Battles of English History

[1] There was doubtless learning in Northumbria, but it was altogether monastic, and limited to that one kingdom.

[2] The famous story of Harold having sworn unconsciously on all the relics in Normandy, is told by the Norman writers in many different forms, more or less inconsistent with each other, and some of them demonstrably incorrect; and it is impossible to discover the truth. That William accused Harold of perjury all over Europe, and that no answer was attempted, is evidence that something of the sort had happened. As Professor Freeman points out, the absolute silence of all the English chroniclers implies that they did not know how to meet the accusation. Harold must have taken some such oath, under some form of coercion, and so have given his enemy an advantage; but obviously it would have been a greater crime to keep such an oath than to break it. Obviously too, on any version of the story that is not self-refuted, William's conduct was far more dishonourable than Harold's.

[3] Professor Freeman's great History of the Norman Conquest contains a very minute discussion of every point of detail, and a narrative framed by laboriously piecing together the statements which on careful comparison he deems most correct. Much of this is very valuable, though there is at least one important point in which his account cannot be right. Much of it is more or less wasted labour, because it involves giving a precise meaning to expressions in the authorities which were probably used loosely. The main outlines are clear enough, the details are at least partially conjectural, and inferences based on physical facts are a safer guide, so far as they go, than interpretations of the inconsistent and perhaps unmeaning language of monkish writers.

There is also the Bayeux Tapestry, which has been reproduced by Mr. Collingwood Bruce, and which for costume and arms is invaluable: but from the nature of the case it is a very poor guide in determining the tactics of the battle. To rely on it for such purposes, as Professor Freeman and others do, seems to me as unreasonable as to deduce a military history of the battle of Agincourt from Shakespeare's Henry V., as put on the stage.

[4] A vehement controversy has raged since Professor Freeman's death regarding the accuracy of his narrative, the point most strenuously disputed being his statement that Harold's front was protected by a solid wooden barrier. It is maintained in opposition that there was nothing but the wall of interlaced shields familiar to both Saxons and Danes. Without entering into the controversy, I content myself with saying that while the weight of testimony seems to be in favour of some kind of obstacle having been erected, I am satisfied, for the reasons given in the text, that there cannot have been anything like the massive structure described by Professor Freeman.

[5] It must have been later in reality; since sunrise, the whole Norman army had marched seven miles, had halted, and had then been arrayed in order of battle, and this on October 14. Moreover, such a battle could not have lasted nine hours, and it certainly ended at dark.

[6] This suggestion is not based on any direct statement, but it seems to be the only way in which the archers could have aimed effectually. If they had been behind the horsemen, shooting over their heads, the arrows would have been as likely to strike Normans as Saxons.

[7] Harold's tomb was shown at Waltham down to the date of the dissolution of the abbey. There is no positive information on the point, but there seems no reason for rejecting the explanation that William afterwards allowed the corpse of Harold to be removed to Waltham. It is at least much more probable than that a falsehood should have been allowed to pass unchallenged.

[8] This word, which is of course French but was adopted in English with the same signification, definitely means a body of men, originally mailed horsemen, drawn up together; but it implies nothing as to their formation or strength. The usual practice was to form three; the vanguard, which became ordinarily the right when in line of battle; the rearguard, which similarly became the left; and the main battle or centre. In the Latin chroniclers the equivalent term is generally acies, which occasionally leads to some confusion in interpreting their statements, as the classical sense of acies is order of battle, as contrasted with agmen, order of march.

[9] It is suggested that this was a waggon, such as was habitually used in Italy at an earlier date, and occasionally at least in England (as at the battle of the Standard), to carry to battle the standard of the town. The earl's standard certainly floated over it, and attracted prince Edward's attention: and from the account given of the prisoners being shut up in it, it would seem to have been very substantially built. Montfort however would hardly have travelled in such a waggon, and certainly the royalists imagined he was in it. There is no reason except the silence of the chroniclers why there should not have been both a carroccio, and also Montfort's own carriage.

[10] As he had not been crowned at Rome he had no right to use the imperial title.

[11] The name itself may very possibly be derived from the event.

[12] There are the remains of an ancient bridge at this spot, where so many of the fugitives from the battle were cut to pieces that the meadow bears the name of Dead Man's Eyot: but there is no mention of a bridge in the authorities, so that probably the bridge was built later.

[13] Here again I have given the account which seems to me most probable, after study of the ground and of the authorities. Professor Prothero, in his Life of Simon de Montfort (p. 339 note), gives the different possibilities, and comes to a conclusion differing from mine on one point only.

[14] Philip IV. was playing the same game, over-asserting his claims as feudal suzerain over Guienne.

[15] A map showing all this part of Scotland will be found at p. 147.

[16] The first victory of the pike was gained by the Flemings at Courtrai, five years later.

[17] All accounts agree in representing the English numbers as more than double the Scottish, with an enormous superiority in men-at-arms, the most important item.

[18] The use of the crossbow was solemnly condemned by the Lateran Council of 1139: no reasons were given, but presumably it was thought that the cross-bow neutralised the natural, and therefore divinely intended, advantage of superior strength.

[19] There is a statute of Henry VIII. which forbids practising at any less distance.

[20] The so-called Salic law had never been heard of till Philip V. evolved it for his own purposes a few years before: but the principle of exclusive male succession is a natural one for a feudally organised nation to adopt.

[21] Louis VII. of France had it is true married the heiress of Aquitaine and ruled the province for a few years, but only in her name: and she soon repudiated him, to marry Henry II. of England.

[22] This is said by Froissart to have been done on the advice of Godfrey of Harcourt, who was certainly one of the king's most trusted officers during the campaign, habitually leading the advanced guard.

[23] He was in the county of Ponthieu, which had been the portion of Margaret of France, second wife of Edward I. He was not descended from her, but from Eleanor of Castile: there does not however seem to have been any provision for Ponthieu being inherited by Margaret's children.

[24] Herse has another and less familiar meaning, which still better corresponds to the formation indicated—the stands used in churches for seven candles, the centre one forming the apex, and those at the sides gradually lower.

[25] This theory is so far as I know novel, and I put it forward as a suggestion for what it may be worth. It explains, I venture to think, the extraordinary success of the English tactics, and it contradicts no ascertained facts. Every one who knows a little about drill will see that in this formation the archers would be able to change the direction of their shooting with perfect ease, and without interfering with each other. The archers cannot have been on the flanks of the whole line only, or their arrows, long as the range was, would not have told across the whole front. They could obviously move with ease and rapidity, and it is quite possible that they may have formed a line in front of the dismounted men-at-arms, when no attack was impending, as for instance to encounter the Genoese, and have fallen back to the herse when the knights were seen preparing to charge.

[26] There is no need to insist on the picturesque detail of the rain which fell just before the battle having wetted the strings of the cross-bows, while the English kept their bows under cover. It may well have been true: but the range of the long-bow was always greater than that of the cross-bow.

[27] It is convenient to use this word for those who were fighting in the English cause: but as a matter of fact two-thirds of the Black Prince's men-at-arms were from among his Gascon subjects, and the servientes therefore in about the same proportion. The archers doubtless were all, or nearly all, English: there is no trace of the long-bow except in English armies.

[28] I am indebted for these details, except so far as they are from my own observation, to Colonel Babinet, a retired French officer living at Poitiers, who has published in the Bulletin des Antiquaires de l'Ouest a very elaborate memoir on the battle, which he has kindly supplemented by private letters. His study of the topography has been most minute, and his conclusions about it, so far as I can judge, are entirely sound. If there were many investigators as patient and careful, historians would find many battles less perplexing. Every one who attempts to understand the battle of Poitiers must feel grateful to Colonel Babinet, even if he does not accept all that gentleman's views as to the course of events.

[29] The Chandos Herald was in the service of Sir John Chandos, one of the Black Prince's best officers. The herald was not apparently present, but he obviously must have had every means of knowing about the battle, in which Sir John fought; he did not, however, publish his rhymed narrative till some thirty years later. Froissart, who was nineteen years old in 1356, devoted his whole life to the work of his history; he was familiar with courts, if not with camps, indefatigable in acquiring information, but not critical. He too had ample opportunities of learning all about the battle of Poitiers, at any rate from the English side. The manuscripts of Froissart, however, vary greatly, which casts a certain doubt over the trustworthiness of such details as are not given identically in all. Baker was a clerk of Swinbrook in Oxfordshire: the last words of his chronicle were written before the peace of Bretigny in 1360, so that he was even more strictly contemporary than Froissart. Several passages in his history, in which he makes very definite statements about the tactics of the long-bow, prove that he, or his informant, understood military matters well. None of them can have seen the ground, and therefore no stress need be laid on minor inaccuracies of description. Mistakes about the names of actors in the drama might easily be made: all that can be said is that the writer who has made fewest errors has a slightly better claim to general credibility. None of them can be deemed likely to have deliberately misrepresented, or to have been totally misinformed about the ground-work of the whole story. Yet there is the fact, that their narratives are substantially contradictory. Critical ingenuity may no doubt patch up some sort of superficial reconciliation between them, but it can only be superficial. Under these conditions I have no alternative but to follow the narrative which seems to be most in accordance with the known facts. I am not ignorant of the difficulties involved in this course, but my plan does not admit of a full discussion of every point that might be raised. On the whole I incline to discard the Chandos Herald, the more so because none of the less detailed narratives support him, and as between Froissart and Baker, to prefer the latter. My account of the actual battle will therefore follow the chronicle of Baker of Swinbrook, in all matters in which he and Froissart are completely at variance.

[30] According to Baker, the prince began this movement cum cariagiis, to which, however, there is no further reference. It is obviously possible that the prince may have wished to get the baggage out of the way, and therefore started it towards the Gué de l'Homme, and that he shifted his troops in order to cover this from the French. If so, this would be the element of truth in the Chandos Herald's narrative; but it does not in any way remove the essential contradiction between the Chandos Herald and the other authorities.

[31] Froissart calls him Thomas lord of Berkeley, a young man in his first battle, and says he was son of Sir Maurice Berkeley, who died at Calais a few years before. Thomas the then lord of Berkeley, and elder brother of that Sir Maurice, was in the battle, but he was a man of over fifty, and he had his son Maurice with him for his first campaign. That Baker should be right, and Froissart wrong, on a point peculiarly within Froissart's province, is a striking incidental testimony to Baker's trustworthiness.

[32] The name was derived from Bernard Count of Armagnac, the duke's father-in-law, who gave the party most of its energy.

[33] Henry V. Act iv. Scene 3. Shakespeare has introduced the incidents told by the English authors with much accuracy, but has gone quite wrong as to the persons concerned. The wish was expressed by Sir W. Hungerford, not by the earl of Westmoreland, who was in England. Henry's chaplain makes the king's words more pious, if less poetical; and the piety was certainly in keeping with his character.

[34] Comparatively recent plantations slightly obscure the ground, making minute accuracy impossible: but the general character of the field, and its main details, are quite clearly to be seen.

[35] The numbers of Henry's original force can be closely computed from original documents; and there exists also part of a list of the gentlemen present at Agincourt, with the numbers of their contingents. Estimating from the latter, the total number of combatants was far below 10,000.

[36] Boulevard is the technical name for a kind of earthwork used in the early days of cannon. It was a sort of terrace, protected by a parapet, on which cannon could be planted as an outer defence to a fortress, and might be of any shape. The technical name for the small forts which the English gradually erected round Orleans is bastide.

[37] The formation of a fortified post by means of the camp-waggons was a fundamental part of the tactics of John Zisca, the long successful leader of the Bohemian insurrection a few years earlier. The lager which is a feature now well known of African warfare, is the same thing in principle.

[38] This is of course not the first instance of a siege approximating to the modern type. The siege of Harfleur already mentioned was in fact more like a modern siege than that of Orleans.

[39] Sir Edward Creasy goes so far as to place the relief of Orleans among the fifteen Decisive Battles of the World.

[40] The Beauforts had been duly legitimated by Parliament, but Henry IV., in confirming this to his half-brothers, had inserted words in his charter which barred their succession to the throne. The strict legality of the latter act can hardly be maintained: but it is plain that no one dreamed of preferring the Beauforts to the house of York.

[41] In Chapter II. I abstained from giving the numbers at Hastings, because there seem to me to be no adequate materials for forming a trustworthy estimate: but it is scarcely possible that the armies which fought at Hastings can have been within many thousands of the total given by chroniclers for Towton.

[42] It is possible that the numbers are exaggerated, but there is no reason for thinking so except the smallness of the battle-field; and if so the exaggeration was on both sides alike, for it is certain that the Lancastrian numbers preponderated. The Yorkist force is given at 49,000 by the authorities who put the Lancastrians at 60,000, both totals being given before any fighting had taken place. What losses had been incurred at Ferrybridge we are not told, and we can only guess at the strength of the Yorkist rearguard: but the numbers with which the battle began cannot have been very far from seven to four.

[43] Sir John Ramsay, in his generally valuable work, Lancaster and York, places Warwick's line along the high-road, where there is every reason to believe that there was no hedge at all in the fifteenth century, for the amazing reason that "from that position he could take the king's troops in detail as they came out of the narrow street of Barnet," which ended in the open heath half-a-mile off. It is true that he adds, "but Edward always laughed at Warwick's strategy," by which presumably he means tactics. Since all that Edward knew of Warwick's tactics was that he had inspired, or at least shared in directing, the bold and skilful tactics of Towton, he must have been very easily amused.

[44] This fact alone is sufficient to disprove the Yorkist falsehood that while Warwick had 30,000 men, Edward had but 9000.

[45] The numbers are not very clearly given, but the accounts seem to indicate no great disparity, with the advantage, if any, to the Lancastrians.

[46] Sir John Ramsay must have seen the ground in winter, if he was able to obtain a view of the whole position. In summer the trees, which are none of them ancient, intercept a great deal. I should be inclined to think that the Lancastrian line faced nearly south instead of parallel to the modern road, as he places it: otherwise he seems to me to have worked out the topographical details very well.

[47] Curiously enough the earliest cannon seem to have been breechloading. This mode of construction was however abandoned after a time, either because the movable pieces did not fit properly, or because they could not be made strong enough to stand the strain when gunpowder came to be thoroughly explosive, in favour of muzzle-loading. In modern warfare, until after the Crimean War, cannon were mere metal tubes, with a touch-hole by which they were fired. Things have moved fast since then. Of the millions of men now under military service, how many have a clear idea of what "spiking a gun" meant?

[48] I use this phrase for convenience' sake, to mean the shot discharged by every kind of hand firearms until the introduction of the rifle.

[49] This especially held good of the heavy plate armour which was introduced in the fourteenth century, and grew heavier and heavier. There seems to have been hardly any chain mail which a clothyard arrow could not pierce.

[50] There had been many Scots in the service of Gustavus: and this fact made the Scottish intervention in the English civil war more weighty than it would otherwise have been.

[51] It is significant of the superior importance of the cavalry in the seventeenth century that the lieutenant-general, second in command, led the cavalry, the infantry being under the major-general, third in command.

[52] The letter is rather confused, but it can hardly bear this meaning, though it undoubtedly authorised fighting a battle.

[53] Switzerland need not be forgotten, but Switzerland could under no circumstances have wielded the European influence exerted by English ideas, backed by the vast power, military, naval and commercial, of the England of Marlborough, and Chatham, and Nelson.

[54] Hodgson, an officer who was in the battle, says that Cromwell sent four regiments to circle round the enclosures of Brocksmouth House and fall on the enemy's right flank. Such a manœuvre was hard to work accurately in the dark, but if successful was bound to be decisive. The evidence is good: but this very decisiveness makes me hesitate to believe that Cromwell himself, to say nothing of other narrators, could have described the battle without mentioning so important a fact.

[55] Quoted from Cromwell's despatch to the Speaker.

[56] The Margrave of Baden helped to drive Marlborough to this extreme haste: he had claimed the chief command on the junction of the armies, and had with difficulty been induced to agree that it should be exercised by himself and Marlborough on alternate days. The Margrave was far too cautious to storm the Schellenberg: Marlborough had therefore to attack that evening or to wait two days, which would have been too late.

[57] This devastation is always regarded as a blot on Marlborough's fame, and is in marked contrast to his usual humanity. The practice was dying out, in obedience to the dictates of opinion, but it was not yet, as it would be now, an outrage on international usage.

[58] The village which gives its name to the battle is properly called Blindheim: but the spelling in the text has been adopted in English ever since Marlborough's day.

[59] The famous lines of Torres Vedras are the only instance in more modern times of such a method of defence proving successful, and they could not, from the nature of the case, be turned, and were never assailed. The system on which the eastern frontier of France is now defended is an instance of the same thing on the greatest possible scale. There the flanks abut on neutral countries, and cannot therefore be turned without violating the neutrality of either Belgium or Switzerland. What it would cost to break through such a line cannot be calculated, for it would depend on the effect, as yet untried, of modern scientific developments in explosives, electric communication and the like: but it can hardly be doubted that it could be done, if the assailant were willing to pay the price.

[60] A map in which Marlborough's Belgian campaigns can be followed, will be found at p. 234.

[61] The duke of Burgundy was associated with Vendôme, in accordance with the vicious method which Louis XIV. frequently adopted. It was assumed that the young and inexperienced prince would be entirely guided by the veteran general: but it occasionally happened that the prince developed a will of his own, and then the veteran was helpless. How far Burgundy interfered before the battle, how far Vendôme's well-known sluggishness except in action was responsible for the French being thus surprised, is not quite clear: it will be seen that in the actual battle Burgundy, by his alternate hesitation and rashness, largely caused the French defeat.

[62] General Webb, who commanded the escort, beat off with great skill and courage a very superior force: Marlborough, who disliked Webb, in his despatches made so very little of this exploit, which in fact sealed the fate of Lille, that it was even said he had wilfully given Webb inadequate numbers, in order to expose him to destruction. Thackeray makes effective use of this in Esmond.

[63] This account of Wolfe's death is quoted from Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe, on which most interesting work the foregoing narrative is based. There are several versions of Wolfe's dying words, but Parkman, after comparing the evidence, accepts that given above.

[64] Had Wellington's base of operations been Cadiz instead of Lisbon, every step in advance would have pushed the French nearer to their base, and therefore would have rendered the conditions of supply, etc., increasingly favourable to them. A successful advance from Portugal on Madrid cut off the whole south from easy communication with France, without which they could not long maintain their ground.

[65] He was only created Lord Wellington after the battle of Talavera, but it is convenient to use the familiar title all through.

[66] All the quotations in this and the following chapter are from Napier.

[67] This is the battle which, in a school-book I once saw, was described as a glorious victory won by 29,000 French over 90,000 English and Spaniards.

[68] Maida and Vimiero were real defeats, but the numbers engaged were insignificant. Aspern was a great and bloody battle, in which the French on the whole got the worst of it, but it was hardly a distinct Austrian victory.

[69] The exploits of Craufurd, with the light division, acting as Wellington's advanced guard, are the subject of some of Napier's best writing.

[70] The disastrous Walcheren expedition, which started while the battle of Talavera was being fought, had wasted a large part of the military strength of England. Sent as it was after Napoleon had forced Austria again to sue for peace, and badly conducted, it was an inevitable failure. This being the case, it is of course true that the men and material would have been more usefully employed in the Peninsula. But it is by no means equally clear that the original idea was faulty. Had even a smaller force, energetically led, been despatched to the same point two months earlier, when Napoleon was still absorbed in remedying his failure at Aspern, the consequences might have been enormous. At the very least it could have ruined Antwerp for purposes of naval construction; and Napoleon deemed Antwerp, "a pistol pointed at the heart of England," so valuable that in 1814, when almost at the last gasp, he broke off negotiations for peace rather than cede Antwerp.

[71] King Joseph was indeed declared commander-in-chief in March 1812, but the marshals disputed his authority, and denounced his plans as unwise. Their criticisms were not unreasonable, but "one bad general is better than two good ones."

[72] Belgium had been for over twenty years annexed to France. Holland had been entirely under French influence almost as long, and annexed to France for six years. Hence the people were either partisans of the French, or in great dread of them.

[73] In fact this proportion is in some sense far too high. Many of the English had never seen a shot fired, and though they stood on the defensive with admirable steadiness, it is at least doubtful whether they would have been effective for manœuvring.

[74] During the interval the duke of Wellington attended the famous ball at Brussels given by the duchess of Richmond. It is always a pity to spoil a romantic story; but the idea derived from the beautiful description in 'Childe Harold,' and probably still believed by the majority of those who have not studied the history, that the first intimation of the French advance was given by the sound of distant cannon heard at the ball, is contrary to all the facts. Wellington, having given his orders, went to the ball in order to prevent alarm spreading in Brussels: there was no firing during the night, none in fact, that could have been heard at that distance, till the following afternoon.

[75] The duke's father had also been killed in battle against Napoleon, at Jena. After Quatre-Bras the Brunswick troops wore black uniforms with skull and crossbone badges, in token of mourning, until their young duke came of age.

[76] This would doubtless have happened if the whole of Ney's nominal command had been united. Napoleon however seems to have expected that Quatre-Bras would not be held by any serious force.

[77] The mention of Liège shows how vague the Emperor's ideas were at the moment; it is hard to see how Wellington, known to be moving straight north on Brussels, could take a position to cover Liège.

[78] This regiment was commanded by Marbot, whose memoirs attracted so much attention when published in 1891.

[79] Those who say that Waterloo was lost by Grouchy's fault have to get over the fact that Napoleon took no steps, till it was far too late, to summon him thither. The emperor knew that Wellington was standing to fight, Grouchy could only guess. Suppose Gneisenau's suspicions had been realised, and Wellington had retreated, and the cannon had been Napoleon attacking Blucher viâ St. Lambert, Grouchy would, by crossing the Dyle, have lost the chance of annihilating the Prussians.

[80] Wellington is said to have told the story of his midnight ride about twenty years afterwards, à propos of his famous horse Copenhagen. He was not the kind of man to invent such a story, and his well-known reticence about Waterloo would fully account for the incident remaining unknown. On the other hand its intrinsic improbability is so great, that it can hardly be accepted without cogent evidence. The testimony however is altogether at second-hand, though quite precise enough to warrant belief in an ordinary way; but it is obviously reasonable to require something more for a story which would sound scarcely credible if told of any commander-in-chief, and is specially at variance with Wellington's cool and prudent disposition.

[81] This was entirely untrue in fact, as we have seen, but if the troops at Hal had been on the field it would have been nearly true. Napoleon could only have guessed, as the ground concealed a great part of Wellington's army: this is not one of the deliberate falsehoods of which he was only too commonly guilty.

[82] It is impossible to conjecture what put this idea into Ney's mind, as the English army had bivouacked in very nearly the order of battle, and had therefore not moved in the morning.

[83] It must be remembered that the range of the musket was very short, so that the bullets could hardly do mischief in neighbouring squares if they missed the cavalry.

[84] Readers who are curious in mendacity should read in Napoleon's Correspondence the bulletin dated Lâon, June 20, 1815, in which the battles of Ligny and Waterloo are reported.

[85] Napoleon's Egyptian expedition is no real exception: it reached its destination, but the battle of the Nile rendered it a total failure.

[86] It was said that Captain Nolan, the aide-de-camp who bore the order, and who was well known from his writings to be a firm believer in the power of cavalry to perform the most impossible feats, answered Lord Lucan's objections by putting on the written words an interpretation which Lord Raglan did not intend, and that Lord Lucan was stung by implied imputation on his courage. Nolan however was shot dead at the first moment of the charge, and there was consequently no means of knowing what he could have said in his own defence.

[87] On the other side of the Tchernaya are some conspicuous remains of ancient walls known as the ruins of Inkerman: from these the allies, who found it convenient to have names for all portions of the ground they were concerned with, named the opposite portion of the plateau Mount Inkerman.

[88] It is not suggested that the French general at the outset, or later, evaded his due share of the common duty: it is one of the evils of a divided command that if a mistake is made in such a matter, as may easily happen from imperfect information, obstacles to remedying it arise from motives on both sides which are in themselves perfectly reasonable.

[89] Decisive Battles of India.

[90] Englishmen in India made many mistakes at one time or another, but there was always some one at hand to redeem the blunder, or else they were saved by the reputation for audacity and invincibility due to previous successes. They were guilty of many wrongful acts, but the sufferers were the native princes whom they dispossessed: it is probably no exaggeration to say that the rule of the English at its worst was better than the best government of any native princes.

[91] Colonel Malleson, in his Decisive Battles of India, gives a very clear account of this remarkable feat, as well as of other similar battles, which must be here passed over.

[92] In memory of this great victory the 39th bears on its colours the motto "Primus in Indis."

[93] Sindia, Holkar, Bhonslay, are family appellations, but they serve to identify three of the chief Mahratta states better than the individual names of the successive rulers.

[94] It is said that Wellesley had no information that the Kaitna was fordable there, but that he inferred it from the fact of there being another village opposite Assye, and no sort of bridge.

[95] The parallel is singularly exact between the conduct of the three great Mahratta princes in 1803-4 and that of Austria, Russia and Prussia in 1805-6. The two former made war on Napoleon, trying in vain to induce Prussia to join them: after they had been decisively defeated at Austerlitz, Prussia alone attacked the conqueror, with the natural result of being still worse beaten at Jena.

[96] This method of attack in oblique order, or in échelon, is by some writers treated as a great discovery, attributed to Frederick the Great of Prussia. He certainly won by these tactics his most conspicuous victory, Rossbach: but the method itself is in the nature of things, as soon as generals begin to use their brains; it is but one way of bringing superior force to bear on a vital point.

[97] There is a story that Major George Lawrence, then a prisoner, communicated to his brother, and so to the commander-in-chief, the surprise which the Sikh officers had expressed to him at the small use made of the English artillery in previous battles. This may be true, but there is no need to suppose that this influenced the battle of Gujerat: any officer of ordinary judgment would have done at all times what Gough did only in his last battle.