and with great difﬁculty, across
a broken country, full of creeks and marshes, and clogged
by the enemy with felled trees and other obstacles, to Fort
Edward, on the Hudson River, the American troops continu—
ing to retire before them.

Burgoyne reached the left bank of the Hudson River on
the 30th of July. Hitherto he had overcome every difﬁculty
which the enemy and the nature of the country had placed
in his way. His army was in excellent order and in the
highest spirits; and the peril of the expedition seemed over
when they were once on the bank of the river which was
to be the channel of communication between them and the
British army in the south. But their feelings, and those of

328 DECISIVE BATTLES [1777

the English nation in general when their successes were
announced, may best be learned from a contemporary writer.
Burke, in the “Annual Register” for 1777, describes them
thus : -

“ Such was the rapid torrent of success which swept every—
thing away before the northern army in its onset. It is not
to be wondered at if both ofﬁcers and private men were
highly elated with their good fortune, and deemed that and
their prowess to be irresistible; if they regarded their enemy
with the greatest contempt; considered their own toils to be
nearly at an end; Albany to be already in their hands; and
the reduction of the northern provinces to be rather a mat-
ter of some time than an arduous task full of difﬁculty and
danger.

“ At home, the. joy and exultation were extreme, ——- not only
at court, but with all those who hoped or wished the unquali-
ﬁed subjugation and unconditional submission of the colonies.
The loss in reputation was greater to the Americans, and
capable of more fatal consequences, than even that of ground,
of posts, of artillery, or of men. All the contemptuous and
most degrading charges which had been made by their ene-
mies, of their wanting the resolution and abilities of men,
even in their defense of whatever was dear to them, were
now repeated and believed. Those who still regarded them
as men, and who had not yet lost all affection to them as
brethren, who also retained hopes that a happy reconciliation
upon constitutional principles, without sacriﬁcing the dignity
or the just authority of government on the one side, or a
dereliction of the rights of freemen on the other, was not
even now impossible, notwithstanding their favorable disposi-
tions in general could not help feeling upon this occasion
that the Americans sank not a little in their estimation. It
was not difﬁcult to diffuse an opinion that the war in effect
was over; and that any further resistance could serve only
to render the terms of their submission the worse. Such
were some of the immediate effects of the loss of those grand
keys of North America, Ticonderoga and the lakes.”

The astonishment and alarm which these events produced
among the Americans were naturally great; but in the midst
of their disasters none of the colonists showed any disposi-

 

1777] BATTLE OF SARATOGA 329

tion to submit. The local governments of the New Eng-land
states, as well as the Congress, acted with vigor and ﬁrmness
in their efforts to repel the enemy. General Gates was sent
to take command of the army at Saratoga; and Arnold, a
favorite leader of the Americans, was despatched by Wash-
ington to act under him, with reenforcements of troops and
guns from the main American army. Burgoyne’s employ—
ment of the Indians now produced the worst possible effects.
Though he labored hard to check the atrocities which they
were accustomed to commit, he could not prevent the occur-
rence of many barbarous outrages, repugnant both to the
feelings of humanity and to the laws of civilized warfare.
The American commanders took care that the reports of
these excesses should be circulated far and Wide, well know-
ing that they would make the stern New Englanders not
droop, but rage. Such was their effect; and though, when
each man looked upon his wife, his children, his sisters, or
his aged parents, the thought of the merciless Indian “ thirst-
ing for the blood of man, woman, and child,” of “the canni-
bal savage torturing, murdering, roasting, and eating the
mangled victims of his barbarous battles” [Chatham], might
raise terror in the bravest breasts, this very terror produced
a directly contrary effect to causing submission to the royal
army. It was seen that the few friends of the royal cause,
as well as its enemies, were liable to be the victims of the
indiscriminate rage of the savages; and thus “the inhabitants
of the open and frontier countries had no choice of acting:
they had no means of security left but by abandoning their
habitations and taking up arms. Every man saw the neces-
sity of becoming a temporary soldier, not only for his own
security, but for the protection and defense of those connec-
tions which are clearer than life itself.” Thus an army was
poured forth by the woods, mountains, and marshes, which
in this part were thickly sown with plantations and villages.
The Americans recalled their courage ; and when their regu-
lar army seemed to be entirely wasted, the spirit of the coun-
try produced a much greater and more formidable force.
While resolute recruits, accustomed to the use of ﬁrearms
and all partially trained by service in the provincial militias,
were thus ﬂocking to the standard of Gates and Arnold at

3 3o DECISIVE BATTLES [x777

Saratoga, and while Burgoyne was engaged at Fort Edward
in providing the means for the further advance of his army
through the intricate and hostile country that still lay before
him, two events occurred, in each of which the British sus-
tained loss and the Americans obtained advantage, the moral
effects of which were even more important than the immedi-
ate result of the encounters. When Burgoyne left Canada,
General St. Leger was detached from that province with a
mixed force of about one thousand men, and some light ﬁeld-
pieces, across Lake Ontario against Fort Stanwix, which the
Americans held. After capturing this, he was to march along
the Mohawk River to its conﬂuence with the Hudson, between
Saratoga and Albany, where his force and that of Burgoyne
were to unite. But, after some successes, St. Leger was
obliged to retreat, and to abandon his tents and large quanti-
ties of stores to the garrison. At the very time that General
Burgoyne heard of this disaster, he experienced one still more
severe in the defeat of Colonel Baum with a large detach-
ment of German troops at Bennington, whither Burgoyne had
sent them for the purpose of capturing some magazines of
provisions, of which the British army stood greatly in need.
The Americans, augmented by continual accessions of strength,
succeeded, after many attacks, in breaking this corps, whiCh
ﬂed into the woods, and left its commander mortally Wounded
on the ﬁeld; they then marched against a force of ﬁve hun-
dred grenadiers and light infantry, which was advancing to
Colonel Baum’s assistance under Lieutenant-colonel Brey-
man, who, after a gallant resistance, was obliged to retreat
on ‘the main army. The British loss in these two actions
exceeded six hundred men; and a party of American loyalists
on their way to join the army, having attached themselves to
Colonel Baum’s corps, were destroyed with it.
Notwithstanding these reverses, which added greatly to the
spirit and numbers of the American forces, Burgoyne deter-
mined to advance. It was impossible any longer to keep up
his communications with Canada by way of the lakes, so as
to supply his army on his southward march; but having by
unremitting exertions collected provisions for thirty days, he
crossed the Hudson by means of a bridge of rafts, and, march-
ing a short distance along its western bank, he encamped on

washam..r 54..

 

x777] BATTLE OF SARATOGA '33:

the 14th of September on the heights of Saratoga, about six.
teen miles from Albany. The Americans had fallen back
from Saratoga, and were now strongly posted near Stillwater,
about half-way between Saratoga and Albany, and showed a
determination to recede no farther.

Meanwhile Lord Howe, with the bulk of the British army
that had lain at New York, had sailed away to the Delaware,
and there commenced a campaign against Washington, in
which the English general took Philadelphia, and gained other
showy but unproﬁtable successes. But Sir Henry Clinton,
a brave and skilful ofﬁcer, was left with a considerable force
at'New York; and he undertook the task of moving up the
Hudson to cooperate with Burgoyne. Clinton was obliged,
for this purpose, to wait for reenforcements which had been
promised from England, and these did not arrive till Septem-
ber. As soon as he received them, Clinton embarked about
3000 of his men on a ﬂotilla, convoyed by some ships of war
under Commander Hotham, and proceeded to force his way
up the river; but it was long before he was able to open any
communication with Burgoyne.

The country between Burgoyne’s position at Saratoga and
that of the Americans at Stillwater was rugged, and seamed
with creeks and watercourses ; but after great labor in making
bridges and temporary causeways, the British army moved for-
ward. About four miles from Saratoga, on the afternoon of
the 19th of September, a sharp encounter took place between
part of the English right wing, under Burgoyne himself, and
a strong body of the enemy, under Gates and Arnold. The
conﬂict lasted till sunset. The British remained masters of
the ﬁeld; but the loss on each side was nearly equal (from
ﬁve hundred to six hundred men); and the spirits of the
Americans were greatly raised by having withstood the best
regular troops of the English army. Burgoyne now halted
again, and strengthened his position by ﬁeld-works and re—
doubts; and the Americans also improved their defenses.
The two armies remained nearly within cannon-shot of each
other for a considerable time, during which Burgoyne was
anxiously looking for intelligence of the promised expedition
from New York, which, according to the original plan, ought
by this time to have been approaching Albany from the

332 DECISIVE BATTLES [1777

south. At last a messenger from Clinton made his way with
great difﬁculty to Burgoyne’s camp, and brought the informa-
tion that Clinton was on his way up the Hudson to attack
the American forts which barred the passage up that river
to Albany. Burgoyne, in reply, on the 30th of September,
urged Clinton to attack the forts as speedily as possible, stat-
ing that the effect of such an attack, or even the semblance
of. it, would be to move the American army from its position
before his own troops. By another messenger, who reached
Clinton on the 5th of October, Burgoyne informed his brother
general that he had lost his communications with Canada, but
had provisions which would last him till the 20th. Burgoyne
described himself as strongly posted, and stated that, though
the Americans in front of him were strongly posted also, he
made no doubt of being able to force them and making his
way to Albany; but that he doubted whether he could subsist
there, as the country was drained of provisions. He wished
Clinton to meet him there and to keep open a communication
with New York.

Burgoyne had overestimated his resources, and in the very
beginning of October found difﬁculty and distress pressing
him hard.

The Indians and Canadians began to desert him; while,
on the other hand, Gates’s army was continually reenforced
by fresh bodies of the militia. An expeditionary force was
detached by the Americans, which made a bold though un-
successful attempt to retake Ticonderoga. And ﬁnding the
number and spirit of the enemy to increase daily, and his
own stores of provisions to diminish, Burgoyne determined
on attacking the Americans in front of him, and by dislodge
ing them from their position to gain the means of moving
upon Albany, or at least of relieving his troops from the
straitened position in which they were cooped up.

Burgoyne’s force was now reduced to less than 6000 men.
The right of his camp was on some high ground a little to
the west of the river; thence his entrenchments extended
along the lower ground to the bank of the Hudson, the line
of their front being nearly at a right angle with the course of
the stream. The lines were fortiﬁed with redoubts and ﬁeld-
works, and on a height on the ﬂank of the “extreme right a.

 

1777] BATTLE or SARATOGA 3 3 3

strong redoubt was reared, and entrenchments, in a horseshoe
form, thrown up. The Hessians, under Colonel Breyman,
were stationed here, forming a ﬂank defense to Burgoyne’s
main army. The numerical force of the Americans was now
greater than the British, even in regular troops, and the num-
bers of the militia and volunteers which had joined Gates and
Arnold were greater still.

General Lincoln, with 2000 New England troops, had
reached the American camp on the 29th of September.
Gates gave him the command of the right wing, and took
in person the command of the left wing, which was com-
posed of two brigades under Generals Poor and Learned, of
Colonel Morgan’s riﬂe-corps, and part of the fresh New Eng-
land militia. The whole of the American lines had been
ably fortiﬁed under the direction of the celebrated Polish
general, Kosciusko, who was now serving as a volunteer in
Gates’s army. The right of the American position—that
is to say, the part of it nearest to the river—was too strong
to be assailed with any prospect of success, and Burgoyne
therefore determined to endeavor to force their left. For
this purpose he formed a column of I 500 regular troops, with
two twelve-pounders, two howitzers, and six six—pounders.
He headed this in person, having Generals Phillips, Riedesel,
and Fraser under him. The enemy’s force immediately in
front of his lines was so strong that he dared not weaken the
troops who guarded them by detaching any more to strengthen

his column of attack.
It was on the 7th of October that Burgoyne led his column

forward; and on the preceding day, the 6th, Clinton had suc-
cessfully executed a brilliant enterprise against the two Ameri-
can forts which barred his progress up the Hudson. He had
captured them both, with severe loss to the American forces
opposed to him ; he had destroyed the ﬂeet which the Ameri-
cans had been forming on the Hudson, under protection of
their forts; and the upward river was laid open to his squad-
ron. He had also, with admirable skill and industry, collected
in small vessels, such as could ﬂoat within a few miles of
Albany, provisions sufﬁcient to supply Burgoyne’s army for
six months. He was now only a hundred and ﬁfty-six miles
distant from Burgoyne; and a detachment of I 700 men actu-

 

334 DECISIVE BATTLES [1777

ally advanced within forty miles of Albany. Unfortunately,
Burgoyne and Clinton were each ignorant of the other’s
movements; but if Burgoyne had won his battle on the 7th,
he must, on advancing, have soon learned the tidings of Clin-
ton’s success, and Clinton would have heard of his. A junc-
tion would soon have been made of the two victorious armies,
and the great objects of the campaign might yet have been
accomplished. All depended on the fortune of the column
with which Burgoyne, on the eventful 7th of October, I 777,
advanced against the American position. There were brave
men, both English and German, in its ranks; and in particu-
lar it comprised one of the best bodies of grenadiers in the
British service. ,
Burgoyne pushed forward some bodies of irregular troops
to distract the enemy’s attention, and led his column to within
three quarters of a mile from the left of Gates’s camp, and
then deployed his men into line. The grenadiers under
Major Ackland, and the artillery under Major Williams, were
drawn up on the left; a corps of Germans under General
Riedesel, and some British troops under General Phillips,
were in the center; and the English light infantry, and the
24th Regiment under Lord Balcarres and General Fraser, ,
were on the right. But Gates did not wait to be attacked;
and directly the British line was formed and began to advance,
the American general, with admirable skill, caused General
Poor’s brigade of New York and New Hampshire troops,
and part of General Learned’s brigade, to make a sudden
and vehement rush against its left, and at the same time sent
Colonel Morgan, with his riﬂe-corps and other troops, amount-
ing to 1500, to turn the right of the English. The grena-
diers under Ackland sustained the charge of superior numbers
nobly. But Gates sent more Americans forward, and in a few
~ minutes the action became general along the center, so as to
prevent the Germans from detaching any help to the grena-
diers. Morgan, with his riﬂemen, was now pressing Lord
Balcarres and General Fraser hard, and fresh masses of the
enemy were observed advancing from their extreme left, with
the evident intention of forcing the British right, and cutting
off its retreat. The English light infantry and the 24th now
fell back and formed an oblique second line, which enabled

x
,
.
f

 

1777] BATTLE OF SARATOGA 33 5

them to baﬁ’ie this maneuver and also to succor their com-
rades in the left wing, the gallant grenadiers, who were over-
powered by superior numbers and, but for this aid, must
have been cut to pieces.

The contest now was ﬁercely maintained on both sides.
The English cannon were repeatedly taken and retaken; but
when the grenadiers near them were forced back by the
weight of superior numbers, one of the guns was permanently
captured by the Americans, and turned upon the English.
Major Williams and Major Ackland were both made prisoners,
and in this part of the ﬁeld the advantage of the Americans
was decided. The British center still held its ground; but
now it was that the American general Arnold appeared upon
the scene and did more for his countrymen than whole bat—
talions could have effected. Arnold, when the decisive
engagement of the 7th of October commenced, had been
deprived of his command by Gates, in consequence of a
quarrel between them about the action of the 19th of Sep-
tember. He had listened for a short time in the American
camp to the thunder of the battle, in which he had no military
right to take part, either as commander or as combatant.
But his excited spirit could not long endure such a state of
inaction. He called for his horse, a powerful brown charger,
and, springing on it, galloped furiously to where the ﬁght
seemed to be the thickest. Gates saw him, and sent an aide-
de-camp to recall him; but Arnold spurred far in advance,
and placed himself at the head of three regiments which had
formerly been under him, and which welcomed their old com-
mander with joyous cheers. He led them instantly upon the
British center; and then, galloping along the American line,
he issued orders for a renewed and a closer attack, which
were obeyed with alacrity, Arnold himself setting the example
of the most daring personal bravery and charging more than
once, sword in hand, into the English ranks. On the British
side the ofﬁcers did their duty nobly; but General Fraser was
the most eminent of them all, restoring order wherever the
line began to waver, and infusing fresh courage into his men
by voice and example. Mounted on an iron-gray charger,
and dressed in the full uniform of a general ofﬁcer, he was
conspicuous to foes as well as to friends. The American

336 DECISIVE BATTLES [1777

Colonel Morgan thought that the fate of the battle rested on
this gallant man’s life, and, calling several of his best marks-
men round him, pointed Fraser out, and said: “ That ofﬁcer
is General Fraser; I admire him, but he must die. Our vic-
tory depends on it. Take your stations in that clump of
bushes, and do your duty.” Within ﬁve minutes Fraser
fell mortally wounded, and was carried to the British camp
by two grenadiers. Just previously to his being struck by
the fatal bullet, one riﬂe-ball had cut the crupper of his sad-
dle and another had passed through his horse’s mane close
behind the ears. His aide-de-camp had noticed this, and said:
“It is evident that you are marked out for particular aim;
would it not be prudent for you to retire from this place?”
Fraser replied: “ My duty forbids me to ﬂy from danger”;
and the next moment he fell.

Burgoyne’s whole force were now compelled to retreat
towards their camp. The left and center were in complete
disorder, but the light infantry and the 24th checked the fury
of the assailants, and the remains of the column with great
difﬁculty effected their return to their camp, leaving six of
their cannons in the possession of the enemy, and great num-
bers of killed and wounded on the ﬁeld; and especially a
large proportion of the artillerymen, who had stood to their
guns until shot down or bayoneted beside them by the
advancing Americans.

Burgoyne’s column had been defeated, but the'action was
not yet over. The English had scarcely entered the camp,
when the Americans, pursuing their success,» assaulted it in
several places with remarkable impetuosity, rushing in upon
the entrenchments and redoubts through a severe ﬁre of
grape-shot and musketry. Arnold especially, who on this
day appeared maddened with the thirst of combat and car-
nage, urged on the attack against a part of the entrenchments
which was occupied by the light infantry under Lord Bal-
carres. But the English received him with vigor and spirit.
The struggle here was obstinate and sanguinary. At length,
as it grew towards evening, Arnold, having forced all obsta-
cles, entered the works with some of the most fearless of
his followers. But in this critical moment of glory and
danger, he received a painful wound in the same leg which

 

 

 

 

1777] BATTLE OF SARATOGA 337

had already been injured at the assault on Quebec. To his
bitter regret he was obliged to be carried back. His party
still continued the attack, ~ but the English also continued
their obstinate resistance; and at last night fell, and the
assailants withdrew from this quarter of the British entrench-
ments. But in another part the attack had been more suc—
cessful. A body of the Americans, under Colonel Brooke,
forced their way in through a part of the horseshoe entrench-
ments on the extreme right, which was defended by the Hes-
sian reserve under Colonel Breyman. The Germans resisted
well, and Breyman died in defense of his post ; but the
Americans made good the ground which they had won, and
captured baggage, tents, artillery, and a store of ammunition,
which they were greatly in need of. They had, by establish-
ing themselves on this point, acquired the means of com-
pletely turning the right ﬂank of the British and gaining
their rear. To prevent this calamity, Burgoyne effected dur-
ing the night an entire change of position. With great skill
he removed his whole army to some heights near the river, a
little northward of the former camp, and he there drew up
his men, expecting to be attacked on the following day. But
Gates was resolved not to risk the certain triumph which his
success had already secured for him. He harassed the Eng-
lish with skirmishes, but attempted no regular attack. Mean-
while he detached bodies of troops on both sides of the
Hudson to prevent the British‘ from recrossing that river,
and to bar their retreat. When night fell, it became abso-
lutely necessary for Burgoyne to retire again, and, accordingly,
the troops were marched through a stormy and rainy night
towards Saratoga, abandoning their sick and wounded and
the greater part of their baggage to the enemy.

Before the rear-guard quitted the camp, the last sad honors
were paid to the brave General Fraser, who expired on the
day after the action. ‘ .

He had, almost with his last breath, expressed a wish to be
buried in the redoubt which had formed the part of the British
lines where he had been stationed, but which had now been
abandoned by the English, and was within full range of the
cannon which the advancing Americans were rapidly placing

in position to bear upon Burgoyne’s force. Burgoyne re-
22

338 DECISIVE BATTLES [1777

solved, nevertheless, to comply with the dying wish of his .
comrade; and the interment took place under circumstances
the most affecting that have ever marked a soldier’s funeral.
Still more interesting is the narrative of Lady Ackland’s pas-
sage from the British to the American camp, after the battle,
to share the captivity and alleviate the sufferings of her hus-
band, who had been severely wounded and left in the enemy’s
power. The American historian Lossing has described both
these touching episodes of the campaign in a spirit that does
honor to the writer as well as to his subject. After narrating
the death of General Fraser on the 8th of October, he says
that “it was just at sunset, on that calm October evening,
that the corpse of General Fraser was carried up the hill to
the place of burial within the ‘great redoubt.’ It was at-
tended only by the members of his military family and Mr.
Brudenell, the chaplain; yet the eyes of hundreds of both
armies followed the solemn procession, while the Americans,
ignorant of its true character, kept up a constant cannonade
upon the redoubt. The chaplain, unawed by the danger to
which he was exposed, as the cannon-balls that struck the
hill threw the loose soil over him, pronounced the impressive
funeral service of the Church of England with an unfaltering
voice. The growing darkness added solemnity to the scene.
Suddenly the irregular ﬁring ceased, and the solemn voice of
a single cannon, at measured intervals, boomed along the
valley, and awakened the responses of the hills. It was a
minute—gun ﬁred by the Americans in honor of the gallant
dead. The moment information was given that the gather-
ing at the redoubt was a funeral company, fulﬁlling, amid
imminent perils, the last-breathed wishes of the noble Fraser,
orders were issued to withhold the cannonade with balls, and'
to render military homage to the fallen brave.

“The case of Major Ackland and his heroic wife presents
kindred features. He belonged to the corps of grenadiers, .
and was an accomplished soldier. His wife accompanied him
to Canada in I 776, ‘and during the whole campaign of that
year, and until his return to England after the surrender of
Burgoyne, in the autumn of 1777, endured all the hardships,
dangers, and privations of an active campaign in an enemy’s
country. At Chambly, on the Sorel, she attended him in i11-

 

I777] BATTLE OF SARATOGA 339

ness, in a miserable hut; and when he was wounded in the bat~
tle of Hubbardton, Vermont, she hastened to him at Skenes-
borough from Montreal, where she had been persuaded to
remain, and resolved to follow the army thereafter. Just before
crossing the Hudson, she and her husband came near losing
their lives in consequence of their tent accidentally taking ﬁre.

“During the terrible engagement of the 7th of October,
she heard all the tumult and dreadful thunder of the battle
in which her husband was engaged; and when, on the morn-
ing of the 8th, the British fell back in confusion to Wilbur’s
Basin, she, with the other women, was obliged to take refuge
among the dead and dying; for the tents were all struck, and
hardly a shed was left standing. Her husband was wounded,
anda prisoner in the American camp. That gallant ofﬁcer
was shot through both legs when Poor and Learned’s troops
assaulted the grenadiers and artillery on the British left, on
the afternoon of the 7th. Wilkinson, Gates’s adjutant-general,
While pursuing the ﬂying enemy when they abandoned their
battery, heard a feeble voice exclaim, ‘ Protect me, sir, against
that boy.’ He turned and saw a lad with a musket taking
deliberate aim at a wounded British ofﬁcer, lying in a corner
of a worm fence. Wilkinson ordered the boy to desist, and
discovered the wounded man to be Major Ackland. He had
him conveyed to the quarters of General Poor (now the resi-
dence of Mr. Neilson) on the heights, where every attention
was paid to his wants.

“ When the intelligence that he was wounded and a prisoner
reached his wife, she was greatly distressed, and, by the advice
of her friend, Baron Riedesel, resolved to visit the American
camp and implore the favor of a personal attendance upon
her husband. On the 9th she sent a message to Burgoyne
by Lord Petersham, his aide, asking permission to depart.
‘Though Iwas ready to believe,’_ says Burgoyne, ‘that pa-
tience and fortitude, in a supreme degree, were to be found,
as well as every other virtue, under the most tender forms, I
was astonished at this proposal. After so. long an agitation
of spirits, exhausted not only for want of rest but absolute
want of food, drenched in rain for twelve hours together, that
a woman should be capable of such an undertaking as deliver-
ing herself to an enemy, probably in the night, and uncertain

340 DECISIVE BATTLES [1777

of what hands she might fall into, appeared an effort above
human nature. The assistance I was enabled to give was
small indeed. I had not even a cup of wine to offer her.
All I could furnish to her was an open boat, and a few lines,
written upon dirty wet paper, to General Gates, recommend-
ing her to his protection.’

“The following is a copy of the note from Burgoyne to
General Gates: ‘ Sir, — Lady Harriet Ackland, a lady of the
ﬁrst distinction of family, rank, and personal virtues, is under
such concern on account of Major Ackland, her husband,
wounded and a prisoner in your hands, that I cannot refuse
her request to commit her to your protection. Whatever gen-
eral impropriety there may be in persons in my situation and
yours to solicit favors, I cannot see the uncommon persever-
ance in every female grace and exaltation of character of this
lady, and her very hard fortune, without testifying that your
attentions to her will lay me under obligations. I am, sir,
your obedient servant, J. Burgoyne.’

“She set out in an open boat upon the Hudson, accom-
panied by Mr. Brudenell, the chaplain, Sarah Pollard her
waiting—maid, and her husband’s valet, who had been severely
wounded while searching for his master upon the battle-ﬁeld.
It was about sunset when they started, and a violent storm
of rain and wind, which had been increasing since morning,
rendered the voyage tedious and perilous in the extreme. It
was long after dark when they reached the American out-
posts; the sentinel heard their oars and hailed them. Lady
Harriet returned the answer herself. The clear, silvery tones
of a woman’s voice amid the darkness ﬁlled the soldier on
duty with superstitious fear, and he called a comrade to
accompany him to the river bank. The errand of the voy-
agers was made known, but the faithful guard, apprehensive
of treachery, would not allow them to land until they sent for
Major Dearborn. They were invited by that ofﬁcer to his
quarters, where every attention was paid to them and Lady
Harriet was comforted by the joyful tidings that her husband
was safe. In the morning she experienced parental tender-
ness from General Gates, who sent her to her husband, at

Poor’s quarters, under a suitable escort. There she remained
until he was removed to Albany.”

 

 

1777] BATTLE OF SARATOGA 341

Burgoyne now took up his last position on the heights near
Saratoga; and, hemmed in by the enemy, who refused any
encounter, and bafﬂed in all his attempts at ﬁnding a path of
escape, he there lingered until famine compelled him to capit-
ulate. The fortitude of the British army during this melan—
choly period has been justly eulogized by many native
historians, but I prefer quoting the testimony of a foreign
writer, as free from all possibility of partiality. Botta says : —

“It exceeds the power of words to describe the pitiable
condition to which the British army was now reduced. The
troops were worn down by a series of toil, privation, sickness,
and desperate ﬁghting. They were abandoned by the Indians
and‘Canadians; and the effective force of the whole army
was now diminished by repeated and heavy losses, which had
principally fallen on the best soldiers and the most distin-
guished ofﬁcers, from ten thousand. combatants to less than
one half that number. Of this remnant little more than
three thousand were English.

“In these circumstances, and thus weakened, they were in-
vested by an army of four times their own number, whose posi-
tion extended three parts of a circle round them; who refused
to ﬁght them, as knowing their weakness, and who, from the
nature of the ground, could not be attacked in any part. In
this helpless condition, obliged to be constantly under arms
while the enemy’s cannon played on every part of their camp
and even the American riﬂe—balls whistled in many parts of
the lines, the troops of Burgoyne retained their customary
ﬁrmness; and, while sinking under a hard necessity, they
showed themselves worthy of a better fate. They could not
be reproached with an action or a word which betrayed a
want of temper or of fortitude.”

At length the 13th of October arrived, and as no prospect
of assistance appeared and the provisions were nearly ex-
hausted, Burgoyne, by the unanimous advice of a council of
war, sent a messenger to the American camp to treat of a
convention. ,

General Gates, in the ﬁrst instance, demanded that the
royal army should surrender prisoners of war. He also pro-‘
posed that the British should ground their arms. Burgoyne
replied, “This article is inadmissible in every extremity;

342 DECISIVE BATTLES [x777

sooner than this army will consent to ground their arms in
their encampment, they will rush on the enemy, determined
to take no quarter.” After various messages, a convention
for the surrender of the army was settled, which provided
that “the troops under General Burgoyne were to march out
of their camp with the honors of war, and the artillery of the
entrenchments, to the verge of the river, where the arms and
artillery were to be left. The arms to be piled by word of
command from their own ofﬁcers. A free passage was to be
granted to the army under Lieutenant-general Burgoyne to
Great Britain, upon condition of not serving again in North
America during the present contest.”

The articles of capitulation were settled on the 15th of
October; and on that very evening a messenger arrived from
Clinton with an account of his successes, and with the tidings
that part of his force had penetrated as far as Esopus, within
ﬁfty miles of Burgoyne’s camp. But it was too late. The
public faith was pledged; and the army was, indeed, too
debilitated by fatigue and hunger to resist an attack if made;
and Gates certainly would have made it, if the convention had
been broken off. Accordingly, on the 17th, the convention
of Saratoga was carried into effect. By this convention
5790 men surrendered themselves as prisoners. The sick
and wounded left in the camp when the British retreated to
Saratoga, together With the numbers of the British, German,
and Canadian troops who were killed, wounded, or taken,
and who had deserted in the preceding part of the expedition,
were reckoned to be 4689.

The British sick and wounded who had fallen into the
hands of the Americans after the battle of the 7th were
treated with exemplary humanity; and when the convention
was executed, General Gates showed a noble delicacy of feel-
ing which deserves the highest degree of honor. Every cir-
cumstance was avoided which could give the appearance of
triumph. The American troops remained within their lines
until the British 'had piled their arms; and when this was
done, the vanquished ofﬁcers and soldiers were received with
friendly kindness by their victors, and their immediate wants
were promptly and liberally supplied. Discussions and dis-
putes afterwards arose as to some of the terms of the con-

 

 

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Amlagmi » .N‘.’ 2;; 4-1.2.-

 

1777] BATTLE OF SARATOGA 343

vention, and the American Congress refused for a long time
to carry into effect the article which provided for the return
of Burgoyne’s men to Europe; but no blame was imputable
to General Gates or his army, who showed themselves to be
generous as they had proved themselves to be brave.

Gates, after the victory, immediately despatched Colonel
Wilkinson to carry the happy tidings to Congress. On being
introduced into the hall, he said: “The whole British army
has laid down its arms at Saratoga; our own, full of vigor and
courage, expect your order. It is for your wisdom to decide
where the country may still have need for their service.”
Honors and rewards were liberally voted by the Congress to
their conquering general and his men; “ and it would be difﬁ-
cult” (says Botta) “ to describe the transports of joy which
the news of this event excited among the Americans. They
began to ﬂatter themselves with a still more happy future.
No one any longer felt any doubt about their achieving their
independence. All hoped, and with good reason, that a suc-
cess of this importance would at length determine France,
and the other European powers that waited for her example,
to declare themselves in favor of America. There could no
longer be any Question respecting z‘lze future; since t/zere was
no longer tlze risk of espousing l/ze cause of a people too feeole
to defend themselves.”

The truth of this was soon displayed in the conduct of
France. When the news arrived at Paris of the capture of
Ticonderoga and of the Victorious march of Burgoyne
towards Albany, events which seemed decisive in favor of
the English, instructions had been immediately despatched
to Nantes and the other ports of the kingdom that no Amer-
ican privateers should be suffered to enter them except from
indispensable necessity, as to repair their vessels, to obtain
provisions, or to escape the perils of the sea. The American
commissioners at Paris, in their disgust and despair, had
almost broken off all negotiations with the French govern-
ment; and they even endeavored to open communications
with the British ministry. But the British government, elated
with the ﬁrst successes of Burgoyne, refused to listen to any
overtures for accommodation. But when the news of Saratoga
reached Paris, the Whole scene was changed. Franklin and

344 DECISIVE BATTLES [1777

his brother commissioners found all their difﬁculties with the
French government vanish. The time seemed to have arrived
for the house of Bourbon to take a full revenge for all its
humiliations and losses in previous wars. In December a
treaty was arranged, and formally signed in the February
following, by which France acknowledged the Independent
United States of America. This was, of course, tantamount to
a declaration of war with England. Spain soon followed
France; and before long Holland took the same course.
Largely aided by French ﬂeets and troops, the Americans
vigorously maintained the war against the armies which Eng-
land, in spite of her European foes, continued to send across
the Atlantic. But the struggle was too unequal to be main-
tained by this country for many years ; and when the treaties
of I78 3 restored peace to the world, the independence of the
United States was reluctantly recognized by their ancient
parent and recent enemy, England.

NOTES

1 Written in 1851.

2 These remarks were written in May, 1851, and now, in May, 1852, a
powerful squadron of American war steamers has been sent to Japan, for
the ostensible purpose of securing protection for the crews of American
vessels shipwrecked on the Japanese coasts, but also evidently for important
ulterior purposes.

3 In Lord Albemarle’s “Memoirs of the Marquis of Rockingham ” is con-
tained the following remarkable state paper, drawn up by King George III.
himself, respecting the plan of Burgoyne’s expedition. The original is in
the king’s own hand.

I

“REMARKS ON THE CONDUCT OF THE WAR FROM CANADA

“The outlines of the plan seem to be on a proper foundation. The rank
and ﬁle of the army now in Canada (including the 11th Regiment of British,
M‘Clean’s corps, the Brunswicks and Hanover) amount to 10,527; add
the eleven additional companies and four hundred Hanover Chasseurs, the
total will be 11,443.

“As sickness and other contingencies must be expected, I should think
not above 7000 effectives can be spared over Lake Champlain; for it would
be highly imprudent to run any risk in Canada.

“ The ﬁxing the stations of those left in the provinces may not be quite
right, though the plan proposed may be recommended. Indians must be
employed, and this measure must be avowedly directed, and Carleton must

be in the strongest manner directed that the Apollo shall be ready by that
day to receive Burgoyne.

 

I777] BATTLE OF SARATOGA 345

“The magazines must be formed with the greatest expedition at Crown
Point.

“If possible, pOSSession must be taken of Lake George, and nothing but
an absolute impossibility of succeeding in this can be an excuse for pro-
ceeding by South Bay and Skeenborough.

“ As Sir W. Howe does not think of acting from Rhode Island into the
Massachusets, the force from Canada must join him in Albany.

“ The diversion on the Mohawk River ought at least to be strengthened
by the addition of the four hundred Hanover Chasseurs.

“ The Ordnance ought to furnish a complete proportion of intrenching
tools.

“The provisions ought to be calculated for a third more than the effective
soldiery, and the general ordered to avoid delivering these when the army
can be subsisted by the country. Burgoyne certainly greatly undervalues
the German recruits.

“The idea of carrying the army by sea to Sir W. Howe would certainly
require the leaving a much larger part of it in Canada, as in that case the
rebel army would divide that province from the immense one under Sir
W. Howe. I greatly dislike this last idea.”

SYNOPSIS OF EVENTS BETWEEN THE DEFEAT OF BURGOYNE
AT SARATOGA, I777, AND THE BATTLE OF VALMY, I 792

I781. Surrender of Lord Cornwallis and the British army
to Washington.

I782. Rodney’s victory over the Spanish ﬂeet. Unsuc-
cessful siege of Gibraltar by the Spaniards and French.

1783. End of the American war.

I788. The States-General are convened in France: begin-
ning of the Revolution.

 

CHAPTER XIV

The Battle of Valmy, I792

“ Purpurei metuunt tyranni
Injurioso ne pede proruas
Stantem columnam; neu populus frequens
Ad arma cessantes ad arma
Concitet, imperiumque frangat.”
— HORATIUS, 0d. i., 35.

“A little ﬁre is quickly trodden out,

Which, being suffered, rivers cannot quench.”
-- SHAKESPEARE.

hould, in the northeast of France, are the Village and
hill of Valmy; and near the crest of that hill a simple
monument points out the burial-place of the heart of a gen—

5 FEW miles distant from the little town of St. Mene-

eral of the French republic and a marshal of the French ‘

empire. ,

The elder Kellermann (father of the distinguished ofﬁcer
of that name whose cavalry charge decided the battle of Ma-
rengo) held high commands in the French armies through-
out the wars of the Convention, the Directory, the Consulate,
and the Empire. He survived those wars and the Empire
itself, dying in extreme old age in 1820. The last wish of
the veteran on his death-bed was that his heart should be
deposited in the battle-ﬁeld of Valmy, there to repose among
_ the remains of his old companions in arms who had fallen at
his side on that spot twenty-eight years before, on the memo-
rable day when they won the primal victory of revolutionary
France, and prevented the armies of Brunswick and the emi-
grant bands of Condé from marching on defenseless Paris
and destroying the immature democracy in its cradle.

The Duke of Valmy (for Kellermann, when made one of
Napoleon’s military peers in 1802, took his title from this

346

 

 

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x.—«4___<_.;‘WA__<‘ 1-....2'41‘M " awn—4.24-:Ahm..:\:»mw‘mm{' ' ' ‘ ‘ '

1792] BATTLE OF VALMY 347

same battle-ﬁeld) had participated, during his long and active
career, in the gaining of many a victory far more immediately
dazzling than the one the remembrance of which he thus
cherished. He had been present at many a scene of car-
nage, where blood ﬂowed in deluges, compared with which
the libations of slaughter poured out at Valmy would have
seemed scant and insigniﬁcant. But he rightly estimated
the paramount importance of the battle with which he thus
wished his appellation while living, and his memory after his
death, to be identiﬁed. The successful resistance which the
new Carmagnole levies, and the disorganized relics of the old
monarchy’s army, then opposed to the combined hosts and
chosen leaders of Prussia, Austria, and the French refugee
noblesse, determined at once and forever the belligerent char-
acter of the Revolution. The raw artisans and tradesmen, the
clumsy burghers, the base mechanics and low peasant churls,
as it had been the fashion to term the middle and lower
classes in France, found that they could face cannon-balls,
pull triggers, and cross bayonets without having been drilled
into military machines, and without being ofﬁcered by scions
of noble houses. They awoke to the consciousness of their
own instinctive soldiership. They at once acquired conﬁ-
dence in themselves and in each other; and that conﬁdence
soon grew into a spirit of unbounded audacity and ambition.
“From the cannonade of Valmy may be dated the com-
mencement of that career of victory which carried their
armies to Vienna and the Kremlin.” [Alison]

One of the gravest reﬂections that arise from the con-
templation of the civil restlessness and military enthusiasm
which the close of the last century saw nationalized in France
is the consideration that these disturbing inﬂuences have be-
come perpetual. No settled system of government that shall
endure from generation to generation, that shall be proof
against corruption and popular Violence, seems capable of
taking root among the French. And every revolutionary
movement in Paris thrills throughout the rest of the world.
Even the successes which the powers allied against France
gained in 1814 and 1815, important as they were, could not
annul the effects of the preceding twenty-three years of gen-
eral convulsion and war.

348 DECISIVE BATTLES [1792

In 1830 the dynasty which foreign bayonets had imposed
on France was shaken off; and men trembled at the ex-
pected outbreak of French anarchy and the dreaded inroads
of French ambition. They “looked forward with harassing
anxiety to a period of destruction similar to that which the
Roman world experienced about the middle of the third cen-
tury of our era.” Louis Philippe cajoled revolution, and
then strove with seeming success to stiﬂe it. But in spite of
Fieschi laws, in spite of the dazzle of Algerian razzias and
Pyrenees-effacing marriages, in spite of hundreds of armed
forts and hundreds of thousands of coercing troops, Revolu-
tion lived and struggled to get free. The old Titan spirit
heaved restlessly beneath “the monarchy based on repub-
lican institutions.” At last, four years ago, the whole fabric
of kingcraft Was at once rent and scattered to the winds by
the uprising of the Parisian democracy; and insurrections,
barricades, and dethronements, the downfall of coronets and
crowns, the armed collisionsof parties, systems, and popula-
tions, became the commonplaces of recent European history.

France now calls herself a republic. She ﬁrst assumed
that title on the 20th of September, 1792, on the very day
on which the battle of Valmy was fought and won. To that
battle the democratic spirit which in 1848, as well as in I792,

proclaimed the republic in Paris, owed its preservation, and

it is thence that the imperishable activity of its principles
may be dated.

Far different seemed the prospects of democracy in Europe
on the eve of that battle; and far different would have been
the present position and inﬂuence of the French nation if
Brunswick’s columns had charged with more boldness, or
the lines of Dumouriez resisted with less ﬁrmness. When
France, in 1792, declared war with the great powers of
Europe, she was far from possessing that Splendid military
organization which the experience of a few revolutionary
campaigns taught her to assume, and which she has never
abandoned. The army of the old monarchy had, during
the latter part of the reign of Louis XV., sunk into gradual
decay, both in numerical force and in efﬁciency of equip-
ment and spirit. The laurels gained by the auxiliary regi-
ments which Louis XVI. sent to the American war did but

'A » “an. atm- -.M .

 

 

r792] BATTLE OF VALMY 349

little to restore the general tone of the army. The insub-
ordination and license which the revolt of the French guards,
and the participation of other troops in many of the ﬁrst
excesses of the Revolution, introduced among the soldiery
were soon rapidly disseminated through all the ranks. Under
the Legislative Assembly every complaint of the soldier
against his ofﬁcer, however frivolous or ill founded, was lis-
tened to with eagerness and investigated with partiality, on
the principles of liberty and equality. Discipline accordingly
became more and more relaxed; and the dissolution of sev-
eral of the old corps, under the pretext of their being tainted
with an aristocratic feeling, aggravated the confusion and
inefﬁciency of the War Department. Many of the most
effective regiments during the last period of the monarchy
had consisted of foreigners. These had either been slaugh-
tered in defense of the throne against insurrections, like the
Swiss; or had been disbanded, and had crossed the frontier
to recruit the forces which were assembling for the invasion
of France. Above all, the emigration of the noblesse had
stripped the French army of nearly all its ofﬁcers of high
rank and of the greatest portion of its subalterns. More
than twelve thousand of the high-born youth of France, who
had been trained to regard military command as their exclu-
sive patrimony and to whom the nation had been accus-
tomed to look up as its natural guides and champions in the
storm of war, were now marshaled beneath the banner of
Condé and the other emigrant princes, for the overthrow of
the French armies and the reduction of the French capital.
Their successors in the French regiments and brigades had
as yet acquired neither skill nor experience: they possessed
neither self-reliance nor the respect of the men who were
under them.

Such was the state of the wrecks of the old army; but the
bulk of the forces with which France began the war con-
sisted of raw insurrectionary levies, which were even less
to be depended on. The Carmagnoles, as the revolutionary
volunteers were called, ﬂocked, indeed, readily to the frontier
from every department when the war was proclaimed, and
the ﬁerce leaders of the Jacobins shouted that the country
was in danger. They were full of zeal and courage, “ heated

350 DECISIVE BATTLES [1792

and excited by the scenes of the Revolution, and inﬂamed by
the ﬂorid eloquence, the songs, dances, and signal words with
which it had been celebrated.” But they were utterly undis-
ciplined, and turbulently impatient of superior authority or
systematical control. Many rufﬁans, also, who were sullied
with participation in the most sanguinary horrors of Paris,
joined the camps and were preeminent alike for misconduct
before the enemy and for savage insubordination against
their own ofﬁcers. On one occasion during the campaign
of Valmy, eight battalions of federates, intoxicated with
massacre and sedition, joined the forces under Dumouriez,
and soon threatened to uproot all discipline, saying openly
that the ancient ofﬁcers were traitors, and that it was neces—
sary to purge the army, as they had Paris, of its aristocrats.
Dumouriez posted these battalions apart from the others,
placed a strong force of cavalry behind them and two pieces
of cannon on their ﬂank. Then, affecting to review them, he
halted at the head of the line, surrounded by all his staff, and
an escort of a hundred hussars. “ Fellows,” said he, “for I
will not call you either citizens or soldiers, you see before you
this artillery, behind you this cavalry; you are stained with
crimes, and I do not tolerate here assassins or executioners.
I know that there are scoundrels amongst you charged to
excite you to crime. Drive them from amongst you, or
denounce them to me, for I shall hold you responsible for
their conduct.”

One of our recent historians of the Revolution [Carlyle], who
narrates this incident, thus apostrophizes the French general:

“ Patience, O Dumouriez! This uncertain heap of shriekers,
mutineers, were they once drilled and inured, will become a
phalanxed mass of ﬁghters; and wheel and whirl to order
swiftly, like the wind or the whirlwind; tanned mustache-
ﬁgures; often barefoot, even barebacked, with sinews of iron;
who require only bread and gunpowder; very sons of ﬁre;
the adroitest, hastiest, hottest, ever seen perhaps since Attila’s
time.”

Such phalanxed masses of ﬁghters did the Carmagnoles
ultimately become; but France ran a fearful risk in being

obliged to rely on them when the process of their transmuta-
tion had barely commenced.

 

 

‘x;mmxs,;,. 4n.“ :3.-«.-_‘~, ‘4 may, A“ .1- ‘

1792] BATTLE or VALMY 3 5 I

The ﬁrst events, indeed, of the war were disastrous and
disgraceful to France, even beyond what might have been
expected from the chaotic state in which it found her armies
as well as her government. In the hopes of proﬁting by the
unprepared state of Austria, then the mistress of the Nether-
lands, the French opened the campaign of I 792 by an invasion
of Flanders, with forces whose muster-rolls showed a numeri-
cally overwhelming superiority to the enemy, and seemed to
promise a speedy conquest of that old battle-ﬁeld of Europe.
But the ﬁrst ﬂash of an Austrian saber or the ﬁrst sound of
an Austrian gun was enough to discomﬁt the French. Their
ﬁrst corps, four thousand strong, that advanced from Lille
acroSs the frontier, came suddenly upon a far inferior detach-
ment of the Austrian garrison of Tournay. Not a shot was
ﬁred, not a bayonet leveled. With one simultaneous cry of
panic the French broke and ran headlong back to Lille, where
they completed the specimen of insubordination which they
had given in the ﬁeld by murdering their general and several
of their chief ofﬁcers. On the same day, another division
under Biron, mustering ten thousand sabers and bayonets,
saw a few Austrian skirmishers reconnoitering their position.
The French advanced posts had scarcely given and received
a volley, and only a few balls from the enemy’s ﬁeld-pieces
had fallen among the lines, when two regiments of French
dragoons raised the cry, “We are betrayed,” galloped off,
and were followed in disgraceful rout by the rest of the whole
army. Similar panics, or repulses almost equally discreditable,
occurred whenever Rochambeau, or Luckner, or La Fayette,
the earliest French generals in the war, brought their troops
into the presence of the enemy.

Meanwhile, the allied sovereigns had gradually collected on
the Rhine a veteran and ﬁnely disciplined army for the in-
vasion of France, which for numbers, equipment, and martial
renown, both of generals and men, was equal to any that
Germany had ever sent forth to conquer. Their design was
to strike boldly and decisively at the heart of France, and,
penetrating the country through the Ardennes, to proceed by
Chalons upon Paris. The obstacles that lay in their way
seemed insigniﬁcant. The disorder and imbecility of the
French armies had been even augmented by the forced ﬂight

/

352 DECISIVE BATTLES [1792

_ of La Fayette and a sudden change of generals. The only
troops posted on or near the track by which the Allies were
about to advance were the twenty-three thousand men at
Sedan, whom La Fayette had commanded, and a corps of
twenty thousand near Metz, the command of which had just
been transferred from Luckner to Kellermann. There were
only three fortresses which it was necessary for the Allies
to capture or mask—Sedan, Longwy, and Verdun. The
defenses and stores of these- three were known to be
wretchedly dismantled and insufﬁcient; and when once these
feeble barriers were overcome and Chalons reached, a fertile
and unprotected country seemed to invite the invaders to that
“military promenade to Paris” which they gaily talked of
accomplishing.

At the "end of July the allied army, having completed all
preparations for the campaign, broke up from its cantonments
and, marching from Luxemburg upon Longwy, crossed the
French frontier. Sixty thousand Prussians, trained in the
school, and many of them under the eye, of the Great Fred-
erick, heirs of the glories of the Seven Years’ war, and uni-
versally esteemed the best troops in Europe, marched in one
column against the central point of attack. Forty-ﬁve thou-
sand Austrians, the greater part of whom were picked troops.
and had served in the recent Turkish war, supplied two
formidable corps that supported the ﬂanks of the Prussians.
There was also a powerful body of Hessians, and leagued
with the Germans against the Parisian democracy came ﬁfteen
thousand of the noblest and bravest among the sons of France.
In these corps of emigrants, many of the highest-born of the
French nobility, scions of houses whose chivalric trophies
had for centuries filled Europe with renown, served as rank
and ﬁle. They looked on the road to Paris as the path which
they were to carve out by their swords to victory, to honor,
to the rescue of their king, to reunion with their families, to
the recovery of their patrimony, and to the restoration of their
order.

Over this imposing army the allied sovereigns placed as
generalissimo the Duke of Brunswick, one of the minor
reigning princes of Germany, a statesman of no mean capac-
ity, and who had acquired in the Seven Years’ war a military

#52:”; . , . . ..

 

 

1792] BATTLE OF VALMY 3 5 3

reputation second only to that of the Great Frederick himself.
He had been deputed a few years before to quell the popular
movements which then took place in Holland; and he had
put down the attempted revolution in that country with a
promptitude and completeness which appeared to augur equal
success to the army that now marched under his orders on a
similar mission into France.

Moving majestically forward, with leisurely deliberation
that seemed to show the consciousness of superior strength
and a steady purpose of doing their work thoroughly, the
Allies appeared before Longwy on the 20th of August, and
the dispirited and dependent garrison opened the gates of
that fortress to them after the ﬁrst shower of bombs. On
the 2d of September the still more important stronghold of
Verdun capitulated after scarcely the shadow of resistance.

Brunswick’s superior force was now interposed between
Kellermann’s troops on the left, and the other French army
near Sedan, which La Fayette’s flight had, for the time, left
destitute of a commander. It was in the power of the Ger-
man general, by striking with an overwhelming mass to the
right and left, to crush in succession each of these weak
armies, and the Allies might then have marched irresistible
and unresisted upon Paris. But at this crisis Dumouriez, the
new commander-in-chief of the French, arrived at the camp
near Sedan, and commenced a series of movements by which
be reunited the dispersed and disorganized forces of his
country, checked the Prussian columns at the very moment
when the last obstacles to their triumph seemed to have
given way, and ﬁnally rolled back the tide of invasion far
across the enemy’s frontier.

The French fortresses had fallen; but nature herself still
offered to brave and vigorous defenders of the land the means
of opposing a barrier to the progress of the Allies. A ridge
of broken ground, called the Argonne, extends from the
vicinity of Sedan towards the southwest for about ﬁfteen or
sixteen leagues. The country of L’Argonne has now been
cleared and drained; but in I 792 it was thickly wooded and
the lower portions of its unequal surface were ﬁlled with
rivulets and marshes. It thus presented a natural barrier of
from four to ﬁve leagues broad, which was absolutely impene-

23

3 54 DECISIVE BATTLES [I792

trable to an army, except by a few deﬁles such as an inferior
force might easily fortify and defend. Dumouriez succeeded
in marching his army down from Sedan behind the Argonne,
and in occupying its passes, while the Prussians still lingered
on the northeastern side of the forest line. Ordering Kellen
mann to wheel round from Metz to St. Menehould, and the
reenforcements from the interior and extreme north also to
concentrate at that spot, Dumouriez trusted to assemble a
powerful force in the rear of the southwest extremity of the
Argonne, while with the twenty-ﬁve thousand men under his
immediate command he held the enemy at bay before the
passes or forced him to a long circumvolution round one
extremitypf the forest ridge, during which favorable oppor-
tunities of assailing his ﬂank were almost certain to occur.
Dumouriez fortiﬁed the principal deﬁles, and boasted of the
Thermopylm which he had found for the invaders; but the
simile was nearly rendered fatally complete for the defending
force. A pass which was thought of inferior importance
had been but slightly manned, and an Austrian corps under
Clairfayt forced it after some sharp .ﬁghting. Dumouriez
with great difﬁculty saved himself from being enveloped and
destroyed by the hostile columns that now pushed through
the forest. But instead of despairing at the failure of his
plans, and falling back into the interior, to be completely
severed from Kellermann’s army, to be hunted as a fugitive
under the walls of Paris by the victorious Germans, and to
lose all chance of ever rallying his dispirited troops, he re-
solved to cling to the difﬁcult country in which the armies
still were grouped, to force a junction with Kellermann, and
so to place himself at the head of a force which the invaders
would not dare to disregard, and by which he might drag
them back from the advance on Paris, which he had not been
able to bar. Accordingly, by a rapid movement to the south,
during which, in his own words, “ France was within a hair-
breadth of destruction,” and after, with difﬁculty, checking
several panics of his troops, in which they ran by thousands
at the sight of a few Prussian hussars, Dumouriez succeeded
in establishing his headquarters in a strong position at St.
Menehould, protected by the marshes and shallows of the
rivers Aisne and Aube, beyond which, to the northwest, rose

 

 

1792] BATTLE OF VALMY 355

a ﬁrm and elevated plateau, called Dampierre's Camp, admir-
ably situated for commanding the road by Chalons to Paris,
and where he intended to post Kellermann’s army so soon as
it came up.1

The news of the retreat of Dumouriez from the Argonne
passes, and of the panic ﬂight of some divisions of his troops,
spread rapidly throughout the country; and Kellermann, who
believed that his comrade’s army had been annihilated, and
feared to fall among the victorious masses of the Prussians,
had halted on his march from Metz when almost close to St.
Menehould. He had actually commenced a retrograde move-
ment, when couriers from his commander-in-chief checked
him from that fatal course; and then continuing to wheel
round the rear and left ﬂank of the troops at St. Menehould,
Kellermann, with twenty thousand of the army of Metz and
some thousands of volunteers who had joined him in the march,
made his appearance to the west of Dumouriez, on the very
evening when Westerman and Thouvenot, two of the staff-
ofﬁcers of Dumouriez, galloped in with the tidings that Bruns-
wick’s army had come through the upper passes of the Argonne
in full force and was deploying on the heights of La Lune,
a chain of eminences that stretch obliquely from southwest
to northeast, opposite the high ground which Dumouriez held,
and also opposite, but at a short distance from, the position
which Kellermann was designed to occupy.

The Allies were now, in fact, nearer to Paris than were the
French troops themselves; but, as Dumouriez had foreseen,
Brunswick deemed it unsafe to march upon the capital with
so large a hostile force left in his rear between his advancing
columns and his base of operations. The young king of
Prussia, who was in the allied camp, and the emigrant princes
eagerly advocated an instant attack upon the nearest French
general. Kellermann had laid himself unnecessarily open by
advancing beyond Dampierre’s Camp, which Dumouriez had
designed for him, and moving forward acrOss the Aube to the
plateau of Valmy— a post inferior in strength and space to
that which he had left, and which brought him close upon
the Prussian lines, leaving him separated by a dangerous
interval from the troops under Dumouriez himself. It seemed
easy for the Prussian army to overwhelm him while thus iso-

3 56 DECISIVE BATTLES [1792

lated, and then they might surround and crush Dumouriez at
their leisure.

Accordingly, the right wing of the allied army moved for-
ward, in the gray of the morning of the 20th of September,
to gain Kellermann’s left ﬂank and rear and cut him off from
retreat upon Chalons; while the rest of the army, moving
from the heights of La Lune, which here converge semicir-
cularly round the plateau of Valmy, were to assail his position
in front and interpose between him and Dumouriez. An
unexpected collision between some of the advanced cavalry
on each side in the low ground warned Kellermann of the
enemy’s approach. Dumouriez had not been unobservant of
the danger of his comrade, thus isolated and involved, and
he had ordered up troops to support Kellermann on either
ﬂank in the event of his being attacked. These troops, how-
ever, moved forward slowly; and Kellermann’s army, ranged
on the plateau of Valmy, “ projected like a cape into the midst
of the lines of the Prussian bayonets.” A thick autumnal mist
ﬂoated in waves of vapor over the plains and ravines that lay
between the two armies, leaving only the crests and peaks of
the hills glittering in the early light. About ten o’clock the
fog began to clear off, and then the French from their prom-
ontory saw emerging from the white wreaths of mist, and
glittering in the sunshine, the countless Prussian cavalry which
were to envelop them as in a net if once driven from their
position, the solid columns of the infantry that moved forward
as if animated by a single will, the bristling batteries of the
artillery, and the glancing clouds of the Austrian light troops,
fresh from their contests with the Spahis of the East.

The best and bravest of the French must have beheld this
spectacle with secret apprehension and awe. However bold
and resolute a man may be in the discharge of duty, it is an
anxious and fearful thing to be called on to encounter danger
among comrades of whose steadiness you can feel no cer-
tainty. Each soldier of Kellermann’s army must have remem-
bered the series of panic routs which had hitherto invariably
taken place on the French side during the war, and must
have cast restless glances to the right and left, to see if any
symptoms of wavering began to show themselves, and to cal-
culate how long it was likely to be before a general rush of

 

1792] BATTLE OF VALMY 357

his comrades to the rear would either hurry him off with in-
voluntary disgrace, or leave him alone and helpless, to be cut
down by assailing multitudes.

On that very morning, and at the selfsame hour in which
the allied forces and the emigrants began to descend from
La Lune to the attack of Valmy, and while the cannonade
was opening between the' Prussian and the revolutionary
batteries, the debate in the National Convention at Paris
commenced on the proposal to proclaim France a republic.

The old monarchy had little chance of support in the hall
of the Convention; but if its more effective advocates at
Valmy had triumphed, there were yet the elements existing
in France for a permanent revival of the better part of the
ancient institutions, and for substituting Reform for Revolu-
tion. Only a few weeks before, numerously signed addresses
from the middle classes in Paris, Rouen, and other large cities
had been presented to the king, expressive of their horror of
the anarchists, and their readiness to uphold the rights of
the crown together with the liberties of the subject. And
an armed resistance to the authority of the Convention, and
in favor of the king, was in reality at this time being actively
organized in La Vendée and Brittany, the importance of
which may be estimated from the formidable opposition
which the Royalists of these provinces made to the Republi-
can party at a later period, and under much more disadvan-
tageous circumstances. It is a fact peculiarly illustrative of
the importance of the battle of Valmy that “during the
summer of I 792 the gentlemen of Brittany entered into an:
extensive association for the purpose of rescuing the country
from the oppressive yoke which had been imposed by the
Parisian demagogues. At the head of the whole was the
Marquis de la Rouarie, one of those remarkable men who
rise into preeminence during the stormy days of a revolution,
from conscious ability to direct its current. Ardent, impetu-
ous, and enthusiastic, he was ﬁrst distinguished in the Amer-
ican war, when the intrepidity of his conduct attracted the
admiration of the Republican troops, and the same quality
rendered him at ﬁrst an ardent supporter of the Revolution
in France; but when the atrocities of the people began, he
espoused with equal warmth the opposite side, and used the

3 58 DECISIVE BATTLES [1792

utmost efforts to raise the noblesse of Brittany against the
plebeian yoke which had been imposed upon them by the
National Assembly. He submitted his plan to the Count
d’Artois, and had organized one so extensive as would have
proved extremely formidable to the Convention if the retreat
of the Duke of Brunswick, in September, I 792, had not
damped the ardor of the whole of the west of France, then
ready to break out into insurrection.” [Alison]

And it was not only among the zealots of the old monarchy
that the cause of the king would then have found friends.
The ineffable atrocities of the September massacres had just
occurred, and the reaction produced by them among thou-
sands who had previously been active on the ultra-democratic
side was fresh and powerful. The nobility had not yet been
made utter aliens in the eyes of the nation by long expatria-
tion and civil war. There was not yet a generation of youth
educated in Revolutionary principles and knowing no worship
save that of military glory. Louis XVI. was just and humane,
and deeply sensible of the necessity of a gradual extension
of political rights among all classes of his subjects. The
Bourbon throne, if rescued in I 792, would have had chances
of stability such as did not exist for it in 1814 and seem
never likely to be found again in France. ‘

Serving under Kellermann on that day was one who expe-
rienced, perhaps the most deeply of all men, the changes for
good and for evil which the French Revolution has produced.
He who, in his second exile, bore the name of the Count de
Neuilly in this country, and who lately was Louis Philippe,
king of the French, ﬁgured in the French lines at Valmy as
a young and gallant ofﬁcer, cool and sagacious beyond his
years, and trusted accordingly by Kellermann and Dumou—
riez with an important station in' the national army. The
. Due de Chartres (the title he then bore) commanded the
French right, General Valence was on the left, and Keller-
mann himself took his post in the center, which was the
strength and key of his position.

Besides these celebrated men who were in the French
army, and besides the king of Prussia, the Duke of Bruns-
wick, and other men of rank and power who were in the lines
of the Allies, there was an individual present at the battle of

E;
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it
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1792] BATTLE OF VALMY 359

Valmy, of little political note, but who has exercised, and
exercises, a greater inﬂuence over the human mind, and whose
fame is more widely spread than that of either duke or gen-
eral or king. This was the German poet Goethe, who had,
out of curiosity, accompanied the allied army on its march
into France as a mere spectator. He has given us a curious
record of the sensations which he experienced during the
cannonade. It must be remembered that many thousands
in the French ranks then, like Goethe, felt the “cannon fever ”
for the ﬁrst time. The German poet says :—

“I had heard so much of the cannon fever that I wanted
to know what kind of thing it was. Ennui and a spirit
which every kind of danger excites to daring—nay, even to
rashness — induced me to ride up quite coolly to the outwork
of La Lune. This was again occupied by our people; but
it presented the wildest aspect. The roofs were shot to
pieces; the corn-shocks scattered about, the bodies of men
mortally wounded stretched upon them here and there; and
occasionally a spent cannon-ball fell and rattled among the
ruins of the tile roofs.

“Quite alone, and left to myself, I rode away on the
heights to the left, and could plainly survey the favorable
position of the French; they were standing in the form of a
semicircle in the greatest quiet and security, Kellermann,
then on the left wing, being the easiest to reach.

“I fell in with good company on the way, ofﬁcers of my
acquaintance, belonging to the general staff and the regi-
ment, greatly surprised to ﬁnd me here. They wanted to
take me back again with them; but I spoke to them of par-
ticular objects I had in View, and they left me without further
dissuasion, to my well-known singular caprice.

“I had now arrived quite in the region where the balls
were playing across me: the sound of them is curious enough,
as if it were composed of the humming of tops, the gurgling
of water, and the whistling of birds. They were less danger-
ous by reason of the wetness of the ground: wherever one
fell, it stuck fast. And thus my foolish experimental ride
was secured against the danger, at least, of the balls
rebounding.

“In the midst of these circumstances, I was soon able to

360 DECISIVE BATTLES [1792

remark that something unusual was taking place within me.
I paid close attention to it, and still the sensation can be
described only by similitude. It appeared as if you were in
some extremely hot place, and, at the same time, quite pene-
trated by the heat of it, so that you feel yourself, as it were,
quite one with the element in which you are. The eyes lose
nothing of their strength or clearness; but it is as if the
world had a kind of brown—red tint, which makes the situa-
tion, as well as the surrounding objects, more impressive.
I was unable to perceive any agitation of the blood; but
everything seemed rather to be swallowed up in the glow of
which I speak. From this, then, it is clear in what sense
this condition can be called a fever. It is remarkable, how-
ever, that the horrible uneasy feeling arising from it is pro-
duced in us solely through the ears; for the cannon thunder,
the howling and crashing of the balls through the air, is the
real cause of these sensations.

“After I had ridden back and was in perfect security,
I remarked with surprise that the glow was completely
extinguished and not the» slightest feverish agitation was
left behind. On the whole, this condition is one of the least
desirable; as, indeed, among my dear and noble comrades I
found scarcely one who expressed a really passionate desire
to try it.” ‘

Contrary to the expectations of both friends and foes, the
French infantry held their ground steadily under. the ﬁre of
the Prussian guns, which thundered on them from La Lune;
and their own artillery replied with equal spirit and greater
effect on the denser masses of the allied army. Thinking
that the Prussians were slackening in their ﬁre, Kellermann
formed a column in charging order, and dashed down into
the valley, in the hopes of capturing some of the nearest
guns of the enemy. A masked battery opened its ﬁre on
the French column, and drove it back in disorder, Keller-
mann having his horse shot under him and being with difﬁ-
culty carried off by his men. The Prussian columns now
advanced in turn. The French artillerymen began to waver
and desert their posts, but were rallied by the efforts and
example of their ofﬁcers; and Kellermann, reorganizing the
line of his infantry, took his station in the ranks on foot, and

 

 

1792] BATTLE OF VALMY 36:

called out to his men to let the enemy come close up and
then to charge them with the bayonet. The troops caught
the enthusiasm’of their general, and a cheerful shout of
Viva [a nation ! taken by one battalion from another, pealed
across the valley to the assailants. The Prussians ﬂinched
from a charge up-hill against a force that seemed so resolute
and formidable; they halted for a while in the hollow, and
then slowly retreated up their own side of the valley.

Indignant at being thus repulsed by such a foe, the king
of Prussia formed the ﬂower of his men in person, and, riding
along the column, bitterly reproached them with letting their
standard be thus humiliated. Then he led them on again to
the attack, marching in the front line, and seeing his staff
mowed down around him by the deadly ﬁre which the
French artillery reopened. But the troops sent by Dumou-
riez were now cooperating effectually with Kellermann; and
that general’s own men, ﬂushed by success, presented a
ﬁrmer front than ever. Again the Prussians retreated, leav-
ing eight hundred dead behind, and at nightfall the French
remained victors on the heights of Valmy.

All hopes of crushing the revolutionary armies and of the
promenade to Paris had now vanished, though Brunswick
lingered long in the Argonne, till distress and sickness wasted
away his once splendid force, and ﬁnally but a mere wreck
of it recrossed the frontier. France, meanwhile, felt that she
possessed a giant’s strength, and like a giant did she use it.
Before the close of that year, all Belgium obeyed the National
Convention at Paris, and the kings of Europe, after the lapse
of eighteen centuries, trembled once more before a conquer-
ing military republic.

Goethe’s description of the cannonade has been quoted.
His observation to his comrades in the camp of the Allies, at
the end of the battle, deserves citation also. It shows that
the poet felt (and, probably, he alone of the thousands there
assembled felt) the full importance of that day. He describes
the consternation and the change of demeanor which he
observed among his Prussian friends that evening. He tells
us that “ most of them were silent; and, in fact, the power of
reﬂection and judgment was wanting to all. At last I was
called upon to say what I thought of the engagement; for I

362 DECISIVE BATTLES [1792

had been in the habit of enlivening and amusing the troop
with short sayings. This time I said: ‘From this place, and
from this day fort/z, commences a new em in t/ze world’s ln's-
tory; andyon can all say tnat you were present at its birt .’ ”

1 NOTE. — Some late writers represent that Brunswick did not wish to
check Dumouriez. There is no sufﬁcient authority for this insinuation,
which seems to have been ﬁrst prompted by a desire to soothe the wounded
military pride of the Prussians.

SYNOPSIS OF EVENTS BETWEEN THE BATTLE OF VALMY,
1792, AND THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO, 1815

I 793. Trial and execution of Louis XVI. at Paris. Eng-
land and Spain declare war against France. Royalist war in
La Vendée. Second invasion of France by the Allies.

I 794. Lord Howe’s victory over the French ﬂeet. Final
partition of Poland by Russia, Prussia, and Austria. I

I 795. The French armies under Pichegru conquer Holland.
Cessation of the war in La Vendée.

I796. Bonaparte commands the French army of Italy and
gains repeated victories over the Austrians.

I 797. Victory of Jervis, off Cape St. Vincent. Peace of
Campo Formio between France and Austria. Defeat of the
Dutch off Camperdown by Admiral Duncan. ’

I798. Rebellion in Ireland. Expedition of the French
under Bonaparte to Egypt. Lord Nelson destroys the French
ﬂeet at the battle of the Nile.

I 799. Renewal of the war between Austria and France.
The Russian emperor sends an army in aid of Austria, under
Suwarrow. The French are repeatedly defeated in Italy.
Bonaparte returns from Egypt and makes himself First Con-
sul of France. Massena Wins the battle of Zurich. The
Russian emperor makes peace with France.

1800. Bonaparte passes the Alps and defeats the Austrians
‘ at Marengo. Moreau wins the battle of Hohenlinden.

1801. Treaty of Luneville between France and Austria.
The battle of Copenhagen.

1802. Peace of Amiens.
1803. War between England and France renewed.
1804. Napoleon Bonaparte is made emperor of France.

 

 

1792] BATTLE OF VALMY 36 3

1805. Great preparations of Napoleon to invade England.
Austria, supported by Russia, renews war with France.
Napoleon marches into Germany, takes Vienna, and gains
the battle of AuSterlitz. Lord Nelson destroys the combined
French and Spanish ﬂeets and is killed at the battle of
Trafalgar. ‘

1806. War between Prussia and France. Napoleon con-
quers Prussia in the battle of Jena.

1807. Obstinate warfare between the French and Russian
armies in East Prussia and Poland. Peace of Tilsit.

1808. Napoleon endeavors to make his brother king of
Spain. Rising of the Spanish nation against him. England
sends troops to aid the Spaniards. Battles of Vimiera and
Corunna.

1809. War renewed between France and Austria. Battles
of Asperne and Wagram. Peace granted to Austria. Lord
Wellington’s victory of Talavera, in Spain.

1810. Marriage of Napoleon and the Archduchess Maria
Louisa. Holland annexed to France.

1812. War between England and the United States.
Napoleon invades Russia. Battle of Borodino. The French
occupy Moscow, which is burned. Disastrous retreat and
almost total destruction of the great army of France.

1813. Prussia and Austria take up arms again against
France. Battles of Lijtzen, Bautzen, Dresden, Culm, and
Leipsic. The French are driven out of Germany. Lord
Wellington gains the great battle of Vittoria, which completes
the rescue of Spain from France.

1814. The Allies invade France on the eastern, and Lord
Wellington invades it on the southern, frontier. Battles of
Laon, Montmirail, Arcis-sur-Aube, and others in the northeast
of France, and of Toulouse in the south. Paris surrenders
to the Allies, and Napoleon abdicates. First restoration of
the Bourbons. Napoleon goes to the isle of Elba, which
is assigned to him by the Allies. Treatyvof Ghent between
the United States and England.

1815. Napoleon suddenly escapes from Elba, and lands in
France. The French soldiery join him, and Louis XVIII.
is obliged to fly from the throne.

 

CHAPTER XV

The Baltle of Waterloo, 1815

“Thou ﬁrst and last of ﬁelds, king-making victory.” — BYRON.

peace. At no other period of her history can a simi-

larly long cessation from a state of warfare be found.
It is true that our troops have had battles to ﬁght during this
interval for the protection and extension of our Indian pos-
sessions and our colonies; but these have been with distant
and unimportant enemies. The danger has never been
brought near our own shores, and no matter of vital impor-
tance to our empire has ever been at stake. We have not
had hostilities with either France, America, or Russia; and
when not at war with any of our peers, we feel ourselves to
be substantially at peace. There has, indeed, throughout
this long period, been no great war like those with which the
previous history of modern Europe abounds. There have
been formidable collisions between particular states; and
there have been still more formidable collisions between
the armed champions of the conﬂicting principles of absolu-
tism and democracy; but there has been no general war, like
those of the French Revolution, like the American, or the
Seven Years’ war, or like the War of the Spanish Succession.
It would be far too much to augur from this that no similar
wars will again convulse the world; but the value of the
period of peace which Europe has gained is incalculable, even
if we look on it as only a truce and expect again to see the
nations of the earth recur to what some philosophers have
termed man’s natural state of warfare.

No equal number of years can be found during which
science, commerce, and civilization have advanced so rapidly
and so extensively as has been the case since 1815. When

364

ENGLAND has now been blest with thirty-seven years of

 

A “neglvpﬁy ‘r.._ . ,

;.’x~te- -' »

1815] BATTLE OF WATERLOO 365

we trace their progress, especially in this country, it is impos-
sible not to feel that their wondrous development has been
mainly due to the land having been at peace. Their good
effects cannot be obliterated, even if a series of wars were to
recommence. When we reﬂect on this, and contrast these
thirty-seven years with the period that preceded them,——a
period of violence, of tumult, of unrestingly destructive energy;
a period throughout which the wealth of nations was scattered
like sand and the blood of nations lavished like water, —it is
impossible not to look with deep interest on the ﬁnal crisis
of that dark and dreadful epoch; the crisis out of which our
own happier cycle of years has been evolved. The great
battle which ended the twenty-three years’ war of the ﬁrst
French Revolution, and which quelled the man whose genius
and ambition had so long disturbed and desolated the world,
deserves to be regarded by us, not only with peculiar pride,
as one of our greatest national victories, but with peculiar
gratitude for the repose which it secured for us and for the
greater part of the human race.

One good test for determining the importance of Waterloo
is to ascertain what was felt by wise and prudent statesmen,
before that battle, respecting the return of Napoleon from
Elba to the imperial throne of France, and the probable
effects of his success. For this purpose I will quote the
words, not of any of our vehement anti-Gallican politicians of
the school of Pitt, but of a leader of our Liberal party—0f a
man whose reputation as a jurist, an historian, and a far-
sighted and candid statesman was, and is, deservedly high, not
only in this country, but throughout Europe. Sir James
Mackintosh, in the debate in the British House of Commons,
on the 20th of April, 18 I 5, spoke thus of the return from Elba:

“ Was it in the power of language to describe the evil? Wars
which had raged for more than twenty years throughout
Europe; which had spread blood and desolation from Cadiz
to Moscow and from Naples to Copenhagen; which had
wasted the means of human enjoyment and destroyed the
instruments of social improvement; which threatened to dif-
fuse among the European nations the dissolute and ferocious
habits of a predatory soldiery—at length, by one of those
vicissitudes which bid deﬁance to the foresight of man, had

366 DECISIVE BATTLES [1815

been brought to a close, upon the whole happy beyond all
reasonable expectation, with no violent shock to national inde-
pendence, with some tolerable compromise between the opin-
ions of the age and reverence due to ancient institutions; with
no too signal or mortifying triumph over the legitimate inter-
ests or avowable feelings of any numerous body of men; and,
above all, without those retaliations against nations or parties
which beget new convulsions, often as horrible as those which
they close, and perpetuate revenge and hatred and bloodshed
from age to age. Europe seemed to breathe after her suffer-
ings. In the midst of this fair prospect and of these consola-
tory hopes, Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from Elba; three
small vessels reached the coast of Provence; our hopes are
instantly dispelled; the work of our toil and fortitude is
undone ; the blood of Europe is spilt in vain ~-

“ ‘ Ibi omnis effusus labor! ’ ”

The congress of emperors, kings, princes, generals, and
statesmen who had assembled at Vienna to remodel the
world after the overthrow of the mighty conqueror, and who
thought that Napoleon had passed away forever from the
great drama of European politics, had not yet completed their
triumphant festivities and their diplomatic toils, when Talley-~
rand, on the 11th of March, 1815, rose up among them and
announced that the ex—emperor had escaped from Elba, and
was emperor of France once more. It is recorded by Sir
Walter Scott, as a curious physiological fact, that the ﬁrst
effect of the news of an event which threatened to neutralize
all their labors was to excite a loud burst of laughter from
nearly every member of the congress. But the jest was a
bitter one; and they soon were deeply busied in anxious
deliberations respecting the mode in which they should
encounter their arch-enemy, who had thus started from tor-
por and obscurity into renovated splendor and strength :—

“ Qualis ubi in lucem coluber mala gramina pastus,
F rigida sub terra tumidum quem bruma tegebat,
Nunc positis novus exuviis nitidusque juventa,
Lubrica convolvit sublato pectore terga
Arduus ad solem, et linguis micat ore trisulcis.”

— VERGIL, Emmi

 

1815] BATTLE OF WATERLOO 367

Napoleon sought to disunite the formidable confederacy
which he knew would be arrayed against him, by endeavoring
to negotiate separately with each of the allied sovereigns. It
is said that Austria and Russia were at ﬁrst not unwilling to
treat with him. Disputes and jealousies had been rife among
several of the Allies on the subject of the division of the con-
quered countries; and the cordial unanimity with which they
had acted during 1813 and the ﬁrst months of 1814 had
grown chill during some weeks of discussions. But the active
exertions of Talleyrand, who represented Louis XVIII. at the
congress, and who both hated and feared Napoleon with all
the intensity of which his powerful spirit was capable, pre-
vented the secession of any member of the congress from the
new great league against their ancient enemy. Still, it is
highly probable that if Napoleon had triumphed in Belgium
over the Prussians and the English, he would have succeeded
in opening negotiations with the Austrians and Russians; and
he might have thus gained advantages similar to those which
he had obtained on his return from Egypt, when be induced
the Czar Paul to withdraw the Russian armies from cooperating
with the other enemies of France in the extremity of peril to
which she seemed reduced in 1799. But fortune now had
deserted him, both in diplomacy and in war.

On the I 3th of March, 1815, the ministers of the seven
powers, Austria, Spain, England, Portugal, Prussia, Russia,
and Sweden, signed a manifesto by which they declared
Napoleon an outlaw; and this denunciation was instantly fol-
lowed up by a treaty between England, Austria, Prussia, and
Russia (to which other. powers soon acceded), by which the
rulers of those countries bound themselves to enforce that
decree, and to prosecute the war until Napoleon should be
driven from the throne of France and rendered incapable of
disturbing the peace of Europe. The Duke of Wellington
was the representative of England at the Congress of Vienna,
and he was immediately applied to for his advice on the plan
of military operations against France. It was obvious that
Belgium would be the ﬁrst battle—ﬁeld; and by the general
wish of the Allies, the English duke proceeded thither to
assemble an army from the contingents of Dutch, Belgian,
and Hanoverian troops that were most speedily available,

368 DECISIVE BATTLES [1815

and from the English regiments which his own government
was hastening to send over from this country. A strong
Prussian corps was near Aix—la—Chapelle, having remained“
there since the campaign of the preceding year. This was
largely reenforced by other troops of the same nation; and
Marshal Bliicher, the favorite hero of the Prussian soldiery
and the deadliest foe of France, assumed the command of this
army, which was termed the “Army of the Lower Rhine,”
and which, in conjunction with Wellington’s forces, was to
make the van of the armaments of the allied powers. Mean-
while Prince Schwartzenberg was to collect I 30,000 Austrians,
and 124,000 troops of other Germanic states, as the “Army
of the Upper Rhine”; and 168,000 Russians, under the com-
mand of Barclay de Tolly, were to form the “Army of the
Middle Rhine,” and to repeat the march from Muscovy to
that river’s banks.

The exertions which the allied poWers thus made at this
crisis to grapple promptly with the French emperor have
truly been termed gigantic; and never were Napoleon’s
genius and activity more signally displayed than in the celer-
ity and skill by which he brought forward all the military
resources of France, which the reverses of the three preced-
ing years and the paciﬁc policy of the Bourbons during the
months of their ﬁrst restoration had greatly diminished and
disorganized. He reentered Paris on the 20th of March,
and by the end of May, besides sending a’ force into La
Vendée to put down the armed risings of the royalists in that
province, and besides providing troops under Massena and
Suchet for the defense of the southern frontiers of France,
Napoleon had an army assembled in the northeast for active
operations under his own command, which amounted to be-
tween one hundred and twenty and one hundred and thirty
thousand men, with a superb park of artillery and in the
highest possible state of equipment, discipline, and efﬁciency.

The approach of the multitudinous Russian, Austrian,
Bavarian, and other foes of the French emperor to the Rhine
was necessarily slow; but the two most active of the allied
powers had occupied Belgium with their troops, while Napo-
leon was organizing his forces. Marshal Blﬁcher was there
with one hundred and sixteen thousand Prussians; and, before

 

 

1815] BATTLE OF WATERLOO 369

the end of May, the Duke of Wellington was there also with
about one hundred and six thousand troops, either British or
in British pay.1 Napoleon determined to attack these enemies
in Belgium. The disparity of numbers was indeed great, but
delay was sure to increase the proportionate numerical supe-
riority of his enemies over his own ranks. The French
emperor considered also that “the enemy’s troops were now
cantoned under the command of two generals, and composed
of nations differing both in interest and in feelings.” His
own army was under his own sole command. It was com-
posed exclusively of French soldiers, mostly of veterans, well
acquainted with their ofﬁcers and with each other, and full
of enthusiastic conﬁdence in their commander. If he could
separate the Prussians from the British, so as to attack each
singly, he felt sanguine of success, not only against these the
most resolute of his many adversaries, but also against the
other masses that were slowly laboring up against his eastern
dominions.

The triple chain of strong fortresses which the French pos-
sessed on the Belgian frontier formed a curtain behind which
Napoleon was able to concentrate his army, and to conceal,
till the very last moment, the precise line of attack which he
intended to take. On the other hand Bliicher and Welling-
ton were obliged to canton their troops along a line of open
country of considerable length, so as to watch for the out-
break of Napoleon from whichever point of his chain of strong-
holds he should. please to make it. Blucher, with his army,
occupied the banks of the Sambre and the Meuse, from Liege
on his left, to Charleroi on his right; and the Duke of Well-
ington covered Brussels, his cantonments being partly in front
of that city and between it and the French frontier, and partly
on its west; their extreme right reaching to Courtray and
Tournay, while the left approached Charleroi and communi-
cated with the Prussian right. It was upon Charleroi that
Napoleon resolved to level his attack, in hopes of severing
the two allied armies from each other and then pursuing his
favorite tactics of assailing each separately with a superior
force on the battle-ﬁeld, though the aggregate of their num-
bers considerably exceeded his own.

The ﬁrst French corps d’armée, commanded by Count

24

3 7o DECISIVE BATTLES [1815

d’Erlon, was stationed, in the beginning of June, in and
around the city of Lille, near to the northeastern frontier of
France. The second corps, under Count Reille, was at Va-
lenciennes, to the right of the ﬁrst one. The third corps,
under Count Vandamme, was at Mezieres. The fourth,
under Court Ge’rard, had its headquarters at Metz; and the
sixth,2 under Count Lobau, was at Laon. Four corps of re
serve cavalry, under Marshal Grouchy, were also near the
frontier, between the rivers Aisne and Sambre. The Impe-
rial Guard remained in Paris until the 8th of June, when it
marched towards Belgium, and reached Avesnes on the 13th;
and in the course of the same and the following day, the ﬁve
corps d’armée, with the cavalry reserves which have been men-
tioned, were, in pursuance of skilfully combined orders, rap-
idly drawn together and concentrated in and around the same
place, on the right bank of the river Sambre. On the I4th
Napoleon arrived among his troops, who were exulting at the
display of their commander’s skill in the celerity and precision
with which they had been drawn together and in the consCious-
ness of their collective strength. Although Napoleon too often
permitted himself to use language unworthy of his own char-
acter respecting his great English adversary, his real feelings
in commencing this campaign may be judged from thelast
words which he spoke, as he threw himself into his traveling-
carriage to leave Paris for the army. “I go,” he said, “to
measure myself with Wellington.”

The enthusiasm of the French soldiers at seeing their em-
peror among them was still more excited by the “Order of
the Day,” in which he thus appealed to them :—

“Napoleon, by the Grace of God, and the Constitution of the Empire,
Emperor of the French, etc., to the Grand Army. .

“AT THE IMPERIAL HEADQUARTERS,
“AZ/£57263, lune 141/1, 1815.

“Soldiers! this day is the anniversary of Marengo and of F riedland, which
twice decided the destiny of Europe. Then, as after Austerlitz, as after
Wagram, we were too generous! We believed in the protestations and in
the oaths of princes, whom we left on their thrones. N ow, however, leagued
together, they aim at the independence and the most sacred rights of France.
They have commenced the most unjust of aggressions. Let us, then, march
to meet them. Are they and we no longer the same men?

 

1815] BATTLE OF WATERLOO 371

“Soldiers! at Jena, against these same Prussians, now so arrogant, you
were one to three, and at Montmirail one to six!

“ Let those among you who have been captives to the English describe
the nature of their prison ships, and the frightful miseries they endured.

“The Saxons, the Belgians, the Hanoverians, the soldiers of the Con-
federation of the Rhine, lament that they are compelled to use their arms
in the cause of princes, the enemies of justice and of the rights of all nations.
They know that this coalition is insatiable! After having devoured twelve
millions of Poles, twelve millions of Italians, one million of Saxons, and six
millions of Belgians, it now wishes to devour the states of the second rank
in Germany.

“ Madmen! one moment of prosperity has bewildered them. The oppres-
sion and the humiliation of the French people are beyond their power. If
they enter France, they will there ﬁnd their grave.

“Soldiers! we have forced marches to make, battles to ﬁght, dangers to
encounter; but, with ﬁrmness, victory will be ours. The rights, the honor,
and the happiness of the country will be recovered!

“ To every Frenchman who has a heart, the moment is now arrived to

conquer or to die.
“ NAPOLEON.

“THE MARSHAL DUKE OF DALMATIA,
“ Major-general.”

The 15th of June had scarcely dawned before the French
army was in motion for the decisive campaign and crossed
the frontier in three columns, which were pointed upon Charle-
roi and its vicinity. The French line of advance upon Brus-
sels, which city Napoleon resolved to occupy, thus lay right
through the center of the cantonments of the Allies.

Much criticism has been expended on the supposed surprise
of Wellington’s army in its cantonments by Napoleon’s rapid
advance. These comments would hardly have been made if
Suﬂicient attention had been paid to the geography of the
Waterloo campaign; and if it had been remembered that the
protection of Brussels was justly considered by the allied gen-
erals a matter of primary importance. If Napoleon could,
either by maneuvering or ﬁghting, have succeeded in occupy-
ing that city, the greater part of Belgium would unquestion-
ably have declared in his favor; and 'the results of such
a success, gained by the emperor at the commencement of the
campaign, might have decisively inﬂuenced the whole after
current of events. A glance at the map will show the numer-
ous roads that lead from the different fortresses on the French
northeastern frontier and converge upon Brussels, any one

372 DECISIVE BATTLES [1815

of which Napoleon might have chosen for the advance of a
strong force upon that city. The duke’s army was judiciously
arranged so as to enable him to concentrate troops on any
one of these roads sufﬁciently in advance of Brussels to check
an assailing enemy. The army was kept thus available for
movement in any necessary direction, till certain intelligence
arrived on the I 5th of June that the French had crossed the
frontier in large force near Thuin, that they had driven back
the Prussian advanced troops under General Ziethen, and were
also moving across the Sambre upon Charleroi.

Marshal Blucher now rapidly concentrated his forces, call-
ing them in from the left upon Ligny, which is to the north-
east of Charleroi. Wellington also drew his troops together,
calling them in from the right. But even now, though it was
certain that the French were in large force at Charleroi, it
was unsafe for the English general to place his army directly
between that place and Brussels, until it was certain that no
corps of the enemy was marching upon Brussels by the west-
ern road through Mons and Hal. The duke, therefore, col-
lected his troops in Brussels and its immediate vicinity, ready
to move due southward on Quatre Bras and cooperate with
Blijcher, who was taking his station at Ligny, but also ready
to meet and defeat any maneuver that the enemy might make
to turn the right of the Allies and occupy Brussels by a ﬂank-
ing movement. The testimony of the Prussian general,
Baron Muffling, who was attached to the duke’s staff during
the campaign and who expressly states the reasons on which
the English general acted, ought forever to have silenced the
“ weak inventions of the enemy ” about the Duke of Welling-
ton having been deceived and surprised by his assailant, which
some writers of our own nation, as well as foreigners, have
incautiously repeated.

It was about three o’clock in the afternoon of the 15th that
a Prussian ofﬁcer reached Brussels, whom General Ziethen
had sent to Mﬁﬂiing to inform him of the advance of the main
French army upon Charleroi. Miifﬂing immediately com-
municated this to the Duke of Wellington, and asked him
whether he would now concentrate his army, and what would
be his point of concentration, observing that Marshal Bliicher
in consequence of this intelligence would certainly concentrate

 

 

1815] BATTLE OF WATERLOO 373

the Prussians at Ligny. The duke replied: “If all is as Gen-
eral Ziethen supposes, I will concentrate on my left wing,
and so be in readiness to ﬁght in conjunction with the Prus-
sian army. Should, however, a portion of the enemy’s force
come by Mons, I must concentrate more towards my center.
This is the reason whyI must wait for positive news from
Mons before I ﬁx the rendezvous. Since, however, it is cer-
tain that the troops must march, though it is uncertain upon
what precise spot they must march, I will order all to be in
readiness and will direct a brigade to move at once towards
Quatre Bras.”

Later in the same day a message from Bliicher himself
was delived to Miiﬂ‘ling, in which the Prussian ﬁeld-marshal
informed the baron that he was concentrating his men at
Sombref and Ligny, and charged Muﬁling to give him
speedy intelligence respecting the concentration of Welling-
ton. Miifﬂing immediately communicated this to the duke,
who expressed his satisfaction with Bliicher’s arrangements,
but added that he could not even then resolve upon his own
point of concentration before he obtained the desired intelli-
gence from Mons. About midnight this information arrived.
The duke went to the quarters of General Miiﬂiing and told
him thathe now had received his reports from Mons and was
sure that no French troops were advancing by that route, but
that the mass of the enemy’s force was decidedly directed on
Charleroi. He informed the Prussian general that he had
ordered the British troops to move forward upon Quatre Bras;
but with characteristic coolness and sagacity resolved not to
give the appearance of alarm by hurrying on with them him-
self. A ball was to be given by the Duchess of Richmond at
Brussels that night, and the duke proposed to General Muf-
ﬂing that they should go to the ball for a few hours, and ride
forward in the morning to overtake the troops at Quatre Bras.

To hundreds who were assembled at that memorable ball the
news that the enemy was advancing, and that the time for
battle had come, must have been a fearfully exciting surprise,
and the magniﬁcent stanzas of Byron [“ Childe Harold,”
Canto III.] are as true as they are beautiful; but the duke
and his principal ofﬁcers knew well the stern termination to
that festive scene, which was approaching. One by one, and

3 74 DECISIVE BATTLES [1315

in such a way as to attract as little observation as possible,
the leaders of the various corps left the ballroom and took
their stations at the head of their men, who were pressing
forward through the last hours of the short summer night to
the arena of anticipated slaughter.

Napoleon’s operations on the 15th had been conducted
with signal skill and vigor; and their results had been very
advantageous for his plan of the campaign. With his army
formed in three vast columns, he had struck at the center of
the line of cantonments of his allied foes; and he had so far
made good his blow that he had effected the passage of the
Sambre, he had beaten with his left wing the Prussian corps
of General Ziethen at Thuin, and with his center he had in
person advanced right through Charleroi upon Fleurus, inﬂict-
ing considerable loss upon the Prussians that fell back before
him. His right column had with little opposition moved for-
ward as far as the bridge of Chatelet.

Napoleon had thus a powerful force immediately in front
of the point which Bliicher had ﬁxed for the concentration of
the Prussian army, and that concentration was still incom-
plete. The French emperor designed to attack the Prussians
on the morrow in person with the troops of his center and
right columns, and to employ his left Wing in beating back
such English troops as might advance to the help of their
allies, and also in aiding his own attack upon Blucher. He
gave the command of his left wing to Marshal Ney. Napo-
leon seems not to have originally intended to employ this
celebrated general in the campaign. It was only on the
night of the I 1th of June that Marshal Ney received at Pans
an order to join the army. Hurrying forward to the Belgian
frontier, he met the emperor near Charleroi. Napoleon
immediately directed him to take the command of the left
wing and to press forward with it upon Quatre Bras by the
line of the road which leads from Charleroi to Brussels,
through Gosselies, Frasne, Quatre Bras, Genappe, and Water-
loo. Ney immediately proceeded to the post assigned him;
and before ten on the night of the I 5th he had occupied Gos-
selies and Frasne, driving out without much difﬁculty some
weak Belgian detachments which had been stationed in those
villages. The lateness of the hour and the exhausted state of

Ammannr '2 ; 4.x“.

lanaghm ;_

 

I815] BATTLE OF WATERLOO 375

the French troops, who had been marching and ﬁghting since
ten in the morning, made him pause from advancing farther
to attack the much more important position of Quatre Bras.
In truth, the advantages which the French gained by their
almost superhuman energy and activity throughout the long
day of the 15th of June were necessarily bought at the price
of more delay and inertness during the following night and
morrow than would have been observable if they had not
been thus overtasked. Ney has been blamed for want of
promptness in his attack upon Quatre Bras, and Napoleon
has been criticized for not having fought at Ligny before the
afternoon of the 16th; but their censors should remember
that soldiers are but men and that there must be necessarily
some interval of time before troops that have been worn and
weakened by twenty hours of incessant fatigue and strife can
be fed, rested, reorganized, and brought again into action with
any hope of success.

Having on the night of the I 5th placed the most advanced
of the French under his command in position in front of
Frasne, Ney. rode back to Charleroi, where Napoleon also
arrived about midnight, having returned from directing the
operations of the center and right column of the French.
The emperor and the marshal supped together, and remained
in earnest conversation till two in the morning. An hour or
two afterwards Ney rode back to Frasne, where he endeav-
ored to collect tidings of the numbers and movements of the
enemy in front of him ; and also busied himself in the neces-
sary duty of learning the amount and composition of the
troops which he himself was commanding. He had been
so suddenly appointed to his high station that he did not
know the strength of the several regiments under him, or
even the names of their commanding ofﬁcers. He now caused
his aides-de-camp to prepare the requisite returns, and drew
together the troops, whom he was thus learning before he
used them.

Wellington remained at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball at
Brussels till about three o’clock in the morning of the 16th,
“showing himself very cheerful,” as Baron Muffling, who ac-
companied him, observes. At ﬁve o’clock the duke and the

, baron were on horseback and reached the position at Quatre

376 DECISIVE BATTLES [1815

Bras about eleven. As the French, who were in front of
Frasne, were perfectly quiet, and the duke was informed that
a very large force under Napoleon in person was menacing
Blucher, it was thought possible that only a slight detach-
ment of the French was posted at Frasne in order to mask
the English army. In that event Wellington, as he told
Baron Miifﬂing, would be able to employ his whole strength
in supporting the Prussians; and he proposed to ride across
from Quatre Bras to Bliicher’s position, in order to concert
with him personally the measures which should be taken in
order to bring on a decisive battle with the French. Welling-
ton and Mufﬁing rode accordingly towards Ligny, and found
Marshal Bliicher and his staff at the Windmill of Bry, near
that village. The Prussian army, 80,000 strong, was drawn
up chiefly along a chain of heights, with the villages of Som-
bref, St. Amand, and Ligny in their front. These villages
were strongly occupied by Prussian detachments, and formed
the keys of Bliicher’s position. The heads of the columns
which Napoleon was forming for the attack were visible in
the distance. The duke asked Bliicher and General Gneise-
nau (who was Blucher’s adviser in matters of strategy)
what they wished him to do. Muﬂiing had already explained
to them in a few words the duke’s earnest desire to support
the ﬁeld—marshal, and that he would do all that they wished,
provided they did not ask him to divide his army, which was
contrary to his principles. The duke wished to advance with
his army (as soon as it was concentrated) upon Frasne and
Gosselies, and thence to move upon Napoleon’s ﬂank and
rear. The Prussian leaders preferred that he should march
his men from Quatre Bras by the Namur road, so as to form
a reserve in rear of Bliicher’s army. The duke replied,
“Well, I will come if I am not attacked myself,” and galloped
back with Muﬁ‘iing to Quatre Bras, where the French attack
was now actually raging.

Marshal Ney began the battle about two o’clock in the
afternoon. He had at this time in hand about 16,000 infan-
try, nearly 2000 cavalry, and 38 guns. The force which
Napoleon nominally placed at his command exceeded 40,000
men. But more than one half of these consisted of the ﬁrst
French corps d’armée, under Count d’Erlon; and Ney was

 

1815] BATTLE OF WATERLOO 377

deprived of the’use of this corps at the time that he most
required it, in consequence of its receiving orders to march
to the aid of the emperor at Ligny. A magniﬁcent body of
heavy cavalry under Kellermann, nearly 5000 strong, and
several more battalions of artillery were added to Ney’s army
during the battle of Quatre Bras; but his effective infantry
force never exceeded 16,000.

When the battle began, the greater part of the duke’s army
was yet on its march towards Quatre Bras from Brussels and
the other parts of its cantonments. The force of the Allies,
actually in position there, consisted only of a Dutch and
Belgian division of infantry, not quite 7000 strong, with one
battalion of foot, and one of horse-artillery. The Prince of
Orange commanded them. A wood, called the Bois de
Bossu, stretched along the right (or western) ﬂank of the
position of Quatre Bras; a farmhouse and building, called
Gemiancourt, stood on some elevated ground in its front;
and to the left (or east) were the enclosures of the village of
Pierremont. The Prince of Orange endeavored to secure
these posts; but Ney carried Gemiancourt in the center, and
Pierremont on the east, and gained occupation of the southern
part of the wood of Bossu. He ranged the chief part of his
artillery on the high ground of Gemiancourt, whence it played
throughout the action with most destructive effect upon the
Allies. He was pressing forward to further advantages,
when the ﬁfth infantry division, under Sir Thomas Picton,
and the Duke of Brunswick’s corps, appeared upon the scene.
Wellington (who had returned to Quatre Bras from his inter-
view with Bliicher shortly before the arrival of these forces)
restored the ﬁght with them; and as fresh troops of the Allies
arrived, they were brought forward to stem the ﬁerce attacks
which Ney’s columns and squadrons continued to make with
unabated gallantry and zeal. The only cavalry of the Anglo-
allied army that reached Quatre Bras during the action
consisted of Dutch and Belgians, and a small force of Bruns-
wickers under their duke, who was killed on the ﬁeld. These
proved wholly unable to encounter Kellermann’s cuirassiers
and Piré’s lancers. The Dutch and Belgian infantry also gave
way early in the engagement; so that the whole brunt of the
battle fell on the British and German infantry. They sus«

378 DECISIVE BATTLES [1815

tained it nobly. Though repeatedly charged by the French
cavalry, though exposed to the murderous ﬁre of the French
batteries, which from the heights of Gemiancourt sent shot
and shell into the devoted squares whenever the French
horsemen withdrew, they not only repelled their assailants,
but Kempt’s and Pack’s brigades, led on by Picton, actually
advanced against and through their charging foes, and with
stern determination made good to the end of the day the
ground which they had thus boldly won. Some, however,
of the British regiments were during the confusion assailed
by the French cavalry before they could form squares, and
suffered severely. One regiment, the 92d, was almost wholly
destroyed by the cuirassiers. A French private soldier
named Lami, of the 8th Regiment of cuirassiers, captured
one of the English colors and presented it to Ney. It was a.
solitary trophy. The arrival of the English Guards about
half-past six o’clock enabled the duke to recover the wood of
Bossu, which the French had almost entirely won and the pos-
session of which by them would have enabled Ney to operate
destructively upon the allied ﬂank and rear. Not only was
the wood of Bossu recovered on the British right, but the en—
closures of Pierremont were also carried on the left. When
night set in the French had been driven back on all points
towards F rasne ; but they still held the farm of Gemiancourt
in front of the duke’s center. Wellington and Miiﬁiing were
unacquainted with the result of the collateral battle between
Bliicher and Napoleon, the cannonading of which had been
distinctly audible at Quatre Bras throughout the afternoon
and evening. The duke observed to Mufﬂing that of course
the two allied armies would assume the offensive against the

enemy on the morrow, and, consequently, it would be better ‘

to capture the farm at once, instead of waiting till next morn-
ing. Muﬂiing agreed in the duke’s views, and Gemiancourt
was forthwith attacked by the English and captured with
little loss to the assailants.

Meanwhile the French and the Prussians had been ﬁghting
in and round the villages of Ligny, Sombref, and St. Amand,
from three in the afternoon to nine in the evening, with a.
savage inveteracy almost unparalleled in modern warfare.
Bliicher had in the ﬁeld, when he began the battle, 83,417

”9.9% .1; i" 'r ,

 

18:5] BATTLE OF WATERLOO 379

men and 224 guns. Bulow’s corps, which was 25,000 strong,
had not joined him. But the ﬁeld-marshal hoped to be reen-
forced by it or by the English army before the end of the
action. But Bulow, through some error in the transmission of
orders, was far in the rear; and the Duke of Wellington was
engaged, as we have seen, with Marshal Ney. Blucher re—
ceived early warning from Baron Muffling that the duke
could not come to his assistance; but, as Mufﬂing observes,
Wellington rendered the Prussians the great service of occu-
pying more than 40,000 of the enemy, who otherwise would
have crushed Blucher’s right ﬂank. For not only did the
conﬂict at Quatre Bras detain the French troops which
actually took part in it, but d’Erlon received orders from Ney
to join him, which hindered d’Erlon from giving effectual aid
to Napoleon. Indeed, the whole of d’Erlon’s corps, in conse-
quence of conﬂicting directions from Ney and the emperor,
marched and countermarched, during the 16th, between
Quatre Bras and Ligny without ﬁring a shot in either battle.

Bliicher had, in fact, a superiority of more than 12,000 in
number over the French army that attacked him at Ligny.
The numerical difference was even greater at the beginning
of the battle, as Lobau’s corps did not come up from Charleroi
till eight o’clock. After ﬁve hours and a half of desperate
and long-doubtful struggle, Napoleon succeeded in breaking
the center of the Prussian line at Ligny, and in forcing his
obstinate antagonists off the ﬁeld of battle. The issue was
attributable to his skill, and not to any want of spirit or reso-
lution on the part of the Prussian troops ; nor did they, though
defeated, abate one jot in discipline, heart, or hope. As
Blucher observed, it was a battle in which his army lost the
day but not its honor. The Prussians retreated during the
night of the 16th and the early part of the 17th, with perfect
regularity and steadiness. The retreat was directed not
towards Maestricht, where their principal depots were estab-
lished, but towards Wavre, so as to be able to maintain their
communication with Wellington’s army, and still follow out
the original plan of the campaign. The heroism with which
the Prussians endured and repaired their defeat at Ligny is

more glorious than many victories.
The messenger who was sent to inform Wellington of the

380 DECISIVE BATTLES [1315

retreat of the Prussian army was shot on the way; and it was
not until the morning of the 17th that the Allies, at Quatre
Bras, knew the result of the battle of Ligny. The duke was
ready at daybreak to take the offensive against the enemy
with vigor, his whole army being by that time fully assembled.
But on learning that Blucher had been defeated, a different
course of action was clearly necessary. It was obvious that
Napoleon’s main army would now be directed against Well-
ington, and a retreat was inevitable. On ascertaining that
the Prussian army had retired upon Wavre, that there was no
hot pursuit of them by the French, and that Bulow’s corps
had taken no part in the action at Ligny, the duke resolved
to march his army back towards Brussels, still intending to
cover that city and to halt at a point in a line with Wavre,
and there restore his communication with Bliicher. An oﬂi—
cer from Bliicher’s army reached the duke about nine o’clock,
from whom he learned the effective strength that Bliicher
still possessed, and how little discouraged his ally was by
yesterday’s battle. Wellington sent word to the Prussian
commander that he would halt in the position of Mont St.
Jean, and accept a general battle with the French, if Blijcher
would pledge himself to come to his assistance with a single
corps of 25,000 men. This was readily promised; and after
allowing his men ample time for rest and refreshment, Welling-
ton retired over about half the space between Quatre Bras and
Brussels. He was pursued, but little molested, by the main
French army, which about noon of the I 7th moved laterally
from Ligny and joined Ney’s forces, which had advanced
through Quatre Bras when the British abandoned that posi-
tion. The Earl of Uxbridge, with the British cavalry, covered
the retreat of the duke’s army with great skill and gallantry;
and a heavy thunder-storm, with torrents of rain, impeded the
operations of the French pursuing squadrons. The duke
still expected that the French would endeavor to turn his
right and march upon Brussels by the highroad that leads
through Mons and Hal. In order to counteract this antici-
pated maneuver, he stationed a force of 18,000 men, under
Prince Frederick of the Netherlands, at Hal, with orders to
maintain himself there, if attacked, as long as possible. The
duke halted with the rest of his army at the position near

  

   
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
  

1815] BATTLE OF WATERLOO 38 1

Mont St. Jean which, from a village in its neighborhood, has
received the ever-memorable name of the ﬁeld of Waterloo.

Wellington was now about twelve miles distant, on a line run-
ning from west to east, from Wavre, where the Prussian army
had now been completely reorganized and collected, and where
it had been strengthened by the junction of Bulow’s troops,
which had taken no part in the battle of Ligny. Blticher sent
word from Wavre to the duke that he was coming to help the
English at Mont St. Jean, in the morning, not with one corps,
but with his whole army. The ﬁery old man only stipulated
that the combined armies, if not attacked by Napoleon on the
18th, should themselves attack him on the 19th. So far were
Bliicher and his army from being in the state of annihilation
described in the boastful bulletin by which Napoleon informed
the Parisians of his victory at Ligny. Indeed, the French em-
peror seems himself to have been misinformed as to the extent
of loss which he had inflicted on the Prussians. Had he known
in what good order and with what undiminished spirit they
were retiring, he would scarcely have delayed sending a large
force to press them in their retreat until noon on the I 7th.
Such, however, was the case. It was about that time that he
conﬁded to Marshal Grouchy the duty of pursuing the defeated
Prussians and preventing them from joining Wellington. He
placed for this purpose 32,000 men and 96 guns under his
orders. Violent complaints and recriminations passed after-
wards between the emperor and the marshal respecting the
manner in which Grouchy attempted to perform this duty, and
the reasons why he failed on the 18th to arrest the lateral
movement of the Prussians from Wavre to Waterloo. It is
sufﬁcient to remark here, that the force which Napoleon gave
to Grouchy (though the utmost that the emperor’s limited
means would allow) was insufﬁcient to make head against the
entire Prussian army, especially after Bulow’s junction with
Bliicher. We shall presently have occasion to consider what
opportunities were given to Grouchy during the 18th, and
What he might have eﬂected if he had been a man of original
military genius.

But the failure of Grouchy was in truth mainly owing to the
indomitable heroism of Bliicher himself; who, though he had
received severe personal injuries in the battle of Ligny, was

382 DECISIVE BATTLES [18x5

as energetic and ready as ever in bringing his men into action
again, and who had the resolution to expose a part of his army,
under Thielman, to be overwhelmed by Grouchy at Wavre on
the 18th, while he urged the march of the mass of his troops
upon Waterloo. “ It is not at Wavre, but at Waterloo,” said
the old ﬁeld-marshal, “ that the campaign is to be decided”;
and he risked a detachment, and won the campaign accord-
ingly. Wellington and Blucher trusted each other as cordially,
and cooperated as zealously, as formerly had been the case
with Marlborough and Eugene. It was in full reliance on
.Blticher’s promise to join him that the duke stood his ground
and fought at Waterloo; and those who have ventured to
impugn the duke’s capacity as a general ought to have had
common sense enough to perceive that to charge the duke
with having won the battle of Waterloo by the help of the
Prussians is really to say that he Won it by the very means
on which he relied, and without the expectation of which the
battle would not have been fought.

Napoleon himself has found fault with Wellington for not
having retreated farther, so as to complete a junction of his
army with Bliicher’s before he risked a general engagement.
But, as we have seen, the duke justly considered it important
to protect Brussels. He had reason to expect that his army
could singly resist the French at Waterloo until the Prussians
came up, and that, on the Prussians joining,‘there would be
a sufﬁcient force united under himself and Blucher for com-
pletely overwhelming the enemy. And while Napoleon thus
censures his great adversary, he involuntarily bears the high-
est possible testimony to the military character of the Eng-
lish, and proves decisively of what paramount importance
was the battle to which he challenged his fearless opponent.
Napoleon asks, “If the English army had been beaten at
Waterloo, what would have been the use of those numerous
bodies of troops, of Prussians, Austrians, Germans, and Span-
iards, which were advancing by forced marches to the Rhine,
the Alps, and the Pyrenees ? ”

The strength of the army under the Duke of Wellington
at Waterloo was 49,608 infantry, 12,402 cavalry, and 5645
artillerymen with I 56 guns. But of this total of 67,655 men,
scarcely 24,000 were British, a circumstance of very serious

 

1815} BATTLE OF WATERLOO 383

importance, if Napoleon’s own estimate of the relative value
of troops of different nations is to be taken. In the emperor’s
own words, speaking of this campaign, “A French soldier
would not be equal to more than one English soldier, but he
would not be afraid to meet two Dutchmen, Prussians, or
soldiers of the Confederation.” There were about 6000 men
of the old German Legion with the duke; these were veteran
troops and of excellent quality. Of the rest of the army the
Hanoverians and Brunswickers proved themselves deserving
of conﬁdence and praise. But the Nassauers, Dutch, and
Belgians were almost worthless; and not a few of them were
justly suspected of a strong wish to ﬁght, if they fought at
all, under the French eagles rather than against them.

Napoleon’s army at Waterloo consisted of 48,950 infantry,
I 5,765 cavalry, 72 32 artillerymen, being a total of 71,947 men
and 246 guns. They were the ﬂower of the national forces of
France; and of all the numerous gallant armies which that
martial land has poured forth, never was there one braver,
or better disciplined, or better led than the host that took up
its position at Waterloo on the morning of the 18th of June,
1815.

Perhaps those who have not seen the ﬁeld of battle at
Waterloo, or the admirable model of the ground and of the
conﬂicting armies which was executed by Captain Siborne,
may gain a generally accurate idea of the localities by pictur-
ing to themselves a valley between two and three miles long,
of various breadths at different points, but generally not
exceeding half a mile. On each side of the valley there is
a winding chain of low hills running somewhat parallel with
each other. The declivity from each of these ranges of hills
to the intervening valley is gentle but not uniform, the un-
dulations of the ground being frequent and considerable.
The English army was posted on the northern and the French
army occupied the southern ridge. The artillery of each side
thundered at the other from their respective heights through-
out the day, and the charges of horse and foot were made
across the valley that has been described. The village of
Mont St. Jean is situated a little behind the center of the
northern chain of hills, and the village of La Belle Alliance
is close behind the center of the southern ridge. The high-

8 DECISIVE BATTLES 1815
3 4 .

road from Charleroi to Brussels (a broad paved causeway)
runs through both these villages and bisects therefore both
the English and the French. position. The line of this road
was the line of Napoleon’s intended advance on Brussels.
There are some other local particulars connected With the
situation of each army which it is necessary to bear in mind.
The strength of the British position did not consist merely in
the occupation of a ridge of high ground. A village and
ravine, called Merk Braine, on the Duke of Wellington’s
extreme right, secured his ﬂank from being turned on that
side; and on his extreme left two little hamlets, called La
Haye and Papelotte, gave a similar, though a slighter, pro-
tection. Behind the whole British position is the extensive
forest of Soignies. As no attempt was made by the French
to turn either of the English ﬂanks, and the battle was a day
of straightforward ﬁghting, it is chieﬂy important to ascertain
what posts there were in front of the British line of hills of
which advantage could be taken either to repel or facilitate
an attack; and it will be seen that there were two, and that
each was of very great importance in the action. In front
of the British right—that is to say, on the northern slope of
the valley towards its western end—there stood an old-fash-
ioned Flemish farmhouse called Goumont, or Hougoumont,
with outbuildings and a garden, and with a copse of beech-
trees of about two acres in extent round it. This was strongly
garrisoned by the allied troops; and, while it was in their
possession, it was difﬁcult for the enemy to press on and force
the British right wing. On the other hand, if the enemy
could take it, it would be difﬁcult for that wing to keep its
ground on the heights, with a strong post held adversely in

its immediate front, being one that would give much shelter ,

to the enemy’s marksmen and great facilities for the sudden
concentration of attacking columns. Almost immediately in
front of the British center, and not so far down the slope as
Hougoumont, there was another farmhouse of a smaller size,
called La Haye Sainte,3 which was also held by the British
troops, and the occupation of which was found to be of very
serious consequence.

With respect to the French position, the principal feature
to be noticed is the village of Planchenoit, which lay a little.

 

 

 

1815] BATTLE OF WATERLOO 385

in the rear of their right (Le. on the eastern side), and which
proved to be of great importance in aiding them to check the
advance of the Prussians.

Napoleon, in his memoirs, and other French writers, have
vehemently blamed the duke for having given battle in such
a position as that of Waterloo. They particularly object that
the duke fought without having the means of a retreat, if the
attacks of his enemy had proved successful; and that the
English army, if once broken, must have lost all its guns and
mate’rz‘el in its ﬂight through the forest of Soignies, that lay
in its rear. In answer to these censures, instead of merely
referring to the event of the battle as proof of the correctness
of the duke’s judgment, it is to be observed that many mili-
tary critics of high authority have considered the position of
Waterloo to have been admirably adapted for the duke’s
purpose of protecting Brussels by a battle ; and that certainly
the duke’s opinion in favor of it was not lightly or hastily
formed. It is a remarkable fact (mentioned in the speech of
Lord Bathurst when moving the vote of thanks to the duke
in the House of Lords) that, when the Duke of Wellington
was passing through Belgium in the preceding summer of
1814, he particularly noticed the strength of the position
of Waterloo, and made a minute of it at the time, stating
to those who were with him that if it ever should be his fate to
ﬁght a battle in that quarter for the protection of Brussels, he
should endeavor to do so in that position. And with respect
to the forest of Soignies, which the French (and some few
English) critics have thought calculated to prove so fatal to a
retreating force, the duke, on the contrary, believed it to be a
post that might have proved of inﬁnite value to his army in
the event of his having been obliged to give way. The forest
of Soignies has no thicket or masses of close—growing trees.
It consists of tall beeches, and is everywhere passable for men
and horses. The artillery could have been withdrawn by the
broad road which traverses it towards Brussels; and in the
mean while a few regiments of resolute infantry could have
'held the forest and kept the pursuers in check. One of the
best writers on the Waterloo campaign, Captain Pringle, well
observes that “every person the least experienced in war
knows the extreme difﬁculty of forcing infantry from a wobd

25

386 DECISIVE BATTLES (18;; -

which cannot be turned.” The defense of the Bois de Bossu
near Quatre Bras on the 16th of June had given a good proof
of this; and the Duke of Wellington, when speaking in after-
years of the possible events that might have followed if he
had been beaten back from the open ﬁeld of Waterloo, pointed
to the wood of Soignies as his secure rallying place, saying,
“They never could have beaten us so that we could not have
held the wood against them.” He was always conﬁdent that
he could have made good that post until joined by the Prus-
sians, upon whose cooperation he throughout depended.

As has been already mentioned, the Prussians on the morn-
ing of the 18th were at Wavre, which is about twelve miles to
the east of the ﬁeld of battle of Waterloo. The junction of
Bulow’s division had more than made up for the loss sustained
at Ligny; and leaving Thielman, with about seventeen thou-
sand men, to hold his ground as he best could against the
attack which Grouchy was about to make on Wavre, Bulow
and Bliicher moved with the rest of the Prussians through St.
Lambert upon Waterloo. It was calculated that they would
be there by three o’clock; but the extremely difﬁcult nature
of the ground which they had to traverse, rendered worse by
the torrents of rain that had just fallen, delayed them long on
their twelve miles’ march.

An army, indeed, less animated by bitter hate against the
enemy than were the Prussians and under a less energetic
chief than Blucher, would have failed altogether in effecting
a passage through the swamps into which the incessant rain
had transformed the greater part of the ground through which
it was necessary to move, not only with columns of foot, but
with cavalry and artillery. At one point of the march, on
entering the deﬁle of St. Lambert, the spirits of the Prus-
sians almost gave way. Exhausted in the attempts to extri-

cate and drag forward the heavy guns, the men began to ’

murmur. Bliicher came to the spot and heard cries from
the ranks of “ We cannot get on.” “But you must get on,”
was the old ﬁeld-marshal’s answer. “ I have pledged my
word to Wellington, and you surely will not make me break
it. Only exert yourselves for a few hours longer, and we are
sure of victory.” This appeal from old “ Marshal Forwards,”
as the Prussian soldiers loved to call Blucher, had its wonted

 

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181 5] BATTLE or WATERLOO 387

effect. The Prussians again moved forward, slowly, indeed,
and with pain and toil; but still they moved forward.

The Frenchand British armies lay on the open ﬁeld during
the wet and stormy night of the I7th ; and when the dawn of
the memorable 18th of June broke, the rain was still descend-
ing heavily upon Waterloo. The rival nations rose from
their dreary bivouacs and began to form, each on the high
ground which it occupied. Towards nine the weather grew
clearer, and each army was able to watch the position and
arrangements of the other on the opposite side of the valley.

The Duke of Wellington drew up his army in two lines,
the principal one being stationed near'the crest of the ridge
of hills already described, and the other being arranged along
the slope in the rear of his position. Commencing from the
eastward, on the extreme left of the ﬁrst or main line, were
Vivian’s and Vandeleur’s brigades of light cavalry, and the
ﬁfth Hanoverian brigade of infantry under Von Vincke.
Then came Best’s fourth Hanoverian brigade. Detachments
from these bodies of troops occupied the little villages of
Papelotte and La Haye, down the hollow in advance of the
left of the duke’s position. To the right of Best’s Hanoveri-
ans, Bylandt’s brigade of Dutch and Belgian infantry was
drawn up on the outer slope of the heights. Behind them
were the ninth brigade of British infantry under Pack; and
to the right of these last, but more in advance, stood the
eighth brigade of English infantry under Kempt. These
were close to the Charleroi road and to the center of the
entire position. These two English brigades, with the ﬁfth
Hanoverian, made up the ﬁfth division, commanded by Sir
Thomas Picton. Immediately to their right, and westward
of the Charleroi road, stood the third division, commanded
by General Alten, and consisting of Ompteda’s brigade of
the king’s German Legion and Kielmansegge’s Hanoverian
brigade. The important post of La Haye Sainte, which, it
will be remembered, lay in front of the duke’s center, close
to the Charleroi road, was garrisoned with troops from this
division. Westward, and on the right of Kielmansegge’s
Hanoverians, stood the ﬁfth British brigade under Halkett;
and behind, Kruse’s Nassau brigade was posted. On the
right of Halkett’s men stood the English Guards. They

388 DECISIVE BATTLES [1815

were in two brigades, one commanded by Maitland, and the
other by Byng. The entire division was under General
Cooke. The buildings and gardens of Hougoumont, which
lay immediately under the height on which stood the British
Guards, were principally manned by detachments from Byng’s
brigade, aided by some brave Hanoverian riﬂemen and ac—
companied by a battalion of a Nassau regiment. On a
plateau in the rear of Cooke’s division of Guards, and inclin-
ing westward towards the village of Merbe Braine, were
Clinton’s second infantry division, composed of Adams’s third
brigade of light infantry, Du Plat’s ﬁrst brigade of the king’s

German Legion, and third Hanoverian brigade under Colonel

H alkett.

The duke formed his second line of cavalry. This only
extended behind the right and center of his ﬁrst line. The
largest mass was drawn up behind the brigades of infantry in
the center, on either side of the Charleroi road. The brigade
of household cavalry under Lord Somerset was on the imme-
diate right of the road, and on the left of it was Ponsonby’s
brigade. Behind these were Trip’s and Ghingy’s brigades of
Dutch and Belgian horse. The third Hussars of the king’s
German Legion were to the right of Somerset’s brigade. To
the right of these, and behind Maitland’s infantry, stood the
third brigade under Dornberg, consisting of the twenty-third
English light dragoons and the regiments of light dragoons
of the king’s German Legion. The last cavalry on the right
was Grant’s brigade, stationed in the rear of the Foot Guards.
The corps of Brunswickers, both horse and foot, and the tenth
British brigade of foot were in reserve behind the center and
right of the entire position. The artillery was distributed at
convenient intervals along the front of the whole line. Be-
sides the generals who have been mentioned, Lord Hill, Lord
Uxbridge (who had the general command of the cavalry),
the Prince of Orange, and General Chassé were present and
acting under the duke.4

On the opposite heights the French army was drawn up
in two general lines, with the entire force of the Imperial
Guards, cavalry as well as infantry, in rear of the center, as
a reserve.

The ﬁrst line of the French army was formed of the two

'5

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'1815] BATTLE OF WATERLOO 389

corps commanded by Count d’Erlon and Count Reille.
D’Erlon’s corps was on the right, that is, eastward of the
Charleroi road, and consisted of four divisions of infantry
under Generals Durette, Marcognet, Alix, and Donzelot, and of
one division of light cavalry under General Jaquinot. Count
Reille’s corps formed the left or western Wing, and was formed
of Bachelu’s, Foy’s, and Jerome Bonaparte’s divisions of in-
fantry and of Piré’s division of cavalry. The right wing of
the second general French line was formed of Milhaud’s corps,
consisting of two divisions of heavy cavalry. The left wing
of this line was formed by Kellermann’s cavalry corps, also
'in two divisions. Thus each of the corps of infantry that
composed the ﬁrst line had a corps of cavalry behind it; but
the second line consisted also of Lobau’s corps of infantry
and Domont and Subervie’s divisions of light cavalry; these
three bodies of troops being drawn up on either side of La
Belle Alliance and forming the center of the second line.
The third, or reserve, line had its center composed of the
infantry of the Imperial Guard. Two regiments of grena-
diers and two of chasseurs formed the foot of the Old Guard
under General Friant. The Middle Guard, under Count
Morand, was similarly composed; while two regiments of
voltigeurs and two of tirailleurs, under Duhesme, constituted
the Young Guard. The chasseurs and lancers of the Guard
were on the right of the infantry, under Lefebvre Desnouettes ;
and the grenadiers and dragoons of the Guards, under Guyot,
were on the left. All the French corps comprised, besides
their cavalry and infantry regiments, strong batteries of horse-
artillery; and Napoleon’s numerical superiority in guns was
of deep importance throughout the action.

Besides the leading generals who have been mentioned as
commanding particular corps, Ney and Soult were present
and acted as the emperor’s lieutenants in the battle.

English military critics have highly eulogized the admirable
arrangement which Napoleon made of his forces of each arm
so as to give him the most ample means of sustaining, by an
immediate and sufﬁcient support, any attack, from whatever
point he might direct it, and of drawing promptly together a
strong force to resist any attack that might be made on him-
self in any part of the ﬁeld. When his troops were all arrayed,

390 DECISIVE BATTLES [1815

he rode along the lines, receiving everywhere the most enthu-
siastic cheers from his men, of whose entire devotion to him
his assurance was now doubly sure. On the northern side of
the valley the duke’s army was also drawn up, and ready to
meet the menaced attack.

Wellington had caused, on the preceding night, every bri-
gade and corps to take up its station on or near the part of
the ground which it was intended to hold in the coming battle.
He had slept a few hours at his headquarters in the village
of Waterloo; and rising on the 18th, while it was yet deep
night, he wrote several letters, to the Governor of Antwerp,
to the English Minister at Brussels, and other ofﬁcial person-
ages, in which he expressed his conﬁdence that all would go
well; but, “ as it was necessary to provide against serious
losses should any accident occur,” he gave a series of judi-
cious orders for what should be done in the rear of the army
in the event of the battle going against the Allies. He also,
before he left the village of Waterloo, saw to the distribution
of the reserves of ammunition which had been parked there, ‘
so that supplies should be readily forwarded to every part of
the line of battle where they might be required. The duke,
also, personally inspected the arrangements that had been
made for receiving the wounded and providing temporary
hospitals in the houses in the rear of the army. Then, mount-
ing a favorite charger, a small thoroughbred chestnut horse,
named “ Copenhagen,” Wellington rode forward to the range
of hills where his men were posted. Accompanied by his
staff and by the Prussian General Muffling, he rode along his
lines, carefully inspecting all the details of his position. Hou-
goumont was the object of his special attention. He rode
down to the southeastern extremity of its enclosures, and,
after having examined the nearest French troops, he made
some changes in the disposition of his own men who were to
defend that important post.

Having given his ﬁnal orders about Hougoumont, the duke:
galloped back to, the high ground in the right center of his
position, and, halting there, sat watching the enemy on the
opposite heights and conversing with his staff with that cheer-

{)ul serenity which was ever his characteristic in the hour of
attle.

 

 

 

1815] BATTLE OF WATERLOO 391

Not all brave men are thus gifted; and many a glance of
anxious excitement must have been cast across the valley that
separated the two hosts during the protracted pause which
ensued between the completion of Napoleon’s preparations
for attack and the actual commencement of the contest. It
was, indeed, an awful calm before the coming storm, when
armed myriads stood gazing on their armed foes, scanning
their number, their array, their probable powers of resistance
and destruction, and listening with throbbing hearts for the
momentarily expected note of death; while visions of victory
and glory came thronging on each soldier’s high-strung brain,
not unmingled with recollections of the home which his fall
might soon leave desolate, nor without shrinking nature some-
times prompting the cold thought that in a few moments he
might be writhing in agony, or lie a trampled and mangled
mass of clay, on the grass now waving so freshly and purely
before him.

Such thoughts will arise in human breasts, though the brave
man soon silences “the child within us that trembles before
death,” and nerves himself for the coming struggle by the
mental preparation which Xenophon has ﬁnely called “the
soldier’s arraying his own soul for battle.” Well, too, may
we hope and believe that many a spirit sought aid from a
higher and holier source, and that many a fervent, though
silent, prayer arose on that Sabbath morn (the battle of Water-
loo was fought on a Sunday) to the Lord of Sabaoth, the God
of Battles, from the ranks whence so many thousands were
about to appear that day before his judgment—seat.

Not only to those who were thus present as spectators and
actors in the dread drama, but to all Europe, the decisive con-
test then impending between the rival French and English
nations, each under its chosen chief, was the object of excit-
ing interest and deepest solicitude. “ Never, indeed, had two
such generals as the Duke of Wellington and the Emperor
Napoleon encountered since the day when Scipio and Hanni-

bal met at Zama.”
The two great champions who now confronted each other

were equals in years, and each had entered the military pro-
fession at the same early age. The more conspicuous stage
on which the French general’s youthful genius was displayed,

392 DECISIVE BATTLES [1815

his heritage of the whole military power of the French repub-
lic, the position on which for years he was elevated as sover-
eign head of an empire surpassing that of Charlemagne, and
the dazzling results of his victories, which made and unmade
kings, had given him a formidable preeminence in the eyes
of mankind. Military men spoke with justly rapturous ad-
miration of the brilliancy of his ﬁrst Italian campaigns, when
he broke through the pedantry of traditional tactics and with
a small but promptly wielded force shattered army after army
of the Austrians, conquered provinces and capitals, dictated
treaties, and annihilated or created states. The iniquity of
his Egyptian expedition was too often forgotten in contem-
plating the skill and boldness with which he destroyed the
Mameluke cavalry at the Pyramids, and the Turkish infantry
at Aboukir. None could forget the marvelous passage of the
Alps in 1800, or the victory of Marengo, which wrested Italy
back from Austria and destroyed the fruit of twenty victories
which the enemies of France had gained over her in the
absence of her favorite chief. Even higher seemed the glories
of his German campaigns, the triumphs of Ulm, of Austerlitz,
of Jena, of VVagram. Napoleon’s disasters in Russia, in 1812,
were imputed by his admirers to the elements; his reverses
in Germany, in 1813, were attributed by them to treachery;
and even those two calamitous years had been signalized by
his victories at Borodino, at Lutzen, at Bautzen, at Dresden,
and at Hanau. His last campaign, in the early months of
1814, was rightly cited as the most Splendid exhibition of his
military genius, when, with a far inferior army, he long checked
and frequently defeated the vast hosts that were poured upon
France. His followers fondly hoped that the campaign of
1815 would open with another “week of miracles,” like that
which had seen his victories at Montmirail and Montereau.
The laurel of Ligny was even now fresh upon his brows.
Bliicher had not stood before him ; and who was the adversary
that now should bar the emperor’s way?

That adversary had already overthrown the emperor’s best
generals and the emperor’s best armies, and, like Napoleon
himself, had achieved a reputation in more than European
wars. Wellington was illustrious as the destroyer of the
Mahratta power, as the liberator of Portugal and Spain, and

 

22‘ 33: T1???"

 

1815] BATTLE OF WATERLOO , 393

the successful invader of Southern France. In early youth
he had held high command in India, and had displayed emi-
nent skill in planning and combining movements, and unri-
valed celerity and boldness in execution. On his return to
Europe, several years passed away before any ﬁtting oppor-
tunity was accorded for the exercise of his genius. In this
important respect, Wellington, as a subject, and Napoleon,
as a sovereign, were far differently situated. At length his
appointment to the command in the Spanish Peninsula gave
him the means of showing Europe that England had a gen-
eral who could revive the glories of Crecy, of Poitiers, of
Agincourt, of Blenheim, and of Ramilies. At the head of
forces always numerically far inferior to the armies with which
Napoleon deluged the Peninsula; thwarted by jealous and
incompetent allies; ill supported by friends and assailed by
factious enemies at home, Wellington maintained the war for
seven years, unstained by any serious reverse, and marked
by victory in thirteen pitched battles, at Vimiera, the Douro,
Talavera, Busaco, Fuentes de Onoro, Salamanca, Vittoria,
the Pyrenees, the Bidassoa, the Nive, the Nivelle, Orthes,
and Toulouse. Junot, Victor, Massena, Ney, Marmont, and
Jourdain—marshals whose names were the terror of Con-
tinental Europe—had been bafﬂed by his skill and smitten
down by his energy, while he liberated the kingdoms of the
Peninsula from them and their imperial master. In vain did
Napoleon at last despatch Soult, the ablest of his lieutenants,
to turn the tide of Wellington’s success and defend France
against the English invader. Wellington met Soult’s maneu-
vers with superior skill, and his boldness with superior vigor.
When Napoleon’s ﬁrst abdication, in 1814, suspended hostili-
ties, Wellington was master of the fairest districts of Southern
France, and had under him a veteran army with which (to
use his own expressive phrase) “ he felt he could have gone
anywhere and done anything.” The fortune of war had
hitherto kept separate the orbits in which Napoleon and he
had moved. Now, on the ever-memorable 18th of June, 1815,
they met at last.

It is, indeed, remarkable that Napoleon, during his numer-
ous campaigns in Spain as well as other countries, not only
never encountered the Duke of Wellington before the day of

394 DECISIVE BATTLES [1815

Waterloo, but that he was never until then personally engaged
with British troops, except at the siege of Toulon, in I 793,
which was the very ﬁrst incident of his military career.
Many, however, of the French generals who were with him
in 1815 knew well, by sharp experience, what English sol-
diers were and what the leader was who now headed them.
Ney, Foy, and other ofﬁcers who had served in the Peninsula
warned Napoleon that he would ﬁnd the English infantry
“very devils in ﬁght.” The emperor, however, persisted in
employing the old system of attack, with which the French
generals often succeeded against Continental troops but
which had always failed against the English in the Peninsula.
He adhered to his usual tactics of employing the order of
the column, a mode of attack probably favored by him (as
Sir Walter Scott remarks) on account of his faith in the
extreme valor of the French ofﬁcers by whom the column
was headed. It is a threatening formation, well calculated to
shake the ﬁrmness of ordinary foes, but which, when steadily
met, as the English have met it, by heavy volleys of musketry
from an extended line, followed up by a resolute bayonet
charge, has always resulted in disaster to the assailants.6

It was approaching noon before the action commenced.
Napoleon, in his “Memoirs,” gives as the reason for this
delay the miry state of the ground through the heavy rain
of the preceding night and day, which rendered it impossible
for cavalry or artillery to maneuver on it till a few hours of
dry weather had given it its natural consistency. It has been
supposed, also, that he trusted to the effect which the sight
of the imposing array of his own forces was likely to produce
on the part of the allied army. The Belgian regiments had
been tampered with, and Napoleon had well-founded hopes
of seeing them quit the Duke of Wellington in a body and
range themselves under his own eagles. The duke, however,
who knew and did not trust them, had guarded against the
risk of this by breaking up the corps of Belgians and dis-
tributing them in separate regiments among troops on whom
he could rely.

At last, at about half-past eleven o’clock, Napoleon began
the battle by directing a powerful force from his left wing
under his brother, Prince Jerome, to attack Hougoumont.

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1815] BATTLE OF WATERLOO 395

Column after column of the French now descended from the
west, of the southern heights and assailed that post with ﬁery
valor, which was encountered with the most determined brav-
ery. The French won the copse round the house, but a party
of the British Guards held the house itself throughout the
day. The whole of Byng’s brigade was required to man this
hotly contested post. Amid shell and shot, and the blazing
fragments of part of the buildings, this obstinate contest was
continued. But still the English were ﬁrm in Hougoumont,
though the French occasionally moved forward in such num-
bers as enabled them to surround and mask it with part of
their troops from their left wing, while others pressed onward
up the slope and assailed the British right.

The cannonade, which commenced at ﬁrst between the
British right and the French left, in consequence of the attack
on Hougoumont, soon became general along both lines; and,
about one o’clock, Napoleon directed a grand attack to be
made under Marshal Ney upon the center and left wing of
the allied army. For this purpose four columns of infantry,
amounting to about eighteen thousand men, were collected,
supported by a strong division of cavalry under the celebrated
Kellermann; and seventy-four guns were brought forward
ready to be posted on the ridge of a little undulation of the
ground in the interval between the two principal chains of
heights, so as to bring their ﬁre to bear on the duke’s line
at a range of about seven hundred yards. By the combined
assault of these formidable forces, led on by Ney, “the brav-
est of the brave,” Napoleon hoped to force the left center of
the British position, to take La Haye Sainte, and then, press-
ing forward, to occupy also the farm of Mont St. Jean. He
then could cut the mass of Wellington’s troops off from their
line of retreat upon Brussels and from their own left, and
also completely sever them from any Prussian troops that
might be approaching.

The columns destined for this great and decisive operation
descended majestically from the French line of hills and
gained the ridge of the intervening eminence, on which the
batteries that supported them were now ranged. As the
columns descended again from this eminence, the seventy-
four guns opened over their heads with terrible effect upon

396 DECISIVE BATTLES ' [1815

the troops of the Allies that were stationed on the heights
to the left of the Charleroi road. One of the French col-
umns kept to the east and attacked the extreme left of the
Allies; the other three continued to move rapidly forwards
upon the left center of the allied position. The front line of
the Allies here was composed of Bylandt’s brigade of Dutch
and Belgians. As the French columns moved up the south-
ward slope of the height on which the Dutch and Belgians
stood, and the skirmishers in advance began to open their ﬁre,
Bylandt’s entire brigade turned and ﬂed in disgraceful‘and
disorderly panic; but there were men more worthy of the
name behind.

In this part of the second line of the allies were posted Pack
and Kempt’s brigades of English infantry, which had suffered
severely at Quatre Bras. But Picton was here as general of
division, and not even Ney himself surpassed in resolute brav-
ery that stern and ﬁery spirit. Picton brought his two bri-
gades forward, side by side, in a thin, two-deep line. Thus
joined together, they were not three thousand strong. With
these Picton had to make head against the three victorious
French columns, upwards of four times that strength, and
who, encouraged by the easy rout of the Dutch and~Belgians,
now came conﬁdently over the ridge of the hill. The British
infantry stood ﬁrm; and as the French halted and began to
deploy into line, Picton seized the critical moment. He
shouted in his stentorian voice to Kempt’s brigade: “A vol-
ley, and then charge!” At a distance of less than thirty
yards that volley was poured upon the devoted ﬁrst sections
of the nearest column; and then, with a ﬁerce hurrah, the
British dashed in with the bayonet. Picton was shot dead as
be rushed forward, but his men pushed on with the cold
steel. The French reeled back in confusion. Pack’s infan~
try had checked the other two columns, and down came a
whirlwind of British horse on the whole mass, sending them
staggering from the crest of the hill and cutting them down
by whole battalions. Ponsonby’s brigade of heavy cavalry
(the Union Brigade, as it was called, from its being made up
of the British Royals, the Scots Greys, and the Irish Innis-
killings) did this good service. On went the horsemen amid
the wrecks of the French columns, capturing two eaglesand

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1815] BATTLE OF WATERLOO 397

two thousand prisoners; onward still they galloped, and
sabered the artillerymen of Ney’s seventy-four advanced guns;
then severing the traces and cutting the throats of the artil-
lery horses, they rendered these guns totally useless to the
French throughout the remainder of the day. While thus
far advanced beyond the British position and disordered by
success, they were charged by a large body of French lancers
and driven back with severe loss, till Vandeleur’s light-horse
came to their aid and beat off the French lancers in their
turn.

Equally unsuccessful with the advance of the French
infantry in this grand attack had been the efforts of the
French cavalry who moved forward in support of it, along the
east of the Charleroi road. Somerset’s cavalry of the Eng-
lish Household Brigade had been launched, on the right of
Picton’s division, against the French horse, at the same time
that the English Union Brigade of heavy-horse charged the
French infantry columns on the left.

Somerset’s brigade was formed of the Life Guards, the
Blues, and the Dragoon Guards. The hostile cavalry, which
Kellermann led forward, consisted chieﬂy of cuirassiers. This
steel-clad mass of French horsemen rode down some com-
panies of German infantry, near La Haye Sainte, and, ﬂushed
with success, they bounded onward to the ridge of the British
position. The English Household Brigade, led on by the
Earl of Uxbridge in person, spurred forward to the en-
counter, and in an instant the two adverse lines of strong
swordsmen, on their strong steeds, dashed furiously together.
A desperate and sanguinary hand-to-hand ﬁght ensued, in
which the physical superiority of the Anglo-Saxons, guided
by equal skill and animated with equal valor, was made deci-
sively manifest. Back went the chosen cavalry of France;
and after them, in hot pursuit, spurred the English Guards.
They went forward as far and as ﬁercely as their comrades
of the Union Brigade; and, like them, the Household cav-
alry suffered severely before they regained the British posi-
tion, after their magniﬁcent charge and adventurous pursuit.

Napoleon’s grand effort to break the English left center
had thus completely failed; and his right wing was seriously
weakened by the heavy loss which it had sustained. Hougou-

398 DECISIVE BATTLES [1815

mont was still being assailed, and was still successfully resist-
ing. Troops were now beginning to appear at the edge of
the horizon on Napoleon’s right, which he too well knew to
be Prussian, though he endeavored to persuade his followers
that they were Grouchy’s men coming to theirlaid.

Grouchy was, in fact, now engaged at Wavre with his
whole force against Thielman’s single Prussian corps, while
the other three corps of the Pussian army were moving with-
out opposition, save from the difﬁculties of the ground, upon
Waterloo. Grouchy believed, on the 17th, and caused Napo-
leon to believe, that the Prussian army was retreating by
lines of march remote from Waterloo upon Namur and
Maestricht. Napoleon learned only on the 18th that there
were Prussians in Wavre, and felt jealous about the security
of his own right. He accordingly, before he attacked the
English, sent Grouchy orders to engage the Prussians at
Wavre without delay, and to approach the main Franck army,
so as to zmz'z‘e lzz's communication wit/z c/zc emperor’s. Grouchy
entirely neglected this last part of his instructions; and in
attacking the Prussians whom he found at Wavre, he spread
his force more and more towards his right, that is to say, in
the direction most remote from Napoleon. He thus knew
nothing of Bliicher’s and Bulow’s ﬂank march upon Waterloo
till six in the evening of the 18th, when he received a note
which Soult, by Napoleon’s orders, had sent off from the
ﬁeld of battle at Waterloo at one o’clock, to inform Grouchy
that Bulow was coming over the heights of St. Lambert, on
the emperor’s right ﬂank, and directing Grouchy to approach
and join the main army instantly, and crush Bulow ca ﬂagrant
déZz'z‘. It was then too late for Grouchy to obey; but it is
remarkable that as early as noon on the 18th, and while
Grouchy had not proceeded as far as Wavre, he and his suite
heardthe sound of heavy cannonading in the direction of
Planchenoit and Mont St. Jean. General Gérard, who was
with Grouchy, implored him to march towards the cannon-
ade and join his operations with those of Napoleon, who
was evidently engaged with the English. Grouchy refused
to do so or even to detach part of his force in that direction.
He said that his instructions were to ﬁght the Prussians at
Wavre. He marched upon Wavre, and fought for the rest

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1815] BATTLE OF WATERLOO 399

of the day with Thielman accordingly, while Bliicher and
Bulow were attacking the emperor.6

Napoleon had witnessed with bitter disappointment the rout
of his troops— foot, horse, and artillery—which attacked the
left center of the English, and the obstinate resistance which
the garrison of Hougoumont opposed to all the exertions of
his left wing. He now caused the batteries along the line
of high ground held by him to be strengthened, and for some
time an unremitting and most destructive cannonade raged
across the valley, to the partial cessation of other conflict.
But the superior ﬁre of the French artillery, though it weak-
ened, could not break the British line, and more close and
summary measures were requisite.

It was now about half—past three o’clock; and though Well-
ington’s army had suffered severely by the unremitting can-
nonade, and in the late desperate encounter, no part of the
British position had been forced. Napoleon determined there-
fore to try what effect he could produce on the British center
and right by charges of his splendid cavalry, brought on in
such force that the duke’s cavalry could not Check them.
Fresh troops were at the same time sent to assail La Haye
Sainte and Hougoumont, the possession of these posts being
the emperor’s unceasing object. Squadron after squadron of
the French cuirassiers accordingly ascended the slopes on the
duke’s right and rode forward with dauntless courage against
the batteries of the British artillery in that part of the ﬁeld.
The artillerymen were driven from their guns, and the cuiras-
siers cheered loudly at their supposed triumph. But the
duke had formed his infantry in squares, and the cuirassiers
charged in vain against the impenetrable hedges of bayonets,
while the ﬁre from the inner ranks of the squares told with
terrible effect on their squadrons. Time after time they
rode forward, with invariably the same result; and as they
receded from each attack the British artillerymen rushed
forward from the centers of the squares, where they had
taken refuge, and plied their guns on the retiring horsemen.7
Nearly the whole of Napoleon’s magniﬁcent body of heavy
cavalry was destroyed in these fruitless attempts upon the
British right. But in another part of the ﬁeld fortune favored
him for a time. Two French columns of infantry from Donze-

400 DECISIVE BATTLES [1815'

lot’s division took La Haye Sainte between six and seven
o’clock, and the means were now given for organizing an-
other formidable attack on the center of the Allies.

There was no time to be lost—Bliicher and Bulow were
beginning to press hard upon the French right. As early as
ﬁve o’clock, Napoleon had been obliged to detach Lobau’s
infantry and Domont’s horse to check these new enemies.
They succeeded in doing so for a time; but as larger num-
bers of the Prussians came on the ﬁeld, they turned Lobau’s
right ﬂank and sent a strong force to seize the village of
Planchenoit, which, it will be remembered, lay in the rear of
the French right.

The design of the Allies was not merely to prevent Napo-
leon from advancing upon Brussels, but to cut off his line of
retreat and utterly destroy his army. The defense of Planche-
noit therefore became absolutely essential for the safety. of
the French, and Napoleon was obliged to send his Young
Guard to occupy that village, which was accordingly held by
them with great gallantry against the reiterated assaults of
the Prussian left, under Bulow. Three times did the Prus-
sians ﬁght their way into Planchenoit, and as often did the
French drive them out; the contest was maintained with the
ﬁercest desperation on both sides, such being the animosity
between the two nations that quarter was seldom given or
even asked. Other Prussian forces were now appearing on
the ﬁeld nearer to the English left, whom also Napoleon
kept in check by troops detached for that purpose. Thus
a large part of the French army was now thrown back on
a line at right angles with the line of that portion which still
confronted and assailed the English position. But this por-
tion was now numerically inferior to the force under the Duke
of Wellington, which Napoleon had been assailing through-
out the day, without gaining any other advantage than the
capture of La Haye Sainte. It is true that, owing to the
gross miscbnduct of the greater part of the Dutch and
Belgian troops, the duke was obliged to rely exclusively on
his English and German soldiers, and the ranks of these had
been fearfully thinned; but the survivors stood their ground
heroically, and opposed a resolute front to every forward
movement of their enemies.

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1815] BATTLE OF WATERLOO’ ' 401"

On no point of the British line was the pressure more
severe than on Halkett’s brigade in the right center, which
was composed "of battalions of the 30th, the 33d, the 69th,
and the 73d British regiments. We fortunately can quote
from the journal of a brave ofﬁcer of the 30th a narrative
of what took place in this part of the ﬁeld. The late Major
Macready served at Waterloo in the light company of the
30th. The extent of the peril and the carnage which Hal-
kett’s brigade had to encounter may be judged of by the
fact that this light company marched into the ﬁeld three
ofﬁcers and ﬁfty-one men, and that at the end of the battle
they stood one ofﬁcer and ten men. Major Macready’s blunt
soldierly account of what he actually saw and felt gives a far
better idea of the terriﬁc scene than can be gained from the
polished generalizations which the conventional style of his-
tory requires, or even from the glowing stanzas of the poet.
During the earlier part of the day Macready and his light
company were thrown forward as skirmishers in front of the
brigade; but when the French cavalry commenced their
attacks on the British right center, he and his comrades were
ordered back. The brave soldier thus himself describes
what passed:—

“Before the commencement of this attack our company
and the grenadiers of the 73d were skirmishing briskly in
the low ground, covering our guns and annoying those of
the enemy. The line of tirailleurs opposed to us was not
stronger than our own, but on a sudden they were reenforced
by numerous bodies, and several guns began playing on us
with canister. Our poor fellows dropped very fast, and
Colonel Vigoureux, Rumley, and Pratt were carried off badly,
wounded in about two minutes. I was now commander of
our company. We stood under this hurricane of small shot
till Halkett sent to order us in, and I brought away about
a third of the light bobs; the rest were killed or wounded,
and I really wonder how one of them escaped. As our
bugler was killed, I shouted and made signals to move by
the left, in order to avoid the ﬁre of our guns and to put
as good a face upon the business as possible.

“When I reached Lloyd’s abandoned guns,I stood near
them for about a minute to contemplate the scene: it was

26

‘402 DECISIVE BATTLES [1815

grand beyond description. Hougoumont and its wood sent
up a broad ﬂame through the dark masses of smoke that
overhung the ﬁeld; beneath this cloud the French were
indistinctly visible. Here a waving mass of long red feathers
could be seen; there, gleams as from a sheetof steel showed
that the cuirassiers were moving; 400 cannon were belching
forth ﬁre and death on every side; the roaring and shouting
were indistinguishably commixed—together they gave me
an idea of a laboring volcano. Bodies of infantry and cav-
alry were pouring down on us, and it was time to leave con—
templation; so I moved towards our columns, which were
standing up in square. Our regiment and 73d formed one,
and 33d and 69th another; to our right beyond them were
the Guards, and on our left the Hanoverians and German
Legion of our division. As I entered the rear face of our
square I had to step over a body, and, looking down, recog-
nized Harry Beere, an ofﬁcer of our grenadiers, who about
an hour before shook hands with me, laughing, as I left the
columns. I was on the usual terms of military intimacy with
poor Harry —that is to say, if either of us had died a natural
death, the other would have pitied him as a good fellow, and
smiled at his neighbor as he congratulated him on the step;
but seeing his herculean frame and animated countenanCe
thus suddenly stiff and motionless before me (I know not
whence the feeling could originate, for I had just seen my
dearest friend drop, almost with indifference), the tears
started in my eyes as I sighed out, ‘Poor Harry!’ The
tear was not dry on my cheek when poor Harry was no
longer thought of. In' a few minutes after, the enemy’s
cavalry galloped up and crowned the crest of our position.
Our guns were abandoned, and they formed between the
two brigades, about a hundred paces in our front. Their
ﬁrst charge was magniﬁcent. As soon as they quickened
their trot into a gallop, the cuirassiers bent their heads so
that the peaks of their helmets looked like vizors, and they
seemed cased in armor from the plume to the saddle. Not
a shot was ﬁred till they were within thirty yards, when the
word was given and our men ﬁred away at them. The
effect was magical. Through the smoke we could see hel-
mets falling, cavaliers starting from their seats with convul-

 

1815] BATTLE or WATERLOO 403

sive springs as they received our balls, horses plunging and
rearing in the agonies of fright and pain, and crowds of the
soldiery dismounted, part of the squadron in retreat, but the
more daring remainder backing their horses to force them
on our bayonets. Our ﬁre soon disposed of these gentle-
men. The main body re-formed in our front, and rapidly
and gallantly repeated their attacks. In fact, from this time
(about four o’clock) till near six, we had a constant repeti-
tion of these brave but unavailing charges. There was no
difﬁculty in repulsing them, but our ammunition decreased
alarmingly. At length an artillery wagon galloped up,
emptied two or three casks of cartridges into the square,
and we were all comfortable.

“The best cavalry is contemptible to a steady and well-
supplied infantry regiment; even our men saw this, and be-
gan to pity the useless perseverance of their assailants, and,
as they advanced, would growl out, ‘Here come these fools
again! ’ One of their superior ofﬁcers tried a ruse de gnaw/e,
by advancing and dropping his sword, as though he sur-
rendered; some of us were deceived by him, but Halkett
ordered the men to ﬁre, and he coolly retired, saluting us.
Their devotion was invincible. One ofﬁcer whom we had
taken prisoner was asked what force Napoleon might have
in the ﬁeld, and replied with a smile of mingled derision and
threatening, ‘Vous verrez bientot sa force, messieurs !’ A
private cuirassier was wounded and dragged into the square ;
his only cry was, ‘Tuez donc, tuez, tuez moi, soldats!’ and
as one of our men dropped dead close to him, he seized his
bayonet and forced it into his own neck; but this not
despatching him, he raised up his cuirass and, plunging the
bayonet into his stomach, kept working it about till he ceased
to breathe.

“ Though we constantly thrashed our steel~clad opponents,
we found more troublesome customers in the round shot and
grape, which all this time played on us with terrible effect
and fully avenged the cuirassiers. Often as the volleys created
openings in our square would the cavalry dash on, but they
were uniformly unsuccessful. A regiment on our right
seemed sadly disconcerted, and at one moment was in con-
siderable confusion. Halkett rode out to them, and, seizing

404 DECISIVE BATTLES [1815

their color, waved it over his head and restored them to
something like order, though not before his horse was shot
under him. At the height of their u’nsteadiness we got the
order to ‘ right face ’ to move to their assistance; some of the
men mistook it for ‘ right about face,’ and faced accordingly,
when old Major M‘Laine, 73d, called out, ‘ No,’ my boys, it’s
“right face " ; you’ll never hear the right about as long as a
French bayonet is in front of you!’ In a few moments he
was mortally wounded. A regiment of light dragoons, by
their facings either the 16th or 23d, came up to our left and
charged the cuirassiers. We cheered each other as they
passed us; they did all they could, but were obliged to retire
after a few minutes at the saber. A body of Belgian cavalry
advanced for the same purpose, but on passing our square
they stopped short. Our noble Halkett rode out to them and
offered to charge at their head; it was of no use; the Prince
of Orange came up and exhorted them to do their duty,“ but
in vain. They hesitated till a few shots whizzed through
them, when they turned about and galloped like fury, or,
rather, like fear. As they passed the right face of our square
the men, irritated by their rascally conduct, unanimously took
up their pieces and ﬁred a volley into them, and‘ many a good
fellow was destroyed so cowardly.’

“ The enemy’s cavalry were by this time nearly disposed
of, and as they had discovered the inutility of their charges,
they commenced annoying us by a spirited and well-directed
carbine ﬁre. While we were employed in this manner it was
impossible to see farther than the columns on our right and
left, but I imagine most of the army were similarly situated :
all the British and Germans were doing their duty. About
six o’clock I perceived some artillery trotting up our hill,
which I knew by their caps to belong to the Imperial Guard.
I had hardly mentioned this to a brother ofﬁcer when two
guns unlimbered within seventy paces of us, and, by their
ﬁrst discharge of grape, blew seven men into the center of
the square. They immediately reloaded, and kept up a con-
stant and destructive ﬁre. It was noble to see our fellows ﬁll
up the gaps after every discharge. I was much distressed at
this moment; having ordered up three of my light bobs,
they had hardly taken their station when two of them fell,

 

1815] BATTLE OF WATERLOO ‘40 5

horribly lacerated. One of them looked up in my face and
uttered a sort of ,reproachful groan, and I involuntarily ex—
claimed, ‘I couldn’t help it.’ We would willingly have charged
these guns, but, had we deployed, the cavalry that ﬂanked
them would have made an example of us.

“ The ‘ vivida vis animi’ — the glow which ﬁres one upon
entering into action—had ceased; it was now to be seen
which side had most bottom, and would stand killing longest.
The duke visited us frequently at this momentous period;
he was coolness personiﬁed. As he crossed the rear face of
our square a shell fell amongst our grenadiers, and he checked
his horse to see its effect. Some men were blown to pieces
by the explosion, and he merely stirred the rein of his charger,
apparently as little concerned at their fate as at his own dan-
ger. No leader ever possessed so fully the conﬁdence of his
soldiery: wherever he appeared, a murmur of ‘ Silence! tand
to your front! Here’s the duke!’ was heard through the
column, and then all was steady as on a parade. His aides-de-
camp, Colonels Canning and Gordon, fell near our square, and
the former died within it. As he came near us late in the
evening, Halkett rode out to him and represented our weak
state, begging his Grace to afford us a little support. ‘ It’s
impossible, Halkett,’ said he. And our general replied, ‘If
so, sir, you may depend on the brigade to a man ! ’ ”

All accounts of the battle show that the duke was ever
present at each spot where danger seemed the most pressing,
inspiriting his men by a few homely and good-humored words
and restraining their impatience to be led forward to attack
in their turn. “ Hard pounding this, gentlemen: we will try
who can pound the longest,” was his remark to a battalion
on which the storm from the French guns was pouring with
peculiar fury. Riding up to one of the squares, which had
been dreadfully weakened and against which a fresh attack
of French cavalry was coming, he called to them: “Stand
ﬁrm, my lads; what will they say of this in England?” As
he rode along another part of the line, where the men had for
some time been falling fast beneath the enemy’s cannonade
without having any close ﬁghting, a murmur reached his ear
of natural eagerness to advance and do something more than
stand still to be shot at. The duke called to them : “Wait a

406 DECISIVE BATTLES [1315

little longer, my lads, and you shall have your wish.” The
men were instantly satisﬁed and steady. It was, indeed, in-
dispensable for the duke to bide his time. The premature
movement of a single corps down from the British line of
heights would have endangered the Whole position, and have
probably made Waterloo a second Hastings.

But the duke inspired all under him with his own spirit of
patient ﬁrmness. When other generals besides Halkett sent
to him begging for reenforcements, or for leave to withdraw
corps which were reduced to skeletons, the answer was the
same: “ It is impossible; you must hold your ground to the
last man, and all will be well.” He gave a similar reply to
some of his staff who asked instructions from him, so that,
in the event of his falling, his successor might follow out his
plan. He answered, “ My plan is simply to stand my ground
here to the last man.” His personal danger was indeed
imminent throughout the day; and though he escaped with-
out injury to himself or horse, one only of his numerous staff
was equally fortunate.8

Napoleon had stationed himself during the battle on a little
hillock near La Belle Alliance, in the center of the French
position. Here he was seated, with a large table from the
neighboring farmhouse-before him, on which maps and plans
were spread; and thence with his telescope he surveyed the
various points of the ﬁeld. Soult watched his orders close at
his left hand, and his staff was grouped on horseback a few
paces in the rear.9 Here he remained till near the close of
the day, preserving the appearance at least of calmness,
except some expressions of irritation which escaped him
when Ney’s attack on the British left center was defeated.
But now that the crisis of the battle was evidently approach-
ing, he mounted a white Persian charger, which he rode in
action because the troops easily recognized him by the horse’s
color. He had still the means of effecting a retreat. His
Old Guard had yet taken no part in the action. Under cover
of it, he might have withdrawn his shattered forces and re.
tired upon the French frontier. But this would only have
given the English and Prussians the opportunity of complet‘
ing their junction; and he knew that other armies were fast
coming up to aid them in a march upon Paris, if he should

 

1815] BATTLE or WATERLOO 407

succeed in avoiding an encounter with them and retreating
upon the capital. A Victory at Waterloo was his only alter-
native from uttEr ruin, and he determined to employ his
Guard in one bold stroke more to make that victory his own.

Between seven and eight o’clock the infantry of the Old
Guard was formed into two columns, on the declivity near
La Belle Alliance. Ney was placed at their head. Napo-
leon himself rode forward to a spot by which his veterans
were to pass; and, as they approached, he raised his arm
and pointed to the position of the Allies, as if to tell them
that their path lay there. They answered with loud cries of
“Vive l’Empereur! ” and descended the hill from their own
side, into that “valley of the shadow of death,” while the
batteries thundered with redoubled vigor over their heads
upon the British line. The line of march of the columns of
the Guard was directed between Hougoumont and La Haye
Sainte, against the British right center; and at the same
time the French under Donzelot, who had possession of La
Haye Sainte, commenced a ﬁerce attack upon the British
center, a little more to its left. This part of the battle has
drawn less attention than the celebrated attack of the Old
Guard; but it formed the most perilous crisis for the allied
army; and if the Young Guard had been there to support
Donzelot, instead of being engaged with the Prussians at
Planchenoit, the consequences to the Allies in that part of the
ﬁeld must have been most serious. The French tirailleurs,
who were posted in clouds in La Haye Sainte and the shel-
tered spots near it, picked off the artillerymen of the English
batteries near them; and, taking advantage of the disabled
state of the English guns, the French brought some ﬁeld-
pieces up to La Haye Sainte and commenced ﬁring grape
from them on the infantry of the Allies, at a distance of not
more than a hundred paces. The allied infantry here con-
sisted of some German brigades, who were formed in squares,
as it was believed that Donzelot had cavalry ready behind La
Haye Sainte to charge them with if they left that order of
formation. In this state the Germans remained for some
time with heroic fortitude, though the grape-shot was tearing
gaps in their ranks and the side of one square was literally
blown away by one- tremendous volley which the French

408 DECISIVE BATTLES [1811.5

gunners poured into it. The Prince of Orange in vain
endeavored to lead some Nassau troops to the aid of the
brave Germans. The Nassauers would not or could not face
the French; and some battalions of Brunswickers, whom the
Duke of Wellington had ordered up as a reenforcement, at
ﬁrst fell back, until the duke in person rallied them and led
them on. Having thus barred the farther advance of Don-
zelot, the duke galloped off to the right to head his men who
were exposed to the attack of the Imperial Guard. He had
saved one part of his center from being routed, but the
French had gained ground and kept it; and the pressure on
the Allied line in front of La Haye Sainte was fearfully
severe, until it was relieved by the decisive success which the
British in the right center achieved over the columns of the
Guard.

The British troops-on the crest of that part of the position
which the ﬁrst column of Napoleon’s Guards assailed were
Maitland’s brigade of British Guards, having Adams’s brigade
(which had been brought forward during the action) on their
right. Maitland’s men were lying down, in order to avoid as
far as possible the destructive effect of the French artillery,
which kept up an unremitting ﬁre from the opposite heights,
until the ﬁrst column of the Imperial Guard had advanced so
far up the slope towards the British position that any further
ﬁring of the French artillerymen would have endangered their
own comrades. Meanwhile the British guns were not idle;
but shot and shell plowed fast through the ranks of the
stately array of veterans that still moved imposingly on.
Several of the French superior ofﬁcers were at its head.
Ney’s horse was shot under him, but he still 'led the way, on
foot, sword in hand. The front of the massive column now
was on the ridge of the hill. To their surprise they saw no
troops before them. All they could discern through the
smoke was a small band of mounted ofﬁcers. One of them
was the duke himself. The French advanced to about ﬁfty
yards from where the British guards were lying down, when
the voice of one of the group of British ofﬁcers was heard
calling, as if to the ground before him, ‘-‘ Up, Guards, and at
them!” It was the duke who gave the order; and at the
words, as if by magic, up started before them a line of the

 

1815] BATTLE OF WATERLOO 409

British Guards four deep, and in the most compact and per-
fect order. They poured an instantaneous volley upon the
head of the French column, by‘which no less than three
hundred of those chosen veterans are said to have fallen.
The French ofﬁcers rushed forward, and, conspicuous in
front of their men, attempted to deploy them into a more
extended line, so as to enable them to reply with effect to the
British ﬁre. But Maitland’s brigade kept shOwering in volley
after volley with deadly rapidity. The decimated column
grew disordered in its vain efforts to expand itself into a more
efﬁcient formation. The right word was given at the right
moment to the British for the bayonet charge, and the bri-
gade sprang forward with a loud cheer against their dismayed
antagonists. In an instant the compact mass of the French
spread out into a rabble, and they ﬂed back down the hill,
pursued by Maitland’s men, who, however, returned to their
position in time to take part in the repulse of the second
column of the Imperial Guard.

This column also advanced with great spirit and ﬁrmness
under the cannonade which was opened on it and, passing
by the eastern wall of Hougoumont, diverged slightly to the
right as it moved up the slope towards the B7 .tish position,
so as to approach nearly the same spot where the ﬁrst column
had surmounted the height and been defeated. This enabled
the British regiments of Adams’s brigade to form a line par-
allel to the left ﬂank of the French column; so that while
the front of this column of French Guards had to encounter
the cannonade of the British batteries and the musketry of
Maitland’s guards, its left ﬂank was assailed with a destruc-
tive ﬁre by a four-deep body of British infantry, extending all
along it. In such a position all the bravery and skill of the
French veterans were vain. The second column, like its pred-
ecessor, broke and ﬂed, taking at ﬁrst a lateral direction
along the front of the British line towards the rear of La
Haye Sainte, and so becoming blended with the divisions of
French infantry which under Donzelot had been assailing the
Allies so formidably in that quarter; The sight of the Old
Guard broken and in ﬂight checked the ardor which Don-
zelot’s troops had hitherto displayed. ‘ They, too, began to
waver. Adams’s victorious brigade was pressing after the

410 DECISIVE BATTLES [I815

ﬂying Guard, and now cleared away the assailants of the
allied center. But the battle was not yet won. Napoleon
had still some battalions in reserve near La Belle Alliance.
He was rapidly rallying the remains of the ﬁrst column of his
Guards, and he had collected into one body the remnants of
the various corps of cavalry which had suffered so severely
in the earlier part of the day. The duke instantly formed
the bold resolution of now himself becoming the assailant
and leading his successful though enfeebled army forward
while the disheartening effect of the repulse of the Imperial
Guard on the rest of the French army was still strong, and
before Napoleon and Ney could rally the beaten veterans
themselves for another and a ﬁercer charge. As the close
approach of the Prussians now completely protected the
duke’s left, he had drawn some reserves of horse from that
quarter; and he had a brigade of Hussars under Vivian
fresh and ready at hand. Without a moment’s hesitation he
launched these against the cavalry near La Belle Alliance.
The charge was as successful as it was daring; and, as
there was now no hostile cavalry to check the British infan-
try in a forward movement, the duke gave the long-wished-
for command for a general advance of the army along the
whole line upon the foe. It was now past eight o’clock, and
for nearly nine deadly hours had the British and German
regiments stood unﬂinching under the ﬁre of artillery, the
charge of cavalry, and every variety of assault which the
compact columns or the scattered tirailleurs of the enemy’s
infantry could inﬂict. As they joyously sprang forward
against the discomﬁted masses of the French, the setting sun
broke through the clouds which had obscured the sky during
the greater part of the day, and glittered on the bayonets
of the Allies while they poured down into the valley and
towards the heights that were held by the foe. The duke
himself was among the foremost in the advance, and person-
ally directed the movements against each body of the French
that essayed resistance. He rode in front of Adams’s bri-
gade, cheering it forward, and even galloped among the most
advanced of the British skirmishers, speaking joyously to the
men and receiving their hearty shouts of congratulation.
.The bullets of both friends and foes were whistling fast

 

1815] BATTLE OF WATERLOO 41 I

around him; and one of the few survivors of his staff remon-
strated with him for thus exposing a life of such value.
“Never mind,” was the duke’s answer—“never mind, let
them ﬁre away; the battle’s won, and my life is of no conse-
quence now.” And, indeed, almost the whole of the French
host were now in irreparable confusion. The Prussian army
was coming more and more rapidly forward on their right;
and the Young Guard, which had held Planchenoit so bravely,
was at last compelled to give way. Some regiments of the
Old Guard in vain endeavored to form in squares and stem
the current. They were swept away and wrecked among
the waves of the ﬂyers. Napoleon had placed himself in
one of these squares: Marshal Soult, Generals Bertrand,
Drouot, Corbineau, De Flahaut, and Gourgaud were with
him. The emperor spoke of dying on the ﬁeld, but Soult
seized his bridle and turned his charger round, exclaiming,
“ Sire, are not the enemy already lucky enough?” With the
greatest difﬁculty, and only by the utmost exertion of the
devoted ofﬁcers round him, Napoleon cleared the throng of
fugitives and escaped from the scene of the battle and the
war, which he and France had lost past all recovery. Mean-
while the Duke of Wellington still rode forward with the van
of his victorious troops, until he reined up on the elevated
ground near Rossomme. The daylight was now entirely
gone; but the young moon had risen, and the light which
it cast, aided by the glare from the burning houses and other
buildings in the line of the ﬂying French and pursuing Prus-
’ sians, enabled the duke to assure himself that his victory was
complete. He then rode back along the Charleroi road
towards Waterloo; and near La Belle Alliance he met Mar-
shal Blucher. Warm were the congratulations that were
exchanged between the allied chiefs. It was arranged that
the Prussians should follow up the pursuit and give the
French no chance of rallying. Accordingly the British army,
exhausted by its toils and sufferings during that dreadful
day, did not advance beyond the heights which the enemy
had occupied. But the Prussians drove the fugitives before
them in merciless chase throughout the night. Cannon, bag-
gage, and all the mate’rz'el of the army were abandoned by
the French; and many thousands of the infantry threw away

4I 2 DECISIVE BATTLES [1815

their arms to facilitate their escape. The ground was strewn
for miles with the wrecks of their host. There was no rear-
guard; nor was even the semblance of order attempted. An
attempt at resistance was made at the bridge and village of
Genappe, the ﬁrst narrow pass through which the bulk of
the French retired. The situation was favorable; and a few
resolute battalions, if ably commanded, might have held their
pursuers at bay there for some considerable time. But despair
and panic were now universal in the beaten army. ”At the
ﬁrst sound of the Prussian drums and bugles, Genappe was
abandoned and nothing thought of but headlong flight. The
Prussians, under General Gneisenau, still followed and still
slew; nor even when the Prussian infantry stopped in sheer
exhaustion, was the pursuit given up. Gneisenau still pushed
on with the cavalry; and by an ingenious stratagem made
the French believe that his infantry were still close on them,
and scared them from every spot where they attempted to
pause and rest. He mounted one of his drummers on a horse
which had been taken from the captured carriage of Napo-
leon, and made him ride along with the pursuing cavalry and
beat the drum whenever they came on any large number of
the French. The French thus ﬂed, and the Prussians pur-‘
sued, through Quatre Bras and even over the heights of
Frasne; and when at length Gneisenau drew bridle, and
halted a little beyond Frasne with the scanty remnant of
keen hunters who had kept up the chase with him to the
last, the French were scattered through Gosselies, Mar-
chiennes, and Charleroi, and were striving to regain the left
bank of the river Sambre, which they had crossed in such
pomp and pride not a hundred hours before.

Part of the French left wing endeavored to escape from
p the ﬁeld without blending with the main body of the fugitives
who thronged the Genappe causeway. A French ofﬁcer who
was among those who thus retreated across the country west-
ward of the highroad has vividly described What he wit-
nessed and what he suffered. Colonel Lemonnier~Delafosse
served in the campaign of 18I5 in General Foy’s staff, and
was consequently in that part of the French army at Water-
loo which acted against Hougoumont and the British right
Wing. When the column of the Imperial Guard made their

 

 

 

1815] BATTLE OF WATERLOO 4‘1 3

great charge at the end of the day, the troops of Foy’s
division advanced in support of them, and Colonel Lemon-
nier-Delafosse describes the conﬁdent hopes of victory and
promotion ~with which he marched to that attack, and the
fearful carnage and confusion of the assailants, amid which
he was helplessly hurried back by his ﬂying comrades. He
then narrates the closing scene : — .

“Near one of the hedges of Hougoumont farm, without
even a drummer to beat the rapped, we succeeded in rallying
under the enemy’s ﬁre 300 men: they were nearly all that
remained of our splendid division. Thither came together a
band of generals. There was Reille, whose horse had been
shot under him; there were d’Erlon, Bachelu, Foy, Jamin,
and others. All were gloomy and sorrowful, like vanquished
men. Their words were,—‘Here is all that is left of my
corps, of my division, of my brigade: I, myself.’ We had
seen the fall of Duhesme, of Pelet-de-Morvan, of Michel—
generals who had found a glorious death. My general, Foy,
had his shoulder pierced through by a musket-ball; and out
of his whole staff two ofﬁcers only were left to him, Cahour
Duhay and I. Fate had Spared me in the midst of so many
dangers, though the ﬁrst charger Irode had been shot and
had fallen on me.

“The enemy’s horse were coming down on us, and our lit-
tle group was obliged to retreat. What had happened to our
division of the left wing had taken place all along the line.
The movement of the hostile cavalry, which inundated the
whole plain, had demoralized our soldiers, who, seeing all
regular retreat of the army cut off, strove each man to effect
one for himself. At each instant the road became more
encumbered. Infantry, cavalry, and artillery were pressing
along pell-mell: jammed together like a solid mass. Figure
to yourself 40,000 men struggling and thrusting themselves
along a single causeway. We could not take that way without
destruction; so the generals who had collected together near
the Hougoumont hedge dispersed across the ﬁelds. General
Foy alone remained with the 300 men whom he had gleaned
from the ﬁeld of battle, and marched at their head. Our
anxiety was to withdraw from the scene of action without
being confounded with the fugitives. Our general wished to

414 DECISIVE BATTLES [1815

retreat like a true soldier. Seeing three lights in the southern
horizon, like beacons, General Foy asked me what I thought
of the position of each. I answered, ‘The ﬁrst to the left is
Genappe; the second is at Bois de Bossu, near the farm of
Quatre Bras; the third is at Gosselies.’ ‘ Let us march on
the second one, then,’ replied Foy, ‘ and let no obstacle stop
us —— take the head of the column, and do not lose sight of the
guiding light.’ Such was his order, and I strove to obey.

“ After all the agitation and the incessant din of a long day
of battle, how imposing was the stillness of that night! We
proceeded on our sad and lonely march. We were a prey to
the most cruel reﬂections; we were humiliated, we were hope-
less; but not a word of complaint was heard. We walked
silently as a troop of mourners and it might have been said
that we were attending the funeral of our country’s glory.
Suddenly the stillness was broken by a challenge,—‘Qui
viz/e .9 ’ ‘ France!’ ‘ Kellermann ! ’ ‘ Foy !’ ‘ Is it you, gen-
eral? come nearer to us.’ At that moment we were passing
over a little hillock, at the foot of which was a hut, in which
Kellermann and some of his ofﬁcers had halted. They came
out to join us. Foy said to me, ‘ Kellermann knows the coun-
try: he has been along here before with his cavalry ; we had
better follow him.’ But we found that the direction which »
Kellermann chose was towards the ﬁrst light, towards Genappe.
That led to the causeway which our general rightly wished
to avoid. I went to the left to reconnoiter, and was 'soon con-
vinced that such was the case. It was then that I was able
to form a full idea of the disorder of a routed army. What a
hideous spectacle! The mountain torrent, that uproots and
whirls along with it every momentary obstacle, is a feeble
image of that heap of men, of horses, of equipages, rushing one
upon another; gathering before the least obstacle which dams
up their way for a few seconds, only to form a mass which

~0verthrows everything in the path which it forces for itself.

W0 to him whose footing failed him in that deluge! He
was crushed, trampled to death! I returned and told my
general what I had seen, and he instantly abandoned Keller-
mann and resumed his original line of march.

“Keeping straight across the country over ﬁelds and the
rough thickets, we at last arrived at the Bois de Bossu, where

 

1815] BATTLE or WATERLOO 415

we halted. My general said to me : ‘ Go to the farm of Quatre
Bras and announce that we are here. The emperor or Soult
must be there. Ask for orders, and recollect that I am waiting
here for you. The lives of these men depend on your exact-
ness.’ To reach the farm I was obliged to cross the high-
road: I was on horseback, but nevertheless was borne away by
the crowd that ﬂed along the road, and it was long ere I could
extricate myself and reach the farmhouse. General Lobau
was there with his staff, resting in fancied security. They
thought that their troops had halted there; but, though a halt
had been attempted, the men had soon ﬂed forward, like their
comrades of the rest. of the army. The shots of the approach-
ing Prussians were now heard; and I believe that General
Lobau was taken prisoner in that farmhouse. I left him to
rejoin my general, which I did with difﬁculty. I found him
alone. His men, as they came near the current of ﬂight, were
infected with the general panic and ﬂed also.

“ What was to be done? Follow that crowd of runaways?
General Foy would not hear of it. There were ﬁve of us still
with him, all ofﬁcers. He had been wounded at about ﬁve in
the afternoon, and the wound had not been dressed. He suf-
fered severely; but his moral courage was unbroken. ‘ Let
us keep,’ he said, ‘ a line parallel to the highroad, and work
our way hence as we best can.’ A foot track was before us,
and we followed it.

“The moon shone out brightly, and revealed the full
wretchedness of the tableau which met our eyes. A brigadier
and four cavalry soldiers, whom we met with, formed our
escort. We marched on; and, as the noise grew more distant,
I thought that we were losing the parallel of the highway.
Finding that we had the moon more and more on the left, I
felt sure of this, and mentioned it to the general. Absorbed
in thought, he made me no reply. We came in front of a
windmill, and endeavored to procure some information; but
we could not gain an entrance or make any one answer, and
we continued our nocturnal march. At last we entered a vil-
lage, but found every door closed against us, and were obliged
to use threats in order to gain admission into a single house.
_ The poor woman to whom it belonged, more dead than alive,

received us as if we had been enemies. Before asking where

416 DECISIVE BATTLES [ISI 5

we were, .‘ Food, give us some food!’, was our cry. Bread
and butter and beer were brought, and soon disappeared
before men who had fasted for twenty-four hours. _ A little
revived, we asked, ‘ Where are we? what is the name of this
village P ’ —— ‘ Vieville.’

“On looking at the map, I saw that in comingto that vil-
lage we had leaned too much to the right, and that we were
in the direction of Mons. In order to reach the Sambre at
the bridge of Marchiennes, we had four leagues to traverse;
and there was scarcely time to march the distance before day-
break. I made a villager act as our guide, and bound him by
his arm to my stirrup. He led us through Roux to Mar-
chiennes. The poor fellow ran alongside of my, horse the
whole way. It was cruel but necessary to compel him, for
we had not an instant to spare. At six in the. morning we
entered Marchiennes.

“Marshal Ney was there. ‘Our general went to see him,
and to ask what orders he had to give. Ney was asleep ; and,
rather than rob him of the ﬁrst repose he had had for four
days, our general returned to us without seeing him. And,
indeed, what orders could Marshal Ney have given? The
whole army was crossing the Sambre, each man where and
how he chose; some at Charleroi, some at Marchiennes. We
were about to do the same thing. When once beyond the
Sambre, we might safely halt; and both men and horses were
in extreme need of rest. We passed through Thuin; and ﬁnd-
ing a little copse near the road, we gladly sought its-shelter.
While our horses grazed, we lay. down and slept. How sweet
was that sleep after the fatigues of the long day of battle, and
after the night of retreat more painful still! We rested in
the little copse till noon, and sat there watching the wrecks
of our army deﬁle along the road before us. It was a soul-
harrowing sight! Yet the different arms of the service had
resumed a certain degree of order amid their disorder; and
our general, feeling his strength revive, resolved to follow a
strong column of cavalry which was taking the direction of
Beaumont, about four leagues off. We drew near Beaumont,
when suddenly a regiment of horse was seen debouching from
a wood on our left. The column that we followed shouted out,
‘The Prussians! the Prussians !’ and galloped off in utter dis-

 

-‘ .mlgée: A

‘ “(surnamxga—Zégz.

 

 

r815] BATTLE OF WATERLOO 4r 7

order. The troops that thus alarmed them were not a tenth
part of their number, and were in reality our own 8th Hussars,
who wore green uniforms. But the panic had been brought
even thus far from the battle-ﬁeld, and the disorganized col-
umn galloped into Beaumont, which was already crowded
with our infantry. We were obliged to follow that déédcle.
On entering Beaumont we chose a house of superior appear-
ance, and demanded of the mistress of it refreshments for the
general. ‘Alas!’ said the lady, ‘this is the tenth general who
has been to this house since this morning. I have nothing
left. Search, if you please, and see.’ Though unable to ﬁnd
food for the general, I persuaded him to take his coat off and
let me examine his wound. The bullet had gone through the
twists of the left epaulette, and, penetrating the skin, had run
round the shoulder without injuring the bone. The lady of
the house made some lint for me; and without any great degree
of surgical skill I succeeded in dressing the wound.

“ Being still anxious to procure some food for the general
and ourselves, if it were but a loaf of ammunition bread, I
left the house and rode out into the town. I saw pillage
going on in every direction: open caissons, stripped and half
broken, blocked up the streets. The pavement was covered
with plundered and torn baggage. Pillagers and runaways,
such were all the comrades I met with. Disgusted at them,
I strove, sword in hand, to stop one of the plunderers ; but,
more active than I, he gave me a bayonet stab in my left arm,
in which I fortunately caught his thrust, which had been aimed
full at my body. He disappeared among the crowd, through
which I could not force my horse. My spirit of discipline
had made me forget that in such circumstances the soldier is
a mere wild beast. But to be wounded by a fellow country-
man after having passed unharmed through all the perils of
' Quatre Bras and Waterloo ! —this did seem hard, indeed. I
was trying to return to General F oy, when another horde of
ﬂyers burst into Beaumont, swept me into the current of their
ﬂight, and hurried me out of the town with them. . UntilI
received my wound I had preserved my moral courage in
full force; but now, worn out with fatigue, covered with
blood, and suffering severe pain from the wound, I own that
I gave way to the general demoralization and let myself

27

418 DECISIVE BATTLES [1815

be inertly borne along with the rushing mass. At last I
reached Landrecies, though I know not how or when. But I
found there our Colonel Hurday, who had been left behind
there in consequence of an accidental injury from a carriage.
He took me with him to Paris, where I retired amid my
family and got cured of my wound, knowing nothing of the
rest of political and military events that were taking place.”
No returns ever were made of the amount of the French
loss in the battle of Waterloo; but it must have been immense,
and may be partially judged of by the amount of killed and
wounded in the armies of the conquerors. On this subject
both the Prussian and British ofﬁcial evidence is unquestion-
ably full and authentic. The ﬁgures are terribly emphatic.
Of the army that fought under the Duke of Wellington
nearly I 5,000 men were killed and wounded on this single day of
battle. Seven thousand Prussians also fell at Waterloo. At
such a fearful price was the deliverance of Europe purchased.
By none was the severity of that loss more keenly felt than
by our great deliverer himself. As may be seen in Major
Macready’s narrative, the duke, while the battle was raging,
betrayed no sign of emotion at the most ghastly casualties;
but, when all was over, the sight of the carnage with which
the ﬁeld was covered, and, still more, the sickening spectacle
of the agonies of the wounded men who lay moaning in their
misery by thousands and tens of thousands, weighed heavily
on the spirit of the victor, as he rode back across the scene of
strife. On reaching his headquarters in the village of Water.
loo, the duke inquired anxiously after the numerous friends
who had been round him in the morning, and to Whom he
was warmly attached. Many, he was told, were dead; others
were lying alive, but mangled and suffering, in the houses
round him. It is in our hero’s own words alone that his
feelings can be adequately told. In a letter written by him
almost immediately after his return from the ﬁeld, he thus
expressed himself : “ My heart is broken by the terrible loss
I have sustained in my old friends and companions and my
poor soldiers. Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can
be half so melancholy as a battle won. The bravery of my
troops has hitherto saved me from the greater evil; but to
win such a battle as this of Waterloo, at the expense of so

 

1815] BATTLE OF WATERLOO 419

many gallant friends, could only be termed a heavy misfortune
but for the result to the public.”

It is not often that a successful general in modern warfare
is called on, like the victorious commander of the ancient
Greek armies, to award a prize of superior valor to one of his
soldiers. Such was to some extent the case with respect to the
battle of Waterloo. In the August of I8I8, an English clergy—
man offered to confer a small annuity on some Waterloo soldier,
to be named by the duke. The duke requested Sir John
Byng to choose a man from the second brigade of Guards,
which had so highly distinguished itself in the defense of
Hougoumont. There were many gallant candidates, but the
election fell on Sergeant James Graham, of the light company
of the Coldstreams. This brave man had signalized himself
throughout the day in the defense of that important post,
and especially in the critical struggle that took place at the
period when the French, who had gained the wood, the
orchard, and detached garden, succeeded in bursting open a
gate of the courtyard of the chateau itself, and rushed in in
large masses, conﬁdent of carrying all before them. A hand-
to-hand ﬁght, of the most desperate character, was kept up
between them and the Guards for a few minutes; but at last
the British bayonets prevailed. Nearly all the Frenchmen
who had forced their way in were killed on the spot; and, as
the few survivors ran back, ﬁve of the Guards, Colonel Mac-
donnell, Captain Wyndham, Ensign Gooch, Ensign Hervey,
and Sergeant Graham, by sheer strength, closed the gate
again, in spite of the efforts of the French from without, and
effectually barricaded it against further assaults. Over and
through the loopholed wall of the courtyard the English
garrison now kept up a deadly ﬁre of musketry, which was
ﬁercely answered by the French, who swarmed round the
curtilage like ravening wolves. Shells, too, from their bat-
teries were falling fast into the besieged place, one of which
set part of the mansion and some of the outbuildings on ﬁre.
Graham, who was at this time standing near Colonel Mac-
donnell at the wall, and who had shown the most perfect
steadiness and courage, now asked permission of his com-
manding ofﬁcer to retire for a moment. Macdonnell replied,
“ By all means, Graham; but I wonder you should ask leave

420 DECISIVE BATTLES [1815

))

now. Graham answered, “ I would not, sir, only my brother
is wounded, and he is in that outbuilding there, which has just
caught ﬁre." Laying down his musket, Graham ran to the
blazing spot, lifted up his brother, and laid him in a ditch.
Then he was back at his post, and was plying his musket
against the French again before his absence was noticed,
except by his colonel.

Many anecdotes of individual prowess have been preserved ;
butof all the brave men who were in the British army on that
eventful day, none deserves more honor for courage and indom-
itable resolution than Sir Thomas Picton, who, as has been
mentioned, fell in repulsing the great attack of the French
upon the British left center. It was not until the dead body
was examined after the battle that the full heroism of Picton
was discerned. He had been wounded on the 16th, at Quatre
Bras, by a musket-ball, which had broken two of his ribs and
caused also severe internal injuries; but he had concealed the
circumstance, evidently in expectation that another and greater
battle would be fought in a short time, and desirous to avoid
being solicited to absent himself from the ﬁeld. His body was
blackened and swollen by the wound, which must have caused
severe and incessant pain; and it was marvelous how his.
spirit had borne him up, and enabled him to take part in the
fatigues and duties of the ﬁeld. The bullet which, on the
18th, killed the renowned leader of “ the ﬁghting division ” of
the Peninsula entered the head near the left temple, and passed
through the brain; so that Picton’s death must have been
instantaneous.

One of the most interesting narratives of personal adven-
ture at Waterloo is that of Colonel Frederick Ponsonby, of
the 12th Light Dragoons, who was severely wounded when
Vandeleur’s brigade, to which he belonged, attacked the
French lancers, in order to bring off the Union Brigade,
which was retiring from its memorable charge. The 12th,
like those whom they rescued, advanced much farther against
the French position than prudence warranted. Ponsonby,
with many others, was speared by a reserve of Polish lancers,
and left for dead on the'ﬁeld. It is well to refer to the de-
scription of what he suffered (as he afterwards gave it, when
almost miraculously recovered from his numerous wounds),

 

I8! 5] BATTLE OF WATERLOO 421

because his fate, or worse, was the fate of thousands more;
and because the narrative of the pangs of an individual, with
whom we can indentify ourselves, always comes more home
to us than a general description of the miseries of whole
masses. His tale may make us remember what are the hor-
rors of war as well as its glories. It is to be remembered that
the operations which he refers to took place about three
o’clock in the day, and that the ﬁghting went on for at least
ﬁve hours more. After describing how he and his men charged
through the French whom they ﬁrst encountered, and went
against other enemies, he states : —

“We had no sooner passed them than we were ourselves
attacked, before we could form, by about 300 Polish lancers,
who had hastened to their relief, the French artillery pour-
ing in among us a heavy ﬁre of grape, though for one of our
men they killed three of their own.

“ In the melee I was almost instantly disabled in both arms,
losing ﬁrst my sword, and then my reins; and followed by a few
men, who were presently cut down, no quarter being allowed,
asked, or given, I was carried along by my horse, till, receiving a
blow from a saber, I fell senseless on my face to the ground.

“ Recovering, I raised myself a little to look round, being at
that time, I believe, in a condition to get up and run away;
when a lancer, passing by, cried out, ‘Tu n’est pas mort,
coquin!’ and struck his lance through my back. My head
dropped, the blood gushed into my mouth, a difﬁculty of
breathing came on, and I thought all was over.

“ Not long afterwards (it was impossible to measure time,
but I must have fallen in less than ten minutes after the on-
set) a tirailleur stopped to plunder me, threatening my life.
I directed him to a small side pocket, in which he found three
dollars, all I had; but he continued to threaten, and I said
he might search me: this he did immediately, unloosing my
stock and tearing open my waistcoat, and leaving me in a very
uneasy posture.

“But he was no sooner gone than an officer bringing up
some troops, to which probably the tirailleur belonged, and
happening to halt where I lay, stooped down and addressed
me, saying he feared I was badly wounded; I said that I was,
and expressed a wish to be removed to the rear. He said it

422 DECISIVE BATTLES [1815

was against their orders to remove even their own men; but
that if they gained the day (and he understood that the Duke
of Wellington was killed, and that some of our battalions had
surrendered), every attention in his power would be shown
me. I complained of thirst, and he held his brandy~bottle to
my lips, directing one of the soldiers to lay me straight on my
side and place a knapsack under my head. He then passed
on into action—soon, perhaps, to want, though not receive,
the same assistance; and I shall never know to whose gener-
osity I was indebted, as I believe, for my life. Of what rank
he was, I cannot say: he wore a great-coat. By and by
another tirailleur came up, a ﬁne young man, full of ardor.
He knelt down and ﬁred over me, loading and ﬁring many
times, and conversing with me all the while.” The French-
man, with strange coolness, informed Ponsonby of how he
was shooting, and what he thought of the progress of the
battle. “At last he ran off, exclaiming, ‘You will probably
not be sorry to hear that we are going to retreat. Good day,
my friend.’ It was dusk,” Ponsonby adds, “ when two squad—
rons of Prussian cavalry, each of them two deep, came across
the valley and passed over me in full trot, lifting me from the
ground and tumbling me about cruelly. The clatter of their
approach, and the apprehensions they excited, may be imag-
ined; a gun taking that direction must have destroyed me.

“The battle was now at an end, or removed to a distance.
The shouts, the imprecations, the outcries of ‘Vive l’Empe-
reur! ’ the discharge of musketry and cannon, were over; and
the groans of the wounded all around me became every moment
more and more audible. I thought the night would never end.

“ Much about this time I found a soldier of the Royals lying
across my legs — he had probably crawled thither in his agony;
and his weight, his convulsive motions, and the air issuing
through a wound in his side, distressed me greatly; the last
circumstance most of all, as I had a wound of the same na-
ture myself.

“It was not a dark night, and the Prussians were wander-
ing about to plunder; the scene in ‘ Ferdinand Count Fathom ’
came into my mind, though no women appeared. Several
stragglers looked at me, as they passed by, one after another,
and at last one of them stopped to examine me. I told him

 

1815] BATTLE OF WATERLOO 423

as well as I could, for I spoke German very imperfectly, that
I was a Britishofﬁcer, and had been plundered already; he
did not desist, however, and pulled me about roughly.

“An hour before midnight I saw a man in an English uni
form walking towards me. He was, I suspect, on the same
errand, and he came and looked in my face. I spoke instantly,
telling him who I was, and assuring him of a reward if he
would remain by me. He said he belonged to the 40th, and
had missed his regiment; he released me from the dying sol-
dier, and, being unarmed, took up a sword from the ground
and stood over me, pacing backward and forward.

“ Day broke; and at six o’clock in the morning Some Eng-
lish were seen at a distance, and he ran to them. A messen-
ger being sent off to Hervey, a cart came for me, and I was
placed in it, and carried to the village of Waterloo, a mile and
a half off, and laid in the bed from which, as I understood
afterwards, Gordon had been just carried out. I had received
seven wounds; a surgeon slept in my room, and I was saved
by excessive bleeding.”

Major Macready, in the journal already cited, justly praises
the deep devotion to their emperor which marked the French
at Waterloo. Never, indeed, had the national bravery of the
French people been more nobly shown. One soldier in the
French ranks was seen, when his arm was shattered by a
cannon-ball, to wrench it off with the other; and, throwing it
up in the air, he exclaimed to his comrades, “ Vive l’Empereur
jusqu’a la mort!” Colonel Lemonnier-Delafosse mentions
in his “Mémoires” that, at the beginning of the action, a
French soldier who had had both legs carried off by a cannon-
ball was borne past the front of Foy’s division, and called out
to them, “ Ce n’est rien, camarades! Vive l’Empereur!
Gloire a la France!” The same oﬂicer, at the end of the
battle, when all hope was lost, tells us that he saw a French
grenadier, blackened with powder and with his clothes torn
and stained, leaning on his musket and immovable as a statue.
The colonel called to him to join his comrades and retreat;
but the grenadier showed him his musket and his hands
and said, “These hands have with this musket used to-day
more than twenty packets of cartridges: it was more than
my share. I supplied myself with ammunition from the dead.

424 DECISIVE BATTLES [1815

Leave me to die here on the ﬁeld of battle. It is not courage
that fails me, but strength.” Then, as Colonel Delafosse left
him, the soldier stretched himself on the ground to meet his
fate, exclaiming, “Tout est perdu! pauvre France!” The
gallantry of the French ofﬁcers at least equaled that of their
men. Ney, in particular, set the example of the most daring
courage. Here, as in every French army in which he ever
served or commanded, he was “ le brave des braves.” Through-
out the day he was in the front of the battle, and was one of
the very last Frenchmen who quitted the ﬁeld. His horse
was killed under him in the last attack made on the English
position; but he was seen on foot, his clothes torn with bullets,
his face smirched with powder, striving, sword in hand, ﬁrst
to urge his men forward, and at last to check their ﬂight.
There was another brave general of the French army,
whose valor and good conduct on that day of disaster to his
nation should never be unnoticed when the story of Waterloo
is recounted. This was General Pelet, who, about seven in
the evening, led the ﬁrst battalion of the 2d regiment of the
Chasseurs of the Guard to the defense of Planchenoit, and
on whom Napoleon personally urged the deep importance of
maintaining possession of that village. Pelet and his men took
their post in the central part of the village, and occupied the
church and churchyard in great strength. There they re-
pelled every assault of the Prussians, who in rapidly increas-
ing numbers rushed forward with infuriated pertinacity.
They held their post till the utter rout of the main army of
their comrades was apparent and the victorious Allies were
thronging around Planchenoit. Then Pelet and his brave
Chasseurs quitted the churchyard and retired with steady
march, though they suffered fearfully from the moment they
left their shelter, and Prussian cavalry as well as infantry
dashed ﬁercely after them. Pelet kept together a little knot
of 250 veterans, and had the eagle covered over and borne
along in the midst of them. At one time the inequality of
the ground caused his ranks to open a little, and in an in-
stant the Prussian horsemen were on them and striving to
capture the eagle. Captain Siborne relates the conduct of

Pelet with the admiration worthy of one brave soldier for
another:—

 

1815] BATTLE OF WATERLOO 425

“ Pelet, taking advantage of a spot of ground which afforded
them some degree of cover against the ﬁre of grape by which
they were constantly assailed, halted the standard-bearer, and
called out, ‘A moi, Chasseurs! Sauvons l’aigle, ou mourons
autour d’elle!’ The Chasseurs immediately pressed around
him, forming what is usually termed the rallying square, and,
lowering their bayonets, succeeded in repulsing the charge of
cavalry. Some guns were then brought to bear upon them,
and subsequently a brisk ﬁreof musketry; but notwithstand-
ing the awful sacriﬁce which was thus offered up in defense
of their precious charge, they succeeded in reaching the main
line of retreat, favored by the universal confusion, as also by
the general obscurity which now prevailed, and thus saved
alike the eagle and the honor of the regiment.”

French writers do injustice to their own army and general
when they revive malignant calumnies against Wellington and
speak of his having blundered into victory. No blunderer could
have successfully encountered such troops as those of Napo-
leon and under such a leader. It is superﬂuous to cite against
these cavils the testimony which other Continental critics have
borne to the high military genius of our illustrious chief. I
refer to one only, which is of peculiar value on account of the
quarter whence it comes. It is that of the great German
writer Niebuhr, whose accurate acquaintance with every
important scene of modern as well as ancient history was
unparalleled, and who was no mere pedant, but a man practi-
cally versed in active life, and had been personally acquainted
with most of the leading men in the great events of the early
part of this century. Niebuhr, in the passage which I allude
to, after referring to the military “ blunders” of Mithridates,
Frederick the Great, Napoleon, Pyrrhus, and Hannibal, uses
these remarkable words: “The Duke of Wellington is, I be-
lieve, the only general in whose conduct of war we cannot dis-
cover any important mistake.” Not that it is to be supposed
that the duke’s merits were simply of a negative order, or
that he was merely a cautious, phlegmatic general, ﬁt only for
defensive warfare, as some recent French historians have de-
scribed him. On the contrary, he was bold even to audacity
when boldness was required. “ The intrepid advance and
ﬁght at Assaye, the crossing of the Douro, and the movement

0

426 DECISIVE BATTLES ~ [1815

on Talavera in 1809, the advance to Madrid and Burgos in
1812, the action before Bayonne in 1813, and the desperate
stand made at Waterloo itself, when more tamely prudent
generals would have retreated beyond Brussels, place this
beyond a doubt.”

The overthrow of the French military power at Waterloo
was so complete that the subsequent events of the brief cam-
paign have little interest. Lamartine truly says : “This defeat
left nothing undecided in future events, for victory had given
judgment. The war began and ended in a single battle.”
Napoleon himself recognized instantly and fully the deadly
nature of the blow which had been dealt to his empire. In
his ﬂight from the battle-ﬁeld he ﬁrst halted at Charleroi, but
the approach of the pursuing Prussians drove him thence be- .
fore he had rested there an hour. With difﬁculty getting
clear of the wrecks of his own army, he reached Philippeville,
where he remained a few hours, and sent orders to the French
generals in the various extremities of France to converge with
their troops upon Paris. He ordered Soult to collect the fugi-
tives of his own force and lead them to Laon. He then hur-
ried forward to Paris, and reached his capital before the news
of his own defeat. But the stern truth soon transpired. At
the demand of the Chambers of Peers and Representatives, he
abandoned the throne by a second and ﬁnal abdication on the
22d of June. On the 29th of June he left the neighborhood
of Paris, and proceeded to Rochefort in the hope of escap-
ing to America; but the coast was strictly watched, and on
the I 5th of July the ex-emperor surrendered himself on board
of the English man-of—war Bel/erop/zon.

Meanwhile the allied armies had advanced steadily upon
Paris, driving before them Grouchy’s corps and the scanty
force which Soult had succeeded in rallying at Laon. Cam—
bray, Peronne, and other fortresses were speedily captured;
and by the 29th of June the invaders were taking their posi-
tions in front of Paris. The Provisional Government, which
acted in the French capital after the emperor’s abdication,
opened negotiations with the allied chiefs. Bliicher, in his
quenchless hatred of the French, was eager to reject all pro.
posals for a suspension of hostilities, and to assault and storm
the city. But the sager and calmer spirit of Wellington pre-

 

18I5] BATTLE OF WATERLOO 427

vailed over his colleague; the entreated armistice was granted;
and on the 3d of July the capitulation of Paris terminated the
war of the battle of Waterloo.

In closing our observations on this the last of the Decisive
Battles of the World, it is pleasing to contrast the year which
it signalized with the year that is now 10 passing over our
heads. We have not (and long may we be without!) the stern
excitement of martial strife, and we see no captive standards
of our European neighbors brought in triumph to our shrines.
But we behold an inﬁnitely prouder spectacle. We see the
banners of every civilized nation waving over the arena of
our competition with each other, in the arts that minister to
our race’s support and happiness, and not to its suffering and
destruction.

“ Peace hath her victories
N 0 less renowned than war”;

and no battle-ﬁeld ever witnessed a Victory more noble than
that which England, under her sovereign lady and her royal
prince, is now teaching the peoples of the earth to achieve
over selﬁsh prejudices and international feuds, in the great
cause of the general promotion of the industry and welfare

of mankind.
NOTES

1 Wellington had but a small part of his old peninsular army in Belgium.
The ﬂower of it had been sent on the expeditions against America. His
troops, in 1815, were chieﬂy second battalions, or regiments lately ﬁlled up
with new recruits.

‘~’ The ﬁfth corps was under Count Rapp at Strasburg.

3 Not to be confounded with the hamlet of La Haye at the extreme left
of the British line.

4 Prince Frederick’s force remained at Hal, and took no part in the battle
of the 18th. The reason for this arrangement (which has been much
caviled at) may be best given in the words of Baron Miiffling: “The duke
had retired from Quatre Bras in three columns, by three chaussées; and
on the evening of the 17th, Prince Frederick of Orange was at Hal, Lord
Hill at Braine l’Alleud, and the Prince of Orange with the reserve at Mont
St. Jean. This distribution was necessary, as Napoleon could dispose of
these three roads for his advance on Brussels. Napoleon on the 17th had
pressed on by Genappe as far as Rossomme. On the two other roads no

428 DECISIVE BATTLES [1815

enemy had yet shown himself. On the 18th the offensive was taken by
Napoleon on its greatest scale, but still the Nivelles road was not over-
stepped by his left wing. These circumstances made it possible to draw
Prince Frederick to the army, which would certainly have been done if
entirely new circumstances had not arisen. The duke had, twenty-four
hours before, pledged himself to accept a battle at Mont St. Jean if Bliicher
would assist him there with one corps of 25,000 men. This being promised,
the duke was taking his measures for defense, when he learned that, in addi-
tion to the one corps promised, Bliicher was actually already on the march
with his whole force, to break in by Planchenoit on Napoleon’s ﬂank and
rear. If three corps of the Prussian army should penetrate by the unguarded
plateau of Rossomme, w/zz'c/z was not improbable, Napoleon would be thrust
from his line of retreat by Genappe, and might possibly lose even that by
Nivelles. In this case Prince Frederick, with his 18,000 men (who might
be accounted superfluous at Mont St. Jean) , might have rendered the most
essential service.” See Miifﬂing, p. 246, and the Quarterly Review, N 0. 178.
It is also worthy of observation that Napoleon actually detached a force of
2000 cavalry to threaten Hal, though they returned to the main French
army during the night of the 17th. ‘

5 See especially Sir W. Napier’s glorious pictures of the battles of Busaco
and Albuera. The theoretical advantages of the attack in column, and its
peculiar ﬁtness for a French army, are set forth in the Chevalier F olard’s
“ Traité de la Colonne,” preﬁxed to the ﬁrst volume of his “Polybius.” See
also the preface to his sixth volume.

5 I have heard the remark made that Grouchy twice had in his hands the
power of changing the destinies of Europe, and twice wanted nerve to act:
ﬁrst, when he ﬂinched from landing the French army at Bantry Bay in 1796
(he was second in command to Hoche, whose ship was blown back by a
storm), and, secondly, when he failed to lead his whole force from Wavre
to the scene of decisive conﬂict at Waterloo. But such were the arrange-
ments of the Prussian general that even if Grouchy had marched upon
Waterloo, he would have been held in check by the nearest Prussian corps,
0r certainly by the two nearest ones, while the rest proceeded to join Well-
ington. This, however, would have diminished the number of Prussians
who appeared at Waterloo, and (what is still more important) would have
kept them back to a later hour.

There are some very valuable remarks on this subject in an article on
the “Life of Blucher,” usually attributed to Sir Francis Head. The Prussian
writer, General Clausewitz, is there cited as “expressing a positive opinion,
in which every military critic but a Frenchman must concur, that, even had
the whole of Grouchy’s force been at Napoleon’s disposal, the duke had
nothing to fear pending Bliicher’s arrival.

“The duke is often talked of as having exhausted his reserves in the
action. This is another gross error, which Clausewitz has thoroughly dis-
posed of (p. 125). He enumerates the tenth British brigade, the division
of Chassé, and the cavalry of Collaert as having been little or not at all
engaged; and he might have also added two brigades of light cavalry.”
The fact, also, that Wellington did not at any part of the day order up

 

: ‘uzkawxﬁ a imam, mitt-1:81

I8r 5] BATTLE OF WATERLOO 429

Prince Frederick’s corps from Hal is a conclusive proof that the duke was
not so distressed as some writers have represented. Hal is not ten miles
from the ﬁeld of Waterloo;

7 “ On came the whirlwind — like the last

But ﬁercest sweep of tempest blast—

On came the whirlwind ; steel-gleams broke

Like lightning through the rolling smoke;
The war was waked anew:

Three hundred cannon-mouths roared loud,

And from their throats, with ﬂash and cloud,
Their showers of iron threw.

Beneath their ﬁre, in full career,

Rushed on the ponderous cuirassier;

The lancer couched his ruthless spear,

And, hurrying as to havoc near,
The cohorts’ eagles ﬂew.

In one dark torrent, broad and strong,

The advancing onset rolled along,

Forth harbingered by ﬁerce acclaim,

That, from the shroud of smoke and ﬂame,

Pealed wildly the imperial name.

“But on the British heart were lost
The terrors of the charging host;
For not an eye the storm that viewed
Changed its proud glance of fortitude,
Nor was one forward footstep stayed,
As dropped the dying’ and the dead.
Fast as their ranks the thunders tear,
Fast they renewed each serried square;
And on the wounded and the slain
Closed their diminished ﬁles again,
Till from their line, scarce spear’s lengths three,
Emerging from the smoke they see
Helmet, and plume, and panoply:

Then waked their ﬁre at once !
Each musketeer’s revolving knell
As fast, as regularly fell
As when they practise to display
Their discipline on festal day.

Then down went helm and lance,
Down were the eagle banners sent,
Down reeling steeds and riders went,
Corslets were pierced, and pennons rent;

And, to augment the fray,

Wheeled full against their staggering ﬂanks,
The English horsemen’s foaming ranks
Forced their resistless way.

430 DECISIVE BATTLES [1815

Then to the musket-knell succeeds

The clash of swords, the neigh of steeds;
As plies the smith his clanging trade,
Against the cuirass rang the blade;

And while amid their close array

The well-served cannon rent their way,
And while amid their scattered band
Raged the ﬁerce rider’s bloody brand,
Recoiled, in common rout and fear,
Lancer and guard and cuirassier,
Horsemen and foot—a mingled host,
Their leaders fall’n, their standards lost.”— SCOTT.

8 “As far as the French accounts would lead us to infer, it appears that
the losses among Napoleon’s staff were comparatively triﬂing. On this
subject, perhaps, the marked contrast afforded by the following anecdotes,
which have been related to me on excellent authority, may tend to throw
some light. At one period of the battle, when the duke was surrounded
by several of his staff, it was very evident that the group had become the
object of the ﬁre of a French battery. The shot fell fast about them, gen-
erally striking and turning up the ground on which they stood. Their horses
became restive, and ‘ Copenhagen’ himself so ﬁdgety that the duke, getting
impatient, and having reasons for remaining on the spot, said to those about
him, ‘Gentlemen, we are rather too close together— better to divide a
little.’ Subsequently, at another point of the line, an ofﬁcer of artillery
came up to the duke, and stated that he had a distinct view of Napoleon,
attended by his staff; that he had the guns of his battery well pointed in
that direction, and was prepared to ﬁre. His Grace instantly and em—
phatically exclaimed, ‘ N o ! no ! I’ll not allow it. It is not the business of
commanders to be ﬁring upon each other.’ ”—SIBORNE. How different is
this from Napoleon’s conduct at the battle of Dresden, when he personally
directed the ﬁre of the battery, which, as he thought, killed the Emperor
Alexander, and actually killed Moreau.

9 “ Ouvrard, who attended Napoleon as chief commissary of the French
army on that occasion, told me that Napoleon was suffering from a com-

plaint which made it very painful for him to ride.” — LORD ELLESMERE.
1° Written in June, 1851.

[Professor Creasy’s work ends here. The two chapters that follow
were written specially for this edition, and appear in no other.—EDITOR.]

 

CHAPTER XVI

The Baffle qf Getzjlséurg, I86 3

‘ N [HEN the Missouri Compromise was abrogated,
in 18 54, large numbers of people in the Northern

States of the American Union, who had been
accustomed to look leniently upon the institution of slavery
in the Southern States, and were disposed to grant it every
indulgence in order to preserve the Union and maintain a
condition of peace, awoke to a sense of its aggressive nature,
and took a resolution that it should spread no farther.
Hence the formation of the Republican party, the only prac-
ticable antislavery organization that the country had known.
Its distinctive principle was opposition to any spread of
slavery into the Territories, or the admission of any more
slave States. It disclaimed any purpose of interfering with
the institution where it already existed, believing that, if con-
ﬁned to the territory it then occupied, it would slowly and
peacefully die out. The slaveholders probably entertained
the same belief, and, being determined that the institution
should not die, resolved upon the alternative of secession
from the Union (which they had long threatened), in case of
the success of the Republican party. They founded their
claim of the privilege to do this upon the theory that, in

entering the Union, no State surrendered its sovereignty,
but any one was at liberty to withdraw whenever it saw

ﬁt to do so. Hardly anybody in the Northern States, of
whatever political aﬁiliations, admitted the soundness of such
an interpretation of the National Constitution. Not only
did they point to the history of that instrument, which itself
declares its purpose to be “ to form a more perfect Union,” but
they appealed to the fact that, in surrendering the right to
coin money, make war, negotiate treaties, and levy customs

on imports, the States had actually surrendered every attri-
43I

432 DECISIVE BATTLES [1863

bute of sovereignty. Behind all the argumentation, and
more powerful than any possible construction of constitution
or compromises, stood the fact that the proposed secession,
according to the testimony of history, was against nature.
In all parts of the world it had been demonstrated that the
tendency of civilization was to create union, not secession,
within natural boundaries. Thus, for instance, the Hep-
tarchy had become Great Britain; Normandy, Brittany, Lor-
raine, Poitou, etc., had become France; Castile, Aragon,
Leon, etc., had become Spain; but France and Spain had
not united, because the Pyrenees Mountains made a natural
boundary between them. The cantons of Switzerland had
united; Norway and Sweden had formed one kingdom;
Italy was on the eve of uniﬁcation, and Germany was work-
ing toward it. An American citizen did not have to be a
very deep thinker to note the fact that between the free
States and the slave States there was no sufﬁcient natural
boundary, and that separation meant two standing armies
and constant danger of war. Hence, when the trial came,
the Northern people readily accepted the risk and sacriﬁce of
immediate and bloody strife, rather than bequeath to their

descendants a state of continual alarm and militarism like,

that of Europe.

The pretext for secession was that the election, in 1860,
of Abraham Lincoln, the candidate of the Republican party,
was a menace to the domestic institutions of the Southern
States so serious that their only safety lay in a separation
from the Union. This ignored the fact that when Mr. Lin-
coln was elected President a majority of the Congressmen
elected at the same time were politically opposed to him, so
that, had the Southern members remained in their seats, he
could have accomplished nothing detrimental to their section,
_ had he wanted to; and it also overlooked the fact that, since
there was no natural boundary between the free States and
the slave States, such a separation would only facilitate the
escape of the slaves from bondage and hasten the natural
decay of the institution. But it was a case in which temper
had a louder voice than reason, and ignorance displayed its
usual assertiveness. From the very differences in the mode
of life at the South and at the North, the Southerners were

‘e'icméz‘ts. ,4, g." “a 24.;

l

 

1863] BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG 433

more contentious in their disposition, and more accustomed
to the exercise of force, than their fellow citizens of the North ;
and they had come to consider the Northern population as
made up principally of plodding mechanics and pusillanimous
shopkeepers. Athough the census of 1860 showed a popula-
tion of twenty millions in the Northern States and but ten
millions in the Southern States, they entertained not the
slightest doubt of their ability to establish their independence
by a rapid and brilliant exercise of military power. Besides
accounting every Southern man equal as a soldier to two or
three Northern men, they expected help from that party in
the North which had always voted with them, and they were
conﬁdent also that England and France would not long en-
dure the stoppage of their cotton industries, and would be
only too glad of an opportunity to assist in the destruction of
the great Republic.

South Carolina led the way out of the Union with an ordi-
nance of secession in December, 1860, and the other cotton
States followed in rapid succession. In February, 1861, they
formed at Montgomery, Alabama, a new government under
the name of The Confederate States of America. Its con-
stitution was a close copy of that of the United States, except
as to the sections affecting slavery, and it gave no intimation of
any recognition of State sovereignty or a right of secession.
Its ﬁrst acts of war consisted in seizing the forts, arsenals,
and other United States property within its territory. At
Charleston and Pensacola it was not able to do this without a
struggle. Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor, was held by a
small garrison of United States troops commanded by Major
Robert Anderson, who refused to surrender except on com-
pulsion. Thereupon the Confederates erected batteries, at
every point from which it could be reached by shot, and on
April 12, 1861, Opened ﬁre. After a bombardment of two
days the fort was surrendered. This action aroused the
people of both sections, and from that day the avoidance of
actual war was no longer possible. Both sides raised and
equipped volunteer armies with remarkable rapidity, and
illusions of rapid conquest on either side were soon dispelled
' by the discovery that everybody was in earnest, and that the

rank and file of both armies needed only discipline and experi-
28

434 DECISIVE BATTLES [x863

ence to make them superior, as ﬁghting machines, to any-
thing that ever had been known. Before the conﬂict came
to a close, there were charges and other displays of valor and
skill that eclipsed anything in the history of European warfare.

In the West the National forces made comparatively rapid
progress. Missouri had been prevented from joining in the
secession movement in 1861, and Kentucky had steadily re-
fused to do so. The line of defense that the Confederates
attempted to establish along the boundary of Kentucky and
Tennessee was swept away early in 1862 by the battles of
Big Sandy and Mill Spring, and the capture of Forts Henry
and Donelson. Two months later New Orleans, by far the
largest city in the Confederacy, was captured by the ﬂeet
under Farragut, and it remained in the possession of the
National forces to the end. Somewhat later still, the army
under Grant went up the Tennessee and captured Iuka and
Corinth. These successes opened the back door of the Con~
federacy, as it was expressed, and made it reasonably certain
that sooner or later the conquering forces would penetrate to
the very heart of the country.

In the East, the progress was slower, for three reasons:
First, in commanders, the National armies there were less fortu-
nate, and the Confederate armies more fortunate, than at the
West. Second, at the West the National armies had only
to follow the courses of the streams and attack artiﬁcial lines
of defense, while at the East they had to cross the streams
and attack natural lines of defense. Third, both capitals
(Washington and Richmond) were at the East, and the ﬁrst
anxiety of each Government was to protect its capital. For
this reason, also, attention, both in the United States and in
Europe, was directed more to operations in the East.

The battle of Bull Run (July 21, 1861) was a Confederate
victory. McClellan’s campaign on the peninsula, in May and
June, 1862, in which he attempted to take Richmond by ap-
proaching from the east, was a failure, though no one of the
half dozen battles was a complete Confederate victory. The
second battle of Bull Run, or Groveton (August 29, 30, 1862),
was a Confederate victory, and is notable as the only clear vic-
tory ever achieved by the Army of Northern Virginia when
acting on the offensive. In the battle of the Antietam (Sep-

 

‘ :{Len«...;;um« “1...“;

I863] BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG 435

tember I 7, 1862) the Confederates were defeated and their ﬁrst
serious attempt to invade the North was frustrated. In the bat-
tle of Fredericksburg (December I3, 1862) the Confederates
won another victory by simply standing on the defensive in
an impregnable position which the National commander was
unwise enough to assail in front. Chancellorsville (May
2, 3, 1863), might have been a National victory had not the
commander of the Army of the Potomac been disabled sufﬁ-
ciently to disconcert all his plans, but not enough to compel
him to retire from the ﬁeld. Here again the Confederate
army was strategically on the defensive, though. tactically it
assumed the offensive for a part of the engagement.

After this series of victories, public opinion in the South
began to demand that the army under Lee should invade the
North, or at least make a bold movement toward Washington.
Public opinion is not often very discriminating in an exciting
crisis; and on this occasion public opinion failed to discrimi-
nate between the comparative ease with which an army in a
strong position may repel a faultily planned or badly man-
aged attack, and the difﬁculties that must beset the same
army when it leaves its base, launches forth into the enemy’s
country, and is obliged to maintain a constantly lengthening
line of communication. The Southern public could not see
why, since the Army of Northern Virginia had won two vic-
tories on the Rappahannock, it might not march forward at
once, lay New York and Philadelphia under contribution, and
dictate peace and Southern independence in the Capitol at
Washington. Whether the Confederate Government shared
this feeling or not, it acted in accordance with it; and whether
Lee approved it or not, he was obliged to obey. Yet, in the
largest consideration of the problem, this demand for an inva-
sion of the North was correct, though the result proved dis-
astrous. For experience shows that purely defensive warfare
will not accomplish anything. Lee’s army had received a
heavy reenforcement by the arrival of Longstreet’s corps, its
regiments had been ﬁlled up with conscripts, it had unbounded
conﬁdence in itself, and this was the time, if ever, to put the
plan for independence to the crucial test of offensive warfare.
Many subsidiary considerations strengthened the argument.
About thirty thousand of Hooker’s men had been enlisted

436 DECISIVE BATTLES [1863'

in the spring of 1861, for two years, and their term was now
expiring. Vicksburg was besieged by Grant, before whom
nothing had stood as yet; and its fall would open the Missis-
sippi and cut the Confederacy in two, which might seal the
fate of the new Government unless the shock were neutral-
ized by a great victory in the East. Volunteering had fallen
off in the North, conscription was resorted to, the Democratic
party there had become more hostile to the Government and
loudly abusive of President Lincoln and his advisers, and
there were signs of riotous resistance to a draft. Finally, the
Confederate agents in Europe reported that anything like a
great Confederate victory would secure immediate recognition,
if not armed intervention, from England and France.
Hooker, who had lost a golden opportunity by his aberra-
tion or his accident at Chancellorsville, had come to his senses
again and was alert, active, and clear-headed. As early as
May 28, 1863, he informed the President that something was
stirring in the camp on the other side of the river, and that a
northward movement might be expected. On the 3d of June
Lee began his movement, and by the 8th two of his three
corps (those of Ewell and Longstreet) were at Culpeper,
while A. P. Hill’s corps held the lines on the Rappahannock.
It was known that the entire Confederate cavalry, under
Stuart, was at Culpeper, and Hooker sent all his cavalry,
under Pleasonton, with two brigades of infantry, to attack it
there. The assault was to be made in two converging columns,
under Buford and Gregg; but this plan was disconcerted by
the fact that the enemy’s cavalry, intent upon masking the
movement of the great body of infantry and protecting its
ﬂank, had advanced to Brandy Station. Here it was struck
ﬁrst by Buford and afterward by Gregg, and there was bloody
ﬁghting, with the advantage at ﬁrst in favor of the National
troops, but the two columns failed to unite during the action,
and ﬁnally withdrew. The loss was somewhat more than
ﬁve hundred men on each side. Each side asserted that it
had accomplished its object— Pleasonton in ascertaining the
movements of Lee’s army, Stuart in having driven back
his opponent. Some of the heaviest ﬁghting was for pos-
session of a height known as Fleetwood Hill, and the Con-
federates name the action the battle of Fleetwood. It is of

 

1863] BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG 437

special interest as marking the turning-point in cavalry service
during the war. Up to that time the Confederate cavalry
had been generally superior to the National; this action—
a cavalry ﬁght in the proper sense of the term, between the
entire mounted forces of the two armies —was a drawn battle;
and thenceforth the National cavalry exhibited superiority
in an accelerating ratio, till ﬁnally nothing mounted on South—
ern horses could stand before the magniﬁcent squadrons led
by Sheridan, Custer, Kilpatrick, and Wilson.

Hooker now knew that the movement he had anticipated
was in progress, and he was very decided in his opinion as to
what should be done. By the I 3th of June, Lee had advanced
Ewell’s corps beyond the Blue Ridge, and it was marching
down the Shenandoah valley, while Hill’s was still in the
intrenchments on the Rapidan, and Longstreet’s was midway
between, at Culpeper. Hooker asked to be allowed to inter-
pose his Whole army between these widely separated parts of
its antagonist and defeat them in detail; but with a man like
Halleck for military adviser at Washington, it was useless to
propose any bold or brilliant stroke. Hooker was forbidden
to do this, and ordered to keep his army between the enemy
and the capital. He therefore left his position on the Rap-
pahannock, and moved toward Washington, along the line of
the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. Ewell moved rapidly
down the Shenandoah valley, and attacked Winchester, which
was held by General Milroy with about ten thousand men.
Milroy made a gallant defense; but after a stubborn ﬁght his

I force was broken and defeated, and about four thousand of
them became prisoners. The survivors escaped to Harper’s
Ferry. .

The corps of Hill and Longstreet now moved, Hill follow-
ing Ewell into the Shenandoah valley, and Longstreet skirting
the Blue Ridge along its eastern base. Pleasonton’s cavalry,
reconnoitering these movements, met Stuart’s again at Aldie,
near a gap in the Bull Run Mountains, and had a sharp ﬁght;
and there were also cavalry actions at Middleburg and Upper—
ville. Other Confederate cavalry had already crossed the
Potomac, made a raid as far as Chambersburg, and returned
with supplies to Ewell. On the 22d, Ewell’s corps crossed
at Shepherdstown and Williamsport, and moved up the Cum-

438 DECISIVE BATTLES [x863

berland valley to Chambersburg. A panic ensued among the
inhabitants of that region, who hastened to drive off their cat-
tle and horses to save them from seizure. The Governors of
New York and Pennsylvania were called upon for militia, and
forwarded several regiments to be interposed between the
enemy’s advance and Philadelphia and Harrisburg. The
other two corps of Lee’s army crossed the Potomac on the
24th and 2 5th, where Ewell had crossed; and Hooker, moving
on a line nearer Washington, crossed with his whole army at
Edward’s Ferry on the 25th and 26th, marching thence to
Frederick. He now proposed to send Slocum’s corps to the
western side of the South Mountain range, have it unite with
a force of eleven thousand men under French that lay use-
less at Harper’s Ferry, and throw a powerful column upon
Lee’s communications, capture his trains, and attack his army
in the rear. But again he came into collision with the stub-
born Halleck, who would not consent to the abandonment,
even temporarily, of Harper’s Ferry, though the experience
of the Antietam campaign, when he attempted to hold it in
the same way and lost its whole garrison, should have taught
him better. This new cause of trouble, added to previous

disagreements, was more than Hooker could stand, and on.

the 27th he asked to be relieved from command of the army.
His request was promptly complied with, and the next morn-
ing the command was given to General Meade.

George Gordon Meade, then in his forty-ninth year, was a
graduate of West Point, had served through the Mexican
war, had done engineer duty in the survey of the great lakes,
had been with McClellan on the peninsula, and had com~
manded a corps in the Army of the Potomac at Antietam, at
Fredericksburg, and at Chancellorsville. The ﬁrst thing he
did on assuming command was partly what Hooker was for-
. hidden to do —he ordered the evacuation of Harper’s Ferry,
and the movement of its garrison to Frederick as a reserve.

At this time, June 28th, one portion of Lee’s army was at
Chambersburg, or between that place and Gettysburg, another
at York and Carlisle, and a part of his cavalry was within
sight of the spires of Harrisburg. The main body of the
cavalry had gone off on a raid, Stuart having an ambition to
ride a third time round the Army of the Potomac. This

 

1863] BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG 439

absence of his cavalry left Lee in ignorance of the move
ments of his adversary, whom he appears to have expected
to remain quietly on the south side of the Potomac. When
suddenly he found his communications in danger, he called
back Ewell from Y0rk and Carlisle, and ordered the concen-
tration of all his forces at Gettysburg. Many converging
roads lead into that town, and its convenience for such con-
centration was obvious. Meade was also advancing his army
toward Gettysburg, though with a more uncertain step—as
was necessary, since his object was to ﬁnd Lee’s army and
ﬁght it, wherever it might go. His cavalry, under Pleason-
ton, was doing good service, and that General advanced a
division under Buford on the 29th to Gettysburg, with orders
to delay the enemy till the army could come up. Meade had
some expectation of bringing on the expected battle at Pipe
Creek, southeast of Gettysburg, where he marked out a good
defensive line; but the First Corps, under General John F.
Reynolds, advanced rapidly to Gettysburg, and on the Ist of
July encountered west of the town a portion of the enemy
coming in from Chambersburg. Lee had about seventy-
three thousand, ﬁve hundred men (infantry and artillery),
and Meade about eighty-two thousand, while the cavalry
numbered about eleven thousand on each side, and both
armies had more cannon than they could use.1

When Reynolds advanced his own corps (the First) and
determined to hold Gettysburg, he ordered the Eleventh
(Howard’s) to come up to its support. The country about
Gettysburg is broken into ridges, mainly parallel and running
north and south. On the ﬁrst ridge west of the village
stood a theological seminary, which gave it the name of Semi-
nary Ridge. Between this and the next is a small stream
called Willoughby Run, and here the ﬁrst day’s battle was
. fought. Buford held the ridges till the infantry arrived,
climbing into the belfry of the seminary and looking anx-
iously for their coming. The Confederates were advancing
by two roads that met in a point at the edge of the village,
and Reynolds disposed his troops, as fast as they arrived, so
as to dispute the passage on both roads. The key-point was
a piece of high ground, partly covered with woods, between
the roads, and the advance of both sides rushed for it. Here

44o DECISIVE BATTLES [1863

General Reynolds, going forward to survey the ground, was
shot by a sharpshooter and fell dead. He was one of the
ablest corps commanders that the Army of the Potomac ever
had. The command devolved upon General Abner Double-
day. The Confederate force contending for possession of
the woods was Archer’s brigade; the National was Mere-
dith’s Iron Brigade. Archer’s men had been told that they
would meet nothing but Pennsylvania militia, which they
expected to brush out of the way with little trouble; but
when they saw the Iron Brigade, some of them were heard
saying: “’Taint no militia; there are the black-batted
fellows again; it’s the Army of the Potomac!” The result
here was that Meredith’s men not only secured the woods,
but captured General Archer and a large part of his brigade,
and then advanced to the ridge west of the run. '

On the right of the line there had been bloody ﬁghting,
with unsatisfactory results, owing to the careless posting of
regiments and a want of concert in action. Two National
regiments were driven from the ﬁeld and a gun was lost,
while on the other hand a Confederate force was driven into
a railroad cut for shelter, and then subjected to an enﬁlading
ﬁre through the cut, so that a large portion was captured ~
and the remainder dispersed.

Whether any commander on either side intended to bring
on a battle at this point, is doubtful. But both sides were
rapidly and heavily reenforced, and both fought with deter-
mination. The struggle for the Chambersburg road was
obstinate, especially after the Confederates had planted sev-
eral guns to sweep it. “We have come to stay,” said Roy
Stone’s brigade, as they came into line under the ﬁre of these
guns to support a battery of their own, and “ the battle after-
ward became so severe that the greater portion did stay,” says
- General Doubleday. A division of Ewell’s corps soon arrived
from Carlisle, wheeled into position, and struck the right of the
National line. Robinson’s division, resting on Seminary Ridge,
was promptly brought forward to meet this new peril, and was
so skilfully handled that it presently captured three North
Carolina regiments.

General Oliver 0. Howard, being the ranking oﬂicer, as
sumed command when he arrived on this part of the ﬁeld;

 

 

1863] BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG ' 441

and when his own corps (the Eleventh) came up, about one
o’clock, he placed it in position on the right, prolonging the
line of battle far around to the north of the town. This great
extension made it weak at many points; and as fresh divi-
sions of Confederate troops were constantly arriving, under
Lee’s general order to concentrate on the town, they ﬁnally
became powerful enough to break through the center, rolling
back the right ﬂank of the First Corps and the left of the
Eleventh, and throwing into confusion everything except the
left of the First Corps, which retired in good order, protecting
artillery and ambulances. Of the fugitives that swarmed
through the town, about ﬁve thousand were made prisoners.
But this had been effected only at heavy cost to the Confed~
erates. At one point Iverson’s Georgia brigade had rushed
up to a stone fence behind which Baxter’s brigade was shel-
tered, when Baxter’s men suddenly rose and delivered a vol-
ley that struck down ﬁve hundred of Iverson’s in an instant,
while the remainder, who were subjected also to a cross-
ﬁre, immediately surrendered—all but one regiment, which
escaped by raising a white ﬂag. .

In the midst of the confusion, General Winﬁeld S. Han-
cock arrived, under orders from General Meade to supersede
Howard in the command of that wing of the army. He had
been instructed also to choose a position for the army to
meet the great shock of battle, if he should ﬁnd a better one
than the line of Pipe Creek. Hancock’s ﬁrst duty was to
. rally the fugitives and restore order and conﬁdence. Stein-
wehr’s division was in reserve on Cemetery Ridge, and
Buford’s cavalry was on the plain between the town and the
ridge; and with these standing fast he stopped the retreat
and rapidly formed a line along that crest.

The ridge begins in Round Top, a high, rocky hill; next
north of this is Little Round Top, smaller but still bold and
rugged; and thence it is continued at a less elevation, with
gentler slopes, northward within half a mile of the town,
where it curves around to the east and ends at Rock Creek.
The whole length is about three miles. Seminary Ridge is a
mile west of this, and nearly parallel with its central portion.
Hancock without hesitation chose this line, placed all the
available troops in position, and then hurried back to head—

442 DECISIVE BATTLES [I863

quarters at Taneytown. Meade at once accepted his plan,
and sent forward the remaining corps. The Third Corps,
commanded by General Sickles, being already on the march,
arrived at sunset. The Second (Hancock’s) marched thir-
teen miles and went into position. The Fifth (Sykes’s) was
twenty-three miles away, but marched all night and arrived
in the morning. The Sixth (Sedgwick’s) was thirty-six miles
away, but was put in motion at once. At the same time Lee
was urging the various divisions of his army to make the
concentration as rapidly as possible, not wishing to attack
the heights till his forces were all up.

It is said by General Longstreet that Lee had promised his
corps commanders not to ﬁght a battle during this expedition,
unless he could take a position and stand on the defensive;
but the excitement and conﬁdence of his soldiers, Who felt
themselves invincible, compelled him. While he'was waiting
for his divisions to arrive, forming his lines and perfect-
ing a plan of attack, Sedgwick’s corps arrived on the other
side, and the National troops were busy constructing rude
breastworks on some portions of their line.

Between the two great ridges there is another ridge, situ~
ated somewhat like the diagonal portion of a capital N. The
order of the corps, beginning at the right, was this: Slocum’s, ’
Howard’s, Hancock’s, Sickles’s, with Sykes’s in reserve on
the left and Sedgwick’s on the right. Sickles, thinking to
occupy more advantageous ground, instead of remaining in
line, advanced to the diagonal ridge, and on this hinged the
whole battle of the second day. For there was nothing on
which to rest his left ﬂank, and he was obliged to “refuse”
it—turn it sharply back toward Round Top. This presented
a salient angle (always a weak point) to the enemy; and
here, when the action opened at four o’clock in the afternoon,
the blow fell. The angle was at a peach orchard, and the
refused line stretched back through a wheat-ﬁeld, General
Birney’s division occupying this ground, while the right of
Sickles’s line was held by Humphreys.

Longstreet’s men attacked the salient vigorously, and his
extreme right, composed of Hood’s division, stretched out
toward Little Round Top, where it narrowly missed winning
a position that would have enabled it to enﬁlade the whole

 

1863] BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG 443

National line. Little Round Top had been occupied only by
signal men, when General Warren saw the danger, detached
Vincent’s brigade from a division that was going out to reen‘
force Sickles, and ordered it to occupy the hill at once. One
regiment of Weed’s brigade (the moth New York) also went
up, dragging and lifting the guns of Hazlett’s battery up the
rocky slope; and the whole brigade soon followed. They
were just in time to meet the advance of Hood’s Texans and
engage in one of'the bloodiest conﬂicts of the war. At length
the Texans were hurled back, and the position was secured;
but dead or wounded soldiers, in blue and in gray, lay
everywhere among the rocks. General Weed was mortally
wounded, General Vincent was killed, Colonel Patrick H.
O’Rorke, of the I40th, a recent graduate of West Point, of
brilliant promise, was shot dead at the head of his men, and
Lieutenant Charles E. Hazlett was killed as he leaned over

General Weed to catch his last words. “I would rather die
here,” said Weed, “than that the rebels should gain an inch
of this ground!” Hood’s men made one more attempt, by

creeping up the ravine between the two Round Tops, but
were repelled by a bayonet charge, executed by Chamber-
lain’s 20th Maine Regiment, and ﬁve hundred of them, with
seventeen ofﬁcers, were made prisoners.

Meanwhile terriﬁc ﬁghting was going on at the salient in
the peach orchard. Several batteries were in play on both
sides, and made destructive work; a single shell from one of
the National guns killed or wounded thirty men in a com-
pany of thirty-seven. Here General Zook was killed, Colonel
Cross was killed, General Sickles lost a leg, and the Confed-
erate General Barksdale was mortally wounded and died a
prisoner. There were repeated charges and counter-charges,
and numerous bloody incidents; for Sickles was constantly
reenforced, and Lee, being under the impression that this was
, the ﬂank of the main line, kept hammering at it till his men
ﬁnally possessed the peach orchard, advanced their lines, as-
sailed the left ﬂank of Humphreys, and ﬁnally drove back
the National line, only to ﬁnd that they had forced it into its
true position, from which they could not dislodge it by any
direct attack, while the guns and troops that now crowned
the two Round Tops showed any ﬂank movement to be impos‘

444 DECISIVE BATTLES [1863

sible. About sunset Ewell’s corps assailed the Union right,
and at heavy cost gained a portion of the works near Rock
Creek.

One of the most dramatic incidents of this day was a
charge on Cemetery Hill by two Confederate brigades, led
by an organization known as the Louisiana Tigers. It was
made just at dusk, and the charging column immediately
became a target for the batteries of Wiedrick, Stevens, and
Ricketts, which ﬁred grape and canister, each gun making
four discharges a minute. But the Tigers had the reputa-
tion of never having failed in a charge, and in spite of the
frightful gaps made by the artillery and by volleys of mus-
ketry, they kept on till they reached the guns and made a
hand-to-hand ﬁght for them. Friend and foe were fast be.-
coming mingled when Carroll’s brigade came to the rescue
of the guns, and the remnants of the Confederate column ﬂed
down the hill in the gathering darkness, hastened by a double-
shotted ﬁre from Ricketts’s battery. Of the seventeen hun-
dred Tigers, twelve hundred had been struck down, and that
famous organization never was heard of again.

While the actions of the ﬁrstrtwo days were complicated,
that of the third was extremely simple. Lee had tried both ~
ﬂanks, and failed. He now determined to attempt piercing
the center of Meade’s line. Longstreet, wiser than his chief,
protested, but in vain. On the other hand, Meade had held
a council of war the night before, and in accordance with the
vote of his corps commanders determined to stay where he
was and ﬁght it out. Lee’s ﬁrst intended movement was to
push the success gained at the close of the second day by Ewell
on the National right; but Meade anticipated him, attacking
early in the morning and driving Ewell out of his works.
In preparation for a grand charge, Lee placed more than one
- hundred guns in position on Seminary Ridge, converging
their ﬁre on the left center of Meade’s line, where he intended
to send his storming column. Eighty guns (all there was
room for) were placed in position on Cemetery Ridge to reply,
and at one o’clock the ﬁring began. This was one of the
most terriﬁc artillery duels ever witnessed. There was a
continuous and deafening roar, which was heard forty miles
away. The shot and shells plowed up the ground, shat-

 

1863] BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG 445

tered gravestones in the cemetery and sent their fragments
ﬂying among the troops, exploded caissons, and dismounted
guns. A house used for Meade’s headquarters, in the rear
of the line, was completely riddled. Many artillerists and
horses were killed; but the casualties among the infantry
were not numerous, for the men lay ﬂat upon the ground,
taking advantage of every shelter, and waited for the more
serious work that all knew was to follow. At the end of two
hours General Henry J. Hunt, Meade’s chief of artillery,
ordered the ﬁring to cease, both to cool the guns and to save
the ammunition for use in repelling the infantry charge.
Lee supposed that his object—which was to demoralize his
enemy and cause him to exhaust his artillery—had been
effected. Fourteen thousand of his best troops—including
Pickett’s division, which had not arrived in time for the pre-
vious day’s ﬁghting —-now came out of the woods, formed in
heavy columns, and moved forward steadily to the charge.
Instantly the National guns reopened ﬁre, and the Confed—
erate ranks were plowed through and through; but the
gaps were closed up, and the columns did not halt. There
was a mile of open ground for them to traverse, and every
step was taken under heavy ﬁre. As they drew nearer, the
batteries used grape and canister, and an infantry force posted
in advance of the main line rose to its feet and ﬁred volleys
of musketry into the right ﬂank. Now the columns began
visibly to break up and melt away ; and the left wing of the
force changed its direction somewhat, so that it parted from
the right, making an interval and exposing a new ﬂank, of
which the National troops promptly took advantage. But
Pickett’s diminishing ranks pushed on, till they passed over
the outer lines, fought hand-to-hand at the main line, and
even leaped the breastworks and thought to capture the bat-
teries. The point where they penetrated was marked by a
clump of small trees on the edge of the hill, at that portion
of the line held by the brigade of General Alexander S. Webb,
who was wounded; but his men stood ﬁrm against the shock,
and, from the eagerness of all to join in the contest, men
rushed from every side to the point assailed, mixing up all
commands, but making a front that no such remnant as Pick-
ett’s could break. General Lewis A. Armistead, who led the

446 DECISIVE BATTLES [1863

charge and leaped over the wall, was shot down as he laid
his hand on a gun, and his surviving soldiers surrendered
themselves. On the slope of the hill many of the assailants
had thrown themselves upon the ground and held up their
hands for quarter; and an immediate sally from the National
lines brought in a large number of prisoners and battle-ﬂags.
Of that magniﬁcent column which had been launched out so
proudly, only a broken fragment ever returned. Nearly
every ofﬁcer in it, except Pickett, had been either killed or

wounded. Armistead, a prisoner and dying, said to an ofﬁcer .

who was bending over him, “Tell Hancock I have wronged
him and have wronged my country.” He had been opposed
to secession, but the pressure of his friends and relatives had
at length forced him into the service. Hancock had been
wounded and borne from the ﬁeld, and among the other
wounded on the National side were Generals Doubleday,
Gibbon, Warren, Butterﬁeld, Stannard, Barnes, and Brooke.
General Farnsworth was killed, and General Gabriel R. Paul
lost both eyes. Among the killed on the Confederate side,
besides those already mentioned, were Generals Garnett,
Fender, and Semmes; and among the wounded, Generals
Hampton, Jenkins, Kemper, Scales, J. M. Jones, and G. T.
Anderson.

While this movement was in progress, Kilpatrick with his
cavalry rode round the mountain and attempted to pass the
Confederate right and capture the trains, while Stuart with
his cavalry made a simultaneous attempt on the National
right. Each had a bloody ﬁght, but neither was successful.
This closed the battle. Hancock urged that a great return
charge should be made immediately with Sedgwick’s corps,
which had not participated, and Lee expected such a move-
ment as a matter of course. But it was not done.

That night Lee made preparations for retreat, and the
'next day—which was the 4th of July—the retreat was
begun. General Imboden, who conducted the trains and the
ambulances, describes it as one of the most pitiful and heart-
rending scenes ever witnessed. A heavy storm had come up,
the roads were in bad condition, few of the wounded had been
properly cared for, and as they were jolted along in agony
they were groaning, cursing, babbling of their homes, and

 

 

I 863] BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG 447

calling upon their friends to kill them and put them out of
misery. But there could be no halt, for the Potomac was
rising, and an attack was hourly expected from the enemy in
the rear.

Meade, however, did not pursue for several days, and then
to no purpose, so that Lee’s crippled army escaped into
Virginia; but it was disabled from ever doing anything more
than prolonging the contest. Gettysburg was essentially the
Waterloo of the war, and there is a striking parallel in the
losses. The numbers engaged were very nearly the same in
the one battle as in the other. At Waterloo the victors lost
twenty-three thousand, one hundred and eighty-ﬁve men,
and the vanquished, in round numbers, thirty thousand. At
Gettysburg the National loss was twenty-three thousand, one
hundred and ninety—killed, wounded, and missing. The
Confederate losses were never ofﬁcially reported, but esti-
mates place them at nearly thirty thousand. Lee left seven
thousand of his wounded among the unburied dead, and
twenty-seven thousand muskets were picked up on the ﬁeld.
That little umbrella-shaped clump of trees in the center of
the National line, toward which Pickett’s charge was directed,
is pointed out as the spot where the rebellion touched high-
water mark. When Lee’s shattered army crawled back into
Virginia, it was certain that, however it might be strength-
ened by weakening the Confederate defenses at other points,
and by taking in what little material for soldiers could still
be gleaned after the rigid conscription laws, it would invade
no more. As it was in a country full of natural lines of
defense, which had been strengthened with elaborate fortiﬁ-
cations, and with which it had become thoroughly familiar, it
was still possible for it to maintain a sturdy defensive atti-
tude; but its destruction was only a question of time.

The most important military operations at the West were
those directed against Vicksburg on the Mississippi. At this
point the line of transportation by which the Confederates
drew their supplies from Texas and northern Louisiana crossed
the great river, and this and Port Hudson were the last places
on the stream that remained under their control. Its high
bluffs were crowned with guns that could throw a plunging
ﬁre upon any vessel that attempted to pass, and its rear was

.. 1
A..._»~ . A .

448 DECISIVE BATTLES [1863

heavily fortiﬁed as well. After Grant had found it impreg-
nable from the north, he boldly transported his army across ~
the Mississippi, marched to Grand Gulf, about thirty miles
below the city, crossed to the eastern bank, and then marched
northeast to Raymond and Jackson, and thence westward to
Vicksburg, driving before him the Confederate army under
Pemberton. There were battles at Raymond, Jackson, Cham-
pion’s Hill, and the crossing of the Big Black, in all of which
the Confederates were defeated, and they were then shut up
in the city, which Grant closely beleaguered. On the forty-
seventh day of the siege (July 4, 1863), the place was sur-
rendered unconditionally, with its entire garrison of thirty-
one thousand, six hundred men. Five days later, Port
Hudson, besieged by a force of twelve thousand men under
General Banks and the ﬂeet under Farragut, was also sur-
rendered.

Gettysburg on the ﬁrst three days of July, and Vicksburg
on the 4th, formed one great and overwhelming victory. Its
importance was at once recognized on the other side of the
Atlantic, where it destroyed the last chance of interference '
by any European power, and put an end to the market for
Confederate bonds. The doom of what Mr. Gladstone had'
hastened to eulogize as “a nation created in a day ” was now
sealed, and it only remained for the citizens to reélect Presi-
dent Lincoln, thus shutting off all prospect of relief through
political means, and for the National armies to hammer away
till the ﬁnal catastrophe should overtake the institution of
slavery and its valorous but misguided defenders. The the-
ory of State sovereignty went down with it, while the princi-
ple of State rights under the Constitution remained intact, as
all would have it, and probably will remain forever.

R. J.

1 NOTE. —Various ﬁgures and estimates are given as representing the
strength of the two armies, some of which take account of detachments
absent on special duty, and some do not. The ﬁgures here given denote
very nearly the forces actually available for the battle.

 

 

CHAPTER XVII

2726 Battle of Sedan, 1870

they were imposed on Europe by the Napoleonic con-
quests, were not lost by the overthrow of the Empire.

The personal rule of kings, hereditary aristocracy as a gov-
erning caste, the power of the Roman Curia as an arbiter
between nations, and the feudal organization of society, were
doomed to extinction, where they had not already passed
away. The idea of popular sovereignty, of the control of
the whole people over the acts of government through the
choice of legislators and a responsible executive, the system
embodied in the Constitution of the United States, was still
the ideal of Europe, though from the lassitude that follows
revolution a reaction set in that was deadening and stupefy-
ing in proportion to the exciting whirl of the revolutionary
epoch that it succeeded. The rapidly growing manufactur-
ing class and the men of commerce and the professions had
long been a power in England, and on the Continent the third
. estate, having raised its head, was not to be again reduced to
subjection; nor did the statesmen who readjusted European
politics expect to undo the work of the Revolution, but only
to check the continued growth of democracy and effect com-
promises between the old and the new. Talleyrand was him-
self,a child of the Revolution. Alexander I., in founding the
Holy Alliance, dreamed of imparting liberty and power to
the peoples, and began by granting a constitution to Poland.
The immediate care of the statesmen who took charge of
the destinies of Europe after the exile of Napoleon to Elba
and, subsequently to Waterloo, to St. Helena, was to crush
his party and to extirpate his inﬂuence in all countries; to
turn his brothers and his marshals out of the throneswhich

they ﬁlled ingloriously as representatives of his incongruous
29 449

THE principles of the French Revolution, in so far as

450 DECISIVE BATTLES [1870

and foolish ambition to found a dynasty and as satraps of his
military empire. Metternich, Talleyrand, Nesselrode, Harden-
berg, and Castlereagh, while haggling as diplomatists for the
gain of their respective governments, rearranged the map of
Europe in accordance with what they called the principle of
legitimacy, which was not a principle, but simply a diplo-
matic formula, a ﬁction, like the later concert of Europe.
Napoleon’s creatures were driven from their thrones, his
allies among the legitimate sovereigns had their frontiers
reduced and their power curtailed, and reigning families that
he had dethroned were restored to sovereignty, to live as
best they could with their people and accommodate them-
selves to the new order of things. The old boundaries, the
old commonwealths, were not and could not be restored.
Not the sovereigns, but an Areopagus of politicians, disposed
of their fortunes; and if they afterwards sought to revive the
divine right of kings, the political power of the Church and
the feudal nobility, the idea of theocracy, or the principles of
absolutism, they invited their fate. The Bourbons who could
not forget the old nor learn the new order were again cast
from their thrones, and some of the politicians who had

restored them had a hand also in the readjustment of power.-

In the rearrangement of boundaries that followed the
downfall of the French empire, England and Prussia, the
nations that had ﬁnally won the victory over the military
dictator of Europe, were rewarded with accessions of power
and dominion commensurate with the military strength they
had developed. Russia obtained a more powerful voice in
the councils of Europe. Austria, no longer at the head of
the Holy Roman empire, was erected into a new and power-
ful military empire. Spain sank to the position of a second-
rate power. Holland was stripped of a great part of her
~ ultra-marine possessions, which went to enrich Great Britain,
now established by her naval power, by her coal and her
iron, by her mercantile enterprise and manufacturing indus-
try, as the leading commercial nation. The repartition of
Europe was as arbitrary, as artiﬁcial, as revolutionary, as the
empire of Napoleon Bonaparte. Austria took Lombardy and
Venetia. ' Poland went to Russia. Saxony was curtailed to
enlarge Prussia, and the latter, giving up a great part of her

 

1870] BATTLE OF SEDAN ‘ 4 5 1

Slavonic possessions to obtain weight and aggrandizement as
a German state, took the Rhenish provinces bordering upon
France, a change pregnant of events.

One outcome of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic
era was the organized, secular civil state — a political Roman
and Greek Renaissance that philosophers of various countries
had been preparing for centuries. Individual liberty and
equality before the law were ideals held in view, though in
reality the order controlling industrial and commercial capital
molded the laws in their class interest; yet, while petty re-
strictions or personal liberty were abolished, the sphere of law
was really enlarged, the system of government, of impersonal
government, was consolidated, the subordination of the indi-
vidual to the state became something like that in ancient
Athens and Rome. The central state thus evolved was
based on the idea of a social compact. Ethnic unity, a com-
mon language, uniform legal and social institutions, religious
conformity, national history — all were disregarded in the new
territorial divisions, founded partly on the dynastic conquests
and inheritances of the anterevolutionary age, partly on the
Napoleonic distribution, and chieﬂy on the greed and jealousy
of Napoleon’s conquerors. But the consolidated power of the
central government and the development of parliamentary
rule tended to knit the people of each state together.

In its oscillation between the old régime and the modern
state, the pendulum swung back again about 1830. France,

. still the originator of political movements, the mother of ideas,
in that year cast out the impracticable Bourbons of the old
line, and adopted the constitutional monarchy under Louis
Philippe, the bourgeois king. The expulsion of Charles X.
from France was followed by insurrections in Italy, Poland,
and Belgium, and a movement for popular government in
Northern Germany. These phenomena were inspired by the
desire for constitutional liberty, for popular rights; but joined
with this was a new principle —— the budding spirit of national-
ism. In all the succeeding period of repression and stagnation,
when the Russianautocracy, which had joined the family of
European nations bringing offerings to liberty, afterwards
sought to conform them to its own rigid system of despotism,
when Metternich imposed his despotic methods and upheld the

4 52 DECISIVE BATTLES [1870

principle of absolutism through the length and breadth of Ger-
many as well as in Italy, these two ideas of constitutional
liberty and national unity were indissolubly linked. Every
patriot—German, Italian, Pole, Magyar, or Czech—who
pleaded or strove for the restoration of national life and inde-
pendence was a lover of popular self-government and indi-
vidual liberty, and as such was treated as an enemy and a
disturber by the Prussian government not less than by the
ruling powers in Austria and Russia.

The introduction of constitutionalism in France, modeled
after parliamentary government as long established in Eng-
land, secured the ascendency of the third estate in that
country; but in the military and bureaucratic monarchies
of Central Europe, where industrial development was less
advanced and the feudal aristocracy had not lost its wealth
or its privileges, the struggle of the rising bourgeoisie for
representative institutions was long and severe. In I848 the
democratic revolution in Paris gave the signal for the towns-
people of Berlin, Vienna, and other capitals, and that year wit-
nessed the beginning of parliamentary life in many countries.

The treacherous usurpation of Napoleon III. in France was
a symptom of the reaction that extended throughout Europe. -
The emergent plutocracy joined forces with the powers of
monarchy, aristocracy, and ecclesiasticism to dam back the
tide of democracy. The growth and improvement, the
machinery of government, the organizing mission of the mod-
ern state in education, social conditions, agricultural and
industrial production, the adaptation of the public powers to
the needs and uses of the people, went on, while the onward
wave of liberalism swept the nations towards their goal of
popular liberty, and went on, too, when the reﬂuent wave of
conservative reaction swamped their immediate hopes and
‘ paralyzed their energies.

There were latterly on the Continent of Europe two main
centers of historical evolution, two sources of political thought
— France and Germany. The chief aim of the French pe0«
ple was the democratic republic, of which they had been
twice balked. The German people aspired to become a united‘
nation with free institutions. The desire for National unity
in Germany, ﬁrst awakened in the war against Bonaparte, was

 

1870] BATTLE or SEDAN 45 3

always coupled with the demand for constitutional government,
which was promised by the princes in the act of confedera-
tion. While the National Assembly was sitting in Frankfort
in 1848, the ﬁrst hostilities with Denmark over the Duchies
of Schleswig and Holstein began, and this brought Prussia
more to the front; but the democratic protagonists of National
unity opposed the leadership of Prussia, especially after the
overthrow of absolutism in Austria and the triumph of the
reaction in Prussia. The union of Lombardy with Italy as
the result of the war of 1859 gave a fresh impetus to the
movement for a united Germany. By keeping the confedera-
tion from going to war with France as Austria’s ally, Prussia
had gained a decided lead over the latter in the race for the
leadership in Germany. Bismarck raised the question of
Schleswig-Holstein again, declaring that only by blood and
iron, not by speeches and majorities, could the question of
German unity be settled. Austria was drawn into the war
with Denmark that ended in the cession of the Duchies in
1864, and then came the inevitable struggle between Prussia
and Austria for supremacy in Germany. Prussian strategy
won the Victory, and Prussia gained the Duchies, absorbed
Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, and Frankfort, and thrust
Austria out of Germany altogether.

Napoleon 111., though he declared that the empire was
embodied peace, must perforce revive the Napoleonic legend,
inﬂame the seething, embittered, divided French people with
visions of martial glory and national greatness, and attack
the great powers one after the other—Russia in the Crimea,
and Austria in Lombardy. The conﬂict with Prussia was
more serious, more inevitable. On the one side was a tyrant
who had antagonized the best forces of his people, his throne
already trembling, compelled to test his boasted military
strength, his chief and only remaining claim as a ruler, against
the rising warlike power on his frontier. On the other was
a great people, rapidly surmounting the secular difﬁculties
that stood in the way of union, already represented by one
of the great military powers of Europe, whose military spirit
and system had spread among the lesser states, now suddenly
confronted by the power that had spoiled and humiliated
them before and roused the thirst for vengeance that inspired

454 DECISIVE BATTLES [x870

the ﬁrst breath of German patriotism —this hereditary enemy
now threatening to avenge Waterloo, to crush and humble
them afresh! This was the opportunity of which their poets
had dreamed. They would sweep away the petty barriers,
the jealousies of princes; they would present a solid front
to the arrogant foe; they would merge gloriously into a
united nation by avenging Austerlitz and Jena. Louis Napo-
leon did not at ﬁrst expect to ﬁght against united Germany.
He was a subtle diplomatist, a crafty statesman, one who
could have sat worthily at the table of the Congress of Vienna,
where the peoples of Europe were bartered and exchanged;
but he could not understand the will and force of the
peoples, the German no better than his own. There was the
vigorous, aggressive, expanding young power that had sprung
up on the border of Germany and the Slav countries, not a
nation, not homogeneous in race, language, or religion, but
already a highly organized state like France, rivaling her now
in military resources, swallowing up the small states of Ger-
many, and ﬁrmly posted on the Rhine. A war between
France and Prussia seemed inevitable, so Napoleon craftily
chose the time to strike when Prussia had excited the keenest
jealousy on the part of the stronger German states. If he '
had been victorious over Russia, with England for his ally,
and, in alliance with Piedmont, over Austria, he would not
lack allies against this upstart power. Prussia herself con-
tained discordant elements. There were the Rhenish lands
and cities, still regretting the rule of the elder Napoleon, and
in the heart of the Prussian dominion Hanover and Bruns-
wick writhing in the iron grasp of an alien ruler, and other
principalities and free cities reft of their liberties or threat-
ened, while the Danes of Schleswig and the Poles were ﬁlled
with bitter resentment. The Hapsburg monarch might be
expected to wish to wipe out the stain of Koniggratz and the
ignominious exclusion of his dominions from Germany, over
which his ancestors had presided with the proudest title in
.Christendom. Prussia had wilfully split up Germany, draw-
1ng a line between the north and the south, between the
Protestant and the Catholic parts, as though madly bent on
weakening the national spirit and giving France an opportu-
nity to check her career of conquest and absorption. It was

 

 

1870] BATTLE OF SEDAN 45 5

on this that the French emperor built strong hopes. He saw
a North German Confederation in the place of the old German
Confederation, and believed that France, chief of Catholic
powers, the acknowledged protector of the Church, would
have Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, and Baden on her side in a war
with Prussia, if not as active allies, at least as benevolent
onlookers. When he knew of the military alliance between
these states and the North German Confederation, he still
believed that he could cope with Prussia, if not by means of
his own military strength alone, then by drawing Austria and
Italy into an alliance if he could gain some successes at the
start, relying on the usual brilliant initiative and dashing
energy of French arms to sustain their world-wide prestige.
The French army was reported to be arc/zz'prét; not a
gaiter lacked a button. Ready? It was thrice ready, de-
clared Marshal Leboeuf, the minister of war. The ques-
tion of the Spanish succession was the pretext for declaring
war against Prussia. The Spanish political generals had
decided to present to the Cortes the name of a mediatized
German prince, who was a kinsman of the Prussian king,
Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, as their candi-
date for the vacant Spanish throne. The interests and the
honor of France were declared to be imperiled by his candi-
dature, and when, through the mediation of England, Prince
Leopold withdrew his name, still some satisfaction was due
from the king of Prussia, who, as head of the family, had
given his consent. He should send a letter of apology to
the Emperor Napoleon and, at all events, lay his royal com-
mand upon Prince Leopold not to resume his candidature at
any future time. Count Bismarck intimated that France
owed reparation to the wounded feelings of Germany and,
if conﬁdence was to be restored, must give a guarantee
against a repetition of such attacks on her tranquillity.
While the British government was endeavoring to prevent a
rupture, M. Benedetti, French ambassador to Prussia,
sought out King William at Ems, and requested that he
give a distinct assurance that he would never again give his
consent to the candidature of the Hohenzollern prince if it
should be revived. The French minister urged the point
repeatedly, and later in the day sought another audience,

456 DECISIVE BATTLES [1870

but was informed that the king could give no other answer
than the one he had already given, and that henceforth
negotiations must proceed regularly through his ministers.
On the following day, after M. Benedetti had taken informal
leave of the king, the Berlin newspapers published a para-
graph announcing that after the renunciation of Prince
Leopold had been ofﬁcially communicated to the French
government the French ambassador had further demanded
certain engagements of the king, and that “His Majesty
thereupon declined to receive the French ambassador again,
and had told him, by the adjutant in attendance, that His
Majesty had nothing further to communicate to the ambas-
sador.” This communication to the press was declared to be
ground for war by the Due de Grammont, Napoleon’s minister
of foreign affairs, who told Lord Lyons, the English am-
bassador to France, that the Prussian government, by declar-
ing to the public that the king had affronted the French
ambassador, had deliberately insulted France, and by the
French prime minister, Emile Ollivier, who announced in
the Corps Législatif that the government had called out the
reserves and was prepared to maintain the proffered war and .
guard the interest, the security, and the honor of France.
Napoleon III. and his ministers, though but ill-informed of
the military resources of Germany,—for their successors
found the conﬁdential communications of the military attac/zé
at Berlin, long afterwards, reposing in the archives of the war-
ofﬁce with seals unbroken, — yet knew Prussia’s army to be as
formidable as the French and greatly superior in numbers.
They did not count, however, on the unanimity, the ardor,
the active patriotism in Germany, that would bring the whole
army of all the German states at once into the ﬁeld. The
emperor knew that Prussia could call out within a short time
900,000 men, and could expect 200,000 more from the South
German states, while his own total force was 600,000, of
which he counted on only the half, 300,000 men, as effective.
He made a deduction of a full half, too, from the nominal
German ﬁghting force, which left 550,000 men to confront
his 300,000. To compensate for his numerical inferiority,
his plan required him to cross the Rhine by a rapid move-
ment and separate South Germany from the North German

 

 

1370] BATTLE OF SEDAN 457

Confederation, securing, perhaps, the inaction of the South
German forces and probably attracting, by the e’clat of early
victories, Austria and Italy as allies. His plan, which he
worked out with the aid of Marshal MacMahon and conﬁded
to Marshal Leboeuf, was to mass 100,000 men at Strasburg,
and 150,000 at Metz, and hold 50,000 in reserve in the camp
at Chalons; unite the two armies, whose concentration on the
Rhine and the Saar, respectively, would give no indication to
the enemy whether he intended to break into Baden or into
the Rhine provinces; cross the Rhine at Maxau, midway
between the fortresses of Germersheim and Rastatt, and, _ ,
having forced the South German states to observe neutrality,
hurry forward to meet the Prussian troops in detail, if
possible, before all the formations could be brought .to the
front. Since the Prussian army was more numerous than
the French, it was necessary to strike suddenly and unexpect— '
edly, to gain an early success, and thus deter the wavering,
dismay the half-hearted, and allow the dissensions and jeal- :
ousies that had never been wanting between German states I
and princes to work for France. An important feature of the 1
French plan of campaign was to use the strong navy, which
the Germans had no force to oppose, to land a force on the
North Sea coast, and draw thither a part of the Prussian
troops, while the army of the Rhine, 300,000 strong, under ,
the immediate command of the emperor, should swiftly cross .‘
the Rhine below Strasburg, thus cutting off the South Ger-
man army from the North Germans, and assail in succession
the fortresses of the Rhine, if the main body of the Prussian}
army reached that point in time to meet the French attack. ‘
The announcement that the reserves were called out was
received with great enthusiasm. Students and the Paris mob
rushed through the boulevards shouting “A bas la Prusse. ' ”
“ V1ve 1a guerre!” “A Berlin!” As the regiments passed
through on their way to the front, the newspapers announced
to the world the composition and disposition of the formidable
army spread out on a broad front from Thionville to the gap
of Belfort, seven army corps under generals who had increased
the renown of French arms at Magenta and Solferino, at
Rome, in Mexico, and in Algeria. The 4th Corps, under
General L’Admirault, was stationed at Thionville; the 3d,

458 DECISIVE BATTLES [1870

under Marshal Bazaine, in the rear of this, near Metz; the
2d, under General Frossard, near St. Avold; the 5th, under
General de Failly, at Bitsche; the Ist, under Marshal Mac-
Mahon, in Strasburg; the 7th, under General Félix Douay,
at Belfort; the 6th, under Marshal Canrobert, in Chalons;
and the Imperial Guard was escorting the emperor from
Paris to the front.

Napoleon’s whole plan failed from the start. In prepara-
tion, organization, equipment, the French army was miserably
deﬁcient. The Germans had as much time to prepare as the
.French, for the declaration of war was delivered at Berlin on
{July 19, 1870, only four days after the reserves were called
{to arms. In fact, they were already prepared, their trans-
sport service thoroughly organized, all equipments and sup-
iplies ready, their ofﬁcers instructed sufﬁciently to carry on a
:campaign up to the gates of Paris, and in the archives of the
‘staff corps were pigeonholed maps of routes and terrain and
plans for all the contingencies of an offensive or a defensive
fcampaign, like the analysis of a game of chess, with more
"information regarding the French army and defenses than
the French emperor himself could. obtain. No one was more

surprised than he at the difﬁculties and delays that arose to ‘

obstruct his plan of throwing an overwhelming force against
E the Rhine fortresses the day after war was declared. The
railroad transport was so defective that only 40,000 men
could get through to Strasburg at once. Of eight corps com-
posing the attacking army, ﬁve were still on the Moselle, only
two were in Alsace, and one only stood on the frontier when
war was declared, General Frossard’s corps at St. Avold,
which was ordered to remain on the defensive. The regi«
ments had marched out of quarters insufﬁciently equipped
and much under strength, and when reserves were called out
to ﬁll the ranks these crowded the railroad stations and
blocked the trafﬁc, waiting to be forwarded to their regiments
in the labyrinth of encampments to which no one had the
clue. When they joined their regiments at last, they found
no arms or equipments provided for them. Corps were with-
out artillery, divisions had no baggage, there were no ambu—
lances, and there was a surprising and embarrassing lack of
ofﬁcers in every regiment. As magazines had not been es.‘

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1870] BATTLE OF SEDAN 459

tablished beforehand, the troops looked for supplies to the
fortresses; but none were there, because the army was so sure
of carrying the war at once into the enemy’s country that no
provision had been made for defense. Staff ofﬁcers had been
provided with maps of Germany, but they had none of their
own country. The Ministry of War at Paris, overwhelmed
with questions, complaints, and demands, could do nothing to
unravel the hopeless tangle, and left the ofﬁcers on the spot
to solve their difﬁculties in their own way.

The emperor arrived in Metz a week after war had been
declared, to ﬁnd the regiments not yet complete and the
troops so jumbled and dislocated, so ill-equipped and dis-
couraged, that, when he gave orders for an advance, his
marshals told him it was impossible to move an army in
such a condition.

Ever since Austria was cast out into the Orient, Prussia
had been preparing for a war with France. In that ﬁery
hearth were the elements of German unity to be fused and
smelted. The Prussian staff, with General von Moltke as
chief, had the plans for instant mobilization of the North
German army under constant study, and for every change
the Ministry of War made the necessary provisions. Every
branch of the administration throughout the country had all
necessary information and instructions for carrying out the
plan. The South German states entered into a complete
alliance with Prussia, and agreed to the plan of campaign,
though it involved danger to their armies, which were to
march at once into the enemy’s country, and danger to their
frontiers, thus left unguarded. The order of march and plans
for railroad and steamboat transport were worked out in the
minutest detail for each division, the time of departure and
arrival, halts for refreshment, and the provision of canton-
ments, stores, and magazines at the place of destination. All
was prearranged with the nicest precision, and when King
William signed the order for mobilization, three days before
he received the expected declaration of war, he knew that
a fortnight later he would ﬁnd an army of 300,000 men beyond
the Rhine, all ready to march into France.

Beyond the concentration on the frontier and the invasion
of Alsace across the middle Rhine, nothing was decided upon

460 DECISIVE BATTLES [I870

beforehand. The maneuvers to follow were left to the deci«
sion of the moment. The general plan of the war was to
attack the enemy wherever found; to keep the army in com-
pact masses, always able to throw a superior force into the
ﬁeld; to push on to Paris, the vital point of France, whose
capture was expected to end the war; and, in the advance,
to hammer on the French right ﬂank, so as to turn the enemy’s

forces out of the fertile southern provinces into the narrower;
region in the north. The mobilized German-”forces""WEre ,

divided into three independent armies: the ﬁrst army, com-
posed of 60,000men, encarfi'pé’a‘at‘ Wittlich under General
von Steinmetz, forming the right Wing; the army of the
center, 131,000 strong, under Prince Frederick Charles, as—
sembled at Homburg and Neunkirchen, with a reserve of
63,000 men encamped at Mayence; and the third army,
forming the left wing, composed of two of the Prussian and
the two Bavarian corps, with the Wiirtemberg and Baden ﬁeld

divisions, gathered in the vicinity of Landau and Rastatt under/

the command of the Crown Prince Frederick.

The disparity in numerical strength between the Prussian
and the French armies was due to the ﬁrm, strong govern-

ment in Prussia, which had forced the gigantic military organ-
ization against the will of the people and in deﬁance of the‘j

votes of the Parliament. In the Bohemian campaign of 1866
Prussia brought into the ﬁeld an army of 350,000 men, one to
every ﬁfty-four inhabitants. Napoleon III. at the summit of
his power could not force upon France such a system of mili-
tary service. After Koniggratz he endeavored to increase
the conscription so that France could send into the ﬁeld one
in seventy of the population, giving an army equal in num-
bers to that of Prussia; but his usually servile majority in the

Corps Le’gislatif drew back under the pressure of public opinr
ion, and voted some apparent changes that left the armx
practically what it was before. In training and discipline 7
the Prussian army was as much superior to the French as it
was in numbers, showing the same subordination to a ﬁrm “
authority that was lacking in France, founded on a faith in
the government and its mission as the instrument in the uni-

ﬁcation of Germany that had grown immensely stronger since

Koniggr'atz and the conﬁdent assertion of Prussian headship. .

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1870] BATTLE OF SEDAN 461

The hasty despatch of the French troops to the ﬁeld before
they were prepared for service failed of the purpose of sur-
prising the Germans and administering a check before they
could form. The French commanders perceived that instead
of attacking the enemy in his country, they would have to
defend their own. The plan of landing a force in northern
Prussia was already abandoned, and when the French ﬂeet
sailed round it was without troops. The intention of invad—
, ing South Germany was at once given up. Instead of mass-
ing a force on the Rhine to cross near Strasburg, troops were
,despatched from Metz to the Saar, where the army of General
von Steinmetz was concentrated at Wadern, while the German
center rested on the Haardt Mountains, and the Crown Prince’s
army gathered rapidly on both banks of the Rhine in time to
prevent the intended French invasion of the Black Forest
between Strasburg and Belfort, and to support the center,
which was being pushed forward like a wedge on the Saar.
The French made a reconnoissance in force at Saarbriickcn,
but dared not cross the stream to cut the railroad. They
could form no plan. They knew not where to strike, nor
What point to defend, and between contrary resolutions and
contradictory orders wasted time and scattered their forces,
which were spread out from the Nied to the upper Rhine,
compelling them eventually to divide into the separate armies
of Marshal MaCMahon and Marshal Bazaine. The attack on
Saarbriicken was useless as a reconnoissance, for the French
did not come within sight of the German troops, which were
swarming in the forest a short distance beyond the frontier.
The garrison of 2500 men withdrew after a few shots, and
General Frossard’s corps entered the town, only to retire im-
mediately, leaving the place to be reoccupied by the Prussians
the same afternoon. This aimless and insigniﬁcant action was
theatrically arranged for political effect, for the people were
growing very impatient at the inaction of the army. The
emperor was there, and the Prince Imperial ﬁred off the ﬁrst
- mitrailleuse, receiving his “baptism of ﬁre,” according to his
father’s magniloquent despatch. These mitrailleuse guns
were a new invention from which the French expected much;
nor were they disappointed, for the execution was good and
the moral effect considerable in the early days of the campaign.

I

462 DECISIVE BATTLES [I870 '

The war opened in the south with a staggering and disas-
trous defeat for the French. General MacMahon advanced
one division to the frontier town of Weissenburg, on the
Lauter, while with the rest of his corps he tried to keep in
touch with General de Failly’s corps. Without knowing the
danger, he had exposed his troops so that they could be
crushed in detail by the third German army, which poured
suddenly out of the forest and over the Rhine While General
de Failly was still at Bitsche and General Douay at Belfort.
After the Crown Prince’s army crossed the frontier on August
4th and drove out the gallant defenders of Weissenburg, Gen-
eral MacMahon endeavored to bring up his three corps and
check the German advance by an immediate attack; but the
Bavarians and Prussians were in stronger force in the san-.
guinarybattle of ,Worth, where more than 10,000 fell on each
side and 9000 Frenchmen were made prisoners. Marshal
MacMahon handled his admirable corps with the utmost skill;
but, owing to the general unreadiness and initial disorganiza-
tion of the French military system, it received no support,
was outnumbered and outflanked, and therefore was broken
and routed, retreating far back to Luneville.

The body politic was disordered, and the nearer to the cen-
tral power the more apparent the disorganization. In the
north Napoleon was in supreme command. General Fros-
sard, prudently retiring from Saarbriicken, took up a strong

position on the Speichern hills, Where the Germans blunder-
ingly attacked him. Four Other French corps were encamped
within sound of the guns, including the emperor’s own guards,
and yet such was the lack of decision and concord among the
French generals that they formed no line of battle to arrest
the German advance, nor even sent a single division to Fros-
sard’s support, allowing the enemy gradually to bring up force
enough to shell and storm the heights.
Thus on August 6th, the second day from the opening of
. active hostilities, the Germans won signal victories on both
wings, and the French army was split in two. A retreat was
decided upon, was necessary. Should the enemy be left in
possession of the eastern provinces, and the army fall back to
xkghalons to reorganize? That was the ﬁrst strategic decision,
and then thoughts of the ungovernable fury of the French

 

1870] BATTLE OF SEDAN 463

people and the danger to the dynasty caused further irreso-
lution, the countermanding of orders, aimless movements of
tr00ps hither and thither. The diminished French ﬁeld army
was still 200,000 strong. Protected by the forts of Metz, it
might contest the crossing of the Moselle or might fall back
on the stronger position of Verdun.

The Germans, not knowing the extent of the French de-
moralization, did not rush across the Vosges to overtake the
French in full retreat, but, wheeling their three armies into
line, advanced cautiously, covering a solid front of twelve
miles. They came within touch of Metz before the French
had completed their dispositions, and, ﬁnding them apparently
in retreat beyond the Moselle, precipitated themselves upon
the outworks of Metz. At Colombey and Nouilly, on August
14th, they lost 5000 men, the French but two thirds as many ;
at Vionville and Mars- le- Tour they won a dear victory. They
then pushed a part of their forces over the Moselle to cut off
the line of retreat to Verdun.,éy The emperor, who felt ag-
grieved because he was being made responsible for the
wretched situation of the army, gave over the command to
Marshal Bazaine, and departed for Chalons. Bazaine, on his
own responsibility, ordered the retreat that the emperor dared
not make because it would be abandoning Lorraine ; but four
precious days had been lost. When the columns moved down
the road they found it occupied by the troops of Prince Fred-
erick Charles. The French proved how they could ﬁght in
the general engagement of Gravelotte, which the arrival of
fresh forces and the heroic capture of St. Privat turned to
the advantage of the Germans, with the result that Bazaine
with I 75 000 men was blockaded 1n Metz and kept there by
only I 50, 000 German troops under Prince Frederick Charles,
who was able after the siege-works were completed, to draw
off three quarters of this force when necessary. The inferi-""',Z'"‘
ority of their artillery was one of the serious disadvantages
under which the French labored. Napoleon had failed to ‘
keep track of the great improvements in range and weight of 1
ﬁre made in the Prussian guns since the Austrian war. The §
French infantry weapon, on the other hand, the Chassepot 1;;
riﬂe, was superior to the needle-gun, having a quicker breech
action, longer range, a ﬂatter trajectory, and more deadly ,

464 DECISIVE BATTLES [1870

execution. But the Prussian soldiers more than made up for
the deﬁciency by their perfect infantry drill, making use of
every cover, throwing up protecting mounds, and ﬁring with
steady aim and deliberate judgment. The French cavalry
performed desperate deeds of valor in action, riding to cer~
tain death in the vain endeavor to save battles already lost, or
in covering the retreat of shattered battalions ; but for obser-

vation purposes it was useless, for the Germans spread their
V cavalry out like a fan in front of their advancing columns, so
i that it formed an impenetrable screen for every movement,
while their mounted scouts ranged over the whole country,
keeping their commanders informed at all times of the posi-
tion and movements of the enemy.

At Chalons Marshal MacMahon reformed the remainder
of the French ﬁeld forces. Against them the army of the
Crown Prince and the newly constituted German army of
the Meuse, together 223,000 strong, advanced rapidly to the
\ Meuse, threatening Paris as well as the French right ﬂank.
If Bazaine would come on to Verdun, the. French could meet 1?
the Germans with nearly equal forcesgk Marshal MacMahon,
suspecting the critical position at Metz, but not knowing that
Bazaine’s communications were actually severed, when the
enemy appeared on his own flank, determined to take a posi-
tion at Rheims, whence he might either form a junction with
the army of the Rhine or, if necessary, fall back on Paris, 9
where under the protection of the fortiﬁcations he could risk
a battle, notwithstanding his numerical inferiority" ”Cut off
from Rheims by the Crown Prince’s forces, he decided to
retreat to Paris at once, and then changed his mind on receiv-
ing despatches from Metz indicating that Marshal Bazaine
intended to ﬁght his way to Chalons or Sedana‘ Unwilling
to desert his comrades, he moved round the Gerrfiaiiswon‘thee
northeast, while'they'advanced‘in adirect line westward,'and g
thus himself carried out General v0n Moltke’s plan, which
Was to force the French northward, off the directroute to
Paris. That the French commander Should abandon his
communications with the capital, leave the Paris route in the 2
hands of the enemy, and make a long detour by the way of
the Belgian frontier in order to succor Marshal Bazaine at
Metz at ﬁrst seemed impossible to the Germans, and when

 

 

1870] BATTLE OF SEDAN 465

their cavalry came upon the French in the north, they
changed their line of march but slightly, so that the Meuse
army might hold the French in check on the Meuse in con-
junction with the reserves of the army besieging Metz, where
Bazaine, lacking food supplies and ammunition, was in a
helpless condition. The speeches of French deputies raging
against a French general who would leave his comrade in
the lurch, followed by newspaper reports that MacMahon
had resolved to hasten to Bazaine’s assistance, though the
abandonment of the Paris road placed the country in danger,
almost convinced them that here again, as in Bazaine’s stand
at Metz, politics, not strategy, would govern. They com- ,_
pleted their dispositions accordingly, moving up the newly j
formed fourth army, commanded by the Crown Prince of
Saxony, to hold him until the Crown Prince of Prussia could V"
bring up the third army by forced marches in time to sweep i;
round upon his right ﬂank and hem him in against the }
Belgian frontier. ‘

MacMahon continued his eastward march until he learned
that the army of the Rhine was still in Metz. At the same
time he became aware of the two German armies moving up
f on his ﬂank, and he decided to save his own army by retreat.
j But the next day he received peremptory instructions from
the empress and Council of Ministers in Paris to push on to
the relief of Metz, lest a revolution break out. The emperor
was with Marshal MacMahon, and he knew the peril to be
, incurred by continuing the march, the almost certain destruc-
; ' tion of the army; yet he abstained from exercising any
authority over his general, believing the empire doomed in
any event. He had resolved, he afterwards said, “to submit
to the consequences of the fatality that attended all the reso-
lutions of the government.” Once more allowing his military
convictions to give way to the political exigency, MacMahon
, countermanded his orders, and attempted to reach Montme’dy
by Stenay. Finding the Prussians at Stenay, he endeavored
to cross the river Meuse at Mouzon, where the left wing was
checked on August 30th, while the Bavarians of the Crown
Prince’s army fell upon ‘ e right wing and crumpled up
General de Failly’s corps; “Marshal MacMahon determined
to concentrate on Sedan and accept battle under the protec-

/"‘A 30
‘.

466 DECISIVE BATTLES [1870

tion of the fortress, although the Emperor Napoleon pro-
posed ﬂight into Belgium. The French army of nearly
100,000 combatants was drawn up for battle, its rear resting
on the fortress, its ﬂanks sheltered by the Meuse and the
Givonne and Floing valleys, woods and ridges beyond pro-j
tecting the line of retreat, either into Belgian territory or?
towards the fortiﬁed position of Mézieres. The German gen-
erals had time to arrange their forces for the most SClentlﬁE
battle of the war. They had 250,000 men and a great pre- ‘
ponderance of guns, and, throwing their lines entirely about
the position, the converging ﬁre of the batteries became more
destructive as the outworks were carried and the encircling
arc was drawn closer, ﬁrst a semicircle, then the ends incurv— '
ing to form a complete circle of ﬁre around the town. So ,
also was the crushing mass of assailants more irresistible as l
the line coiled closer round the doomed army.

The Bavarian troops, the ones that struck the ﬁrst blow in
the war, were destined to bear a prominent part in the deci-
sive engagement. General von der Tann, before dawn on
September Ist, sent a force to take the town of Bazeilles, the
most exposed part of the French position. The French
defended every house, aided by the citizens, and the obstinate
and murderous combat lasted many hours with varying suc-
cess, while reenforcements were sent in from both sides. At
length the Bavarians gained the most commanding positionm
and brought up their guns. Then they aided the Saxon \‘a
troops to capture the easternslope of the Givonne, and there
also a battery was planted. ' In the ﬁght for La Moncelle,
leading to this position, Marshal MacMahon was wounded
by a fragment of a shell. General Ducrot, whom he named
his successor in command, gave orders for a retreat through .
Illy to Mézieres. But General Wimpffen, recently arrived
from Algiers, brought secret instructions to assume command ‘:
in case the marshal was disabled. Deeming a retreat to
Mézi‘eres impossible, because the Crown Prince’s army was
posted at Donchery, ready to fall on the ﬂank of the French
army if such a movement were attempted, he asserted his.
authority from the Ministry of War, to which General Ducrot
willingly submitted, and gave orders to attempt the opposite
maneuver of an advance to Carignan, hoping to cut his way

4, , a. war-n...” «My,

$61870] BATTLE OF SEDAN 467

' through the Bavarians and Saxons and effect a junction with
_ Marshal Bazaine. The Emperor Napoleon, who had arrived
1 at Sedan simultaneously with the army, disapproved the haz-
; ardous attempt and was already diSposed to capitulate.

The ﬁrst onset on the German advanced guard met with a
momentary success. A ﬁerce attack of Zouaves caused the
Saxons on the right to waver, and tz'mz'lleurs with their long-
ranged Chassepots compelled the batteries to retire from the
banks of the Givonne. Then fresh Bavarian and Saxon
brigades came up, and then the Prussian guards appeared,
followed by another corps. The attempt to force a passage 1
through to Carignan had failed, While the line of retreat to.
Mézieres was blocked now by two Prussian corps, which
extended their line round by Illy, cutting off retreat into Bel-i
gium. The French were thus hemmed in on all sides. Gen-a
eral Gallifet’s lancers and clmsseurs d'Afrz'que charged upon
the ﬁrst Prussian cavalry that emerged at Illy, only to rush ‘
into the terriﬁc ﬁre of infantry hidden by the woods and t
shrapnel from batteries suddenly unmasked. '

An artillery park composed of the batteries of two army”
corps was ranged along the hillside south of St. Menges,
while strong columns of infantry advanced upon Fleigneux.
The Bavarian corps guarded the left bank of the Meuse,
while ﬁve corps d’arme’e were drawn up on the right bank for

a concentric attack. The Prussian artillery drove the French“?
batteries from place to place and silenced many of them. :
Later the batteries of the Meuse army and those of the Prus-
sian guards, which took position on the slope of the Givonne, "
destroyed the last of the French batteries. The French‘
troops in the Givonne valley were subjected to a ﬁre from
both sides. Their main body was hidden in the wood of
Garenne, under cover of the fortress. When the Germans
assailed the heights of Illy, General Wimpffen ﬁrst thought
' that an attack from the north could be nothing but a feint.
But quickly he saw the necessity of sending assistance in
that direction, and soon had to despatch a division towards
Bazelles to rescue the 12th Corps, which was falling back in
disorderly ﬂight to Sedan. These marches and counter-
marches were executed under ﬁre of the German artillery on .

both sides. When the division of General Liébert, holding

468 DECISIVE BATTLES ' [1870

the hills north of Casal, attacked on both ﬂanks and shelled
at the same time, at last gave way, the French cavalry issued
from the wood in repeated charges past the batteries and
through the infantry, until half of them were shot down.

“The heights at Casal were taken, then those west of the
Givonne, the German batteries were erected there, and by
three o’clock in the afternoon they were pouring shell into the
Bois de Garenne and into the city from both banks of the
Meuse. When the German infantry entered— the 'Bois de
Garenne, they found it thronged with broken corps and strag-
glers of all arms. Some offered a ﬁerce resistance, others sur-
rendered by thousands. Round the walls of the fortress and
inside were bodies of troops among whom German shells were
bursting, and the city was in ﬂames, when a ﬂag of truce was

. displayed, just as the Bavarians were about to escalade the
gates. First came a letter from the Emperor Napoleon to
King William. Not having been able to die in the midst of

j his troops, he placed his sword in his brother sovereign’s hands.

I On the demand of the Germans, General Wimpffen came to

hear from General von Moltke the terms exacted, the disarma—

? ment and detention of the entire army. The French general

”begged that his troops might be allowed to be disarmed in ‘
Belgium, but General von Moltke insisted on their surrender
as prisoners of war. These hard conditions were accepted
on the morning of September 2d, to avert a renewal of the bom-

bardment. In most of the previous German victories they, as

i the assailants, lost more heavily than the French. At Sedan

2 their artillery was so much stronger, and the French defense

so desperately prolonged, that their casualties were only half

those of the French, who lost I 7,000 killed or wounded, 21,000

‘ taken in action, and 83,000 surrendered.

. Marshal Bazaine, knowing nothing of the attempt of the
army of Chalons to come to his succor, but seeing the besieg-
ing army greatly reduced, made a sortie from Metz; and on
the very day of the battle of Sedan his army was repelled
by the Prussians, though outnumbering them four to one, for
, he had no artillery.

, With the fall of Sedan the empire came to an end. The
Republic was proclaimed in Paris on September 4th, and
’ General Trochu with some of the Republicans in the Chamber

 

 

 

 

 

1870] BATTLE OF SEDAN 469

formed the Government of National Defense and called the
entire nation to arms, proclaiming that not an inch of terri-
tory, not a stone of the fortresses, would be given up to the
enemy. The two armies in the ﬁeld were beaten, but they
were only the ﬁrst line. The resources of France were
scarcely tapped, if patriotism could be roused to make
sufﬁcient sacriﬁces. ’This was the reasoning of such civilian
strategists as Gambetta and Freycinet, and it was the feeling
of the whole French people. Patriotism was not wanting,
nor sacriﬁce of blood and treasure and individual happiness
to the point of heroism. Gambetta, the minister of war in
the Provisional Government, an orator, a magnetic leader, a
political organizer, rallied the population to the ﬂag. He
raised an army that in numbers greatly excebded the German
forces, an army of over I,ooo,ooo. He did not know, nor
did Freycinet, who aided him in directing this untrained
soldiery, that themissuﬂmfathe. war . was.-.d§cided ,by awsingle
month’s operations. They prolonged the struggle for six
months more. They brought untold hardships on France,
subjected Paris to famine, bombardment, revolution, and the
provinces to devastation, wasted the accumulated wealth of
the country, crippled its productive energies, sent out with
ruthless hardihood the undrilled battalions to test ill-digested
plans against the sure science of German strategists, staked
the lives of French citizens wholesale in a gambler’s fever,
entailed on Germany, too, her heaviest sacriﬁces, and in the
end made harder terms for France. The French have come
to love France the more for the sufferings she endured, and
to love the republic that was born in such travail. The war
d outmﬂce was fought almost to the bitter end, and then the
Government of National Defense stepped aside. Thiers, as
soon as he was elected chief of the executive by the National
Assembly, negotiated a peace. France surrendered to Ger-
many most of Lorraine and all Alsace except Belfort, and
paid an indemnity of ﬁve milliard francs.

The severance of Alsace and Lorraine from France was
like the lopping off of a member from the living body,
and the annexation of these imperial provinces by Germany
has been a source of disquietude and danger, dominating the
whole military situation of Europe. The rapidity with which

 

47o DECISIVE BATTLES ’ [1870

the enormous money ransom was raised in France to deliver
the remaining provinces caused Prince Bismarck to regret
that he had not drained France as a butcher draingthe last
drop of blood from a leg of veal. The vitality of the repub-
lic, which the conquerors approved because it was supposed
to be the weakest, most discordant form of government for
France, has caused them constant anxiety. The restoration
of the military organization of France on a' basis as wide as
the nation, on a higher scale of efﬁciency than has been
known since the ﬁrst empire, has led to a rivalry on the
part of Germany, and to excessive military training and
armament in most of the European nations. The present
military alliances, the triple alliance between Germany, Aus-
tria, and Italy, followed by the defensive alliance between
France and Russia, render more appalling the specter of a
European war, springing from the desire of France to revenge
Sedan and regain the lost provinces, from aggressive move-
ments in the East, or from jealousies and complications yet
to arise. The emulous increase of naval armaments has fol-
lowed upon the introduction of the Prussian system of uni-
versal liability to arms. Colonial expansion and intense
commercial rivalry between nations have come in as new
elements of danger, and have complicated the situation by
involving the naval powers. Some military and political
prophets believe the specter of a European war to be only
a specter. The dual alliance, like the triple alliance, is pro-
claimed to be a league of peace. A war between the military
powers of Europe on the scale of their present armaments
would be so destructive that no impious hand may be found
to light the signal torch, nor can such forces be brought into
collision at the instance of a truculent or ambitious prince or
statesman. When nations in arms meet in the clash of war,
both sides must suffer incalculable injury. For war like that
there must be some deep, irreconcilable sense of harm and
hatred, such as even the question of Alsace-Lorraine has not
produced, or some high national ambition affecting the hap-
piness of the whole people. Field-Marshal von Moltke,
reﬂecting on the Franco-German war sixteen years after its
termination, wrote as follows : —

“The days are gone by when, for dynastical ends, small

 

 

A
t

1870] ’ BATTLE OF SEDAN . 471

armies of professional soldiers went to war to conquer a city
or a province, and then sought winter quarters or made peace.
The wars of the present day call whole nations to arms; there
is scarcely a family that does not suffer by them. The entire
ﬁnancial resources of the state are appropriated to the pur-
pose, and the different seasons of the year have no bearing
on the unceasing progress of hostilities. As long as nations
continue independent of each other, there will be disagree-
ments that can only be settled by arms; but, in the interest
of humanity, it is to be hoped that wars will become less

frequent, as they have become more terrible.”

The battle of Sedan, from which dates the birth of the
German empire as well as the death of Imperialism in
France, marks the triumph of the principle of nationalism

11, in Europe. Nations had been formed before Germany united

b..-

—Greece, Servia, Roumania, Hungary, Italy. Since then
Bulgaria has been created. Greeks, Bulgarians, Servians,
Roumanians, Italians, are still yearning for unredeemed terri-
tories peopled by their brothers; Irish, Czechs, and Nor-
wegians are clamoring for fuller opportunities of national
development, larger rights of self-government, while the
stiﬂed cry of suffering Poland grows fainter. Croats, Flem-
ings, and other races are beginning to aspire to national life.
Which of these nationalities will win, which preserve an inde-
pendent political existence, prophets may tell. In contem-
porary Europe nationalities can be strangled as they never
could be before. But the government is now more deeply
rooted in the nation, more nearly the chief organ of national
life, than it has been in the past. Governments, with their
increased power and activity in the various departments of
the social and industrial life of the people, are a powerful
agency in forming and unifying nations. Race, language,
religion, a historical past — these are not the only character-
istics of a nation. Peoples differentiated by any or all of
these may be patriots of a nation whose culture and ideas
they have absorbed ; and then the powers of government can
be used to deport populations, extirpate languages, enforce
religious conformity, and bury history out of sight. But only
powerful governments can deal thus with small and indistinct
nationalities, for the organic national character of modern

472 DECISIVE BATTLES ‘ [187°

government impels nationalities to reject a rule alien to their
national genius and traditional civilization. The spread of
education and literature, the improvement of communications,
the growth of national industries, the quick transmission of
news and opinions —— all these tend to create a conformity and
establish a sympathy among people of the same country.
Germans, Frenchmen, Englishmen, Russians, are more distinct
and more bound up in their own countries and governments
than formerly. International sympathies and movements have
given way to patriotism and national ambitions. Germany has
led the way in the national movement, the adaptation" of gov—
ernment to national life and the development of the national
spirit. The treaty of Versailles and the assumption by King
William of the title of German Emperor on the invitation of
the princes and with the concurrence of the North German
Reichstag only established German unity in principle. The
uniﬁcation of government and laws and the consolidation of
the empire was a work of time, and is still going on. The
system of government in Germany is nothing like what the
earlier patriots pictured in their minds. Before the Franco-
German war there was a powerful liberal party, also an
aggressive republican party, holding out ideals drawn from
England, France, and the United States, to whom all things
connected with the Prussian government were abhorrent—the
royal prerogative and ministerial rescripts overriding parlia-
ment, militarism, bureaucracy, irresponsible ministries, and
indirect suffrage. After the triumph of German unity this
noisy opposition became silent or joined with the founders of
the empire in molding its institutions. The protection of
the realm and the care for the welfare of the German people
were the objects for which the German states entered into an
eternal union. The Reichstag draws its powers from uni-
versal suffrage. The only irreconcilable opponents of the
government have been the social democrats. Even they
have had an inﬂuence in obtaining legislation for the beneﬁt
of the working classes, and even their leaders have latterly
accepted the monarchy and acquiesced in universal military
service. No government has made more efforts than the
German to promote the welfare of all classes of the people,
and no people are conscious of more intimate connection with

1870] BATTLE OF SEDAN 473

and dependence on the government. The army itself is a
strong national bond and in its way a democratic and equaliz-
ing institution; for rich and poor, gentle and simple, must
serve side by side in the ranks. The only distinction is made
in favor of and in the interest of education. The public
educational system in Germany is an abundant source of
national strength and cause of national pride, and it reaches
the whole nation, all the talents and aptitudes.

French education, social legislation, military life, all the
institutions that cement and strengthen the national spirit,
bear comparison with their German counterparts. The third
French republic has lasted longer than the ﬁrst empire, than
the Restoration, than the Orleanist monarchy, than the em-
A pire of Louis Napoleon. While the enemies of former gov-
ernments grew more numerous and threatening as time went
on, those of the republic have lost heart and inﬂuence, and
many of them have accepted the republic. A republican
government seems to be suited to the French, and those who
cavil most at the acts and personnel of the government are
the most ardent Republicans. The French army, now more
numerous than the German, is a national army in a sense
unknown in the time of Napoleon III. The ﬁrst Napoleon
said that the army should be one with the nation, the nation
one with the army. Such was his army, and no other till
the Prussian army was created. Now there are many such
national armies, but none more popular or willingly sup-
ported than the French. Military service and its cost are
heavy burdens on the people. Personal service bears harder
on the individual than paying taxes. It shows the growth
of national spirit since governments have become more iden-
tiﬁed with the people, that great armies and navies, enor-
mously increased taxation, and other burdens and restrictions
are cheerfully borne.

The work of carrying on government, since governmental
functions have been multiplied and reach down into the na-
tional life through many channels, has become a more difﬁ-
cult and serious business. Trained intellectual ability is the
qualiﬁcation for ofﬁce in France, Germany, Russia, and other
countries, and the entrance is usually through the government
schools. This opens the gate wider to the people, and forms

474 DECISIVE BATTLES ' [1870

another link between the people and the government. In all
countries the people have generally more faithmin' statesmen
than they formerly had, and the statesmen are more earnest
and industrious in their duties and, with less arbitrary power
and discretion, feel a greater sense of responsibility than in
the days of Castlereagh or Metternich, or of the sycophants
of Napoleon III. Under autocratic or democratic systems,
the impulse of national patriotism signiﬁed by the German

victory at Sedan has tended to enlarge and ennoble the insti-
tutions of government.

F. H.

 

 

 

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