13 JUNE 1874, Page 21

CHESNEY'S WATERLOO LECTURES.t COLONEL CHESNEY'S Waterloo volume contains indisputably the

beat set of commentaries on a campaign which, because it wound up a war of giants, will long continue to be an object of close study. The term "Lectures" fitly describes the character of a work having slight pretensions to the status of history, since it includes much criticism and controversy, and such succinct narrative only as serves to make the criticism intelligible. The method adopted is analytical throughout, and the result most resembles a judge's summing-up, presenting the evidence on essential or disputed points, but giving no history of the case. Hence the value of the book is greatest in its tech- nical military aspect, and this quality, coupled with the rank and known ability of the writer, accounts for the ready acceptance which it has fouad on the Continent. Here also another merit comes into play. Colonel Chesney has gained a reputation for impartiality not only at home but abroad. Any- thing, just or unjust, which detracts from the renown of Welling- ton is most welcome to Frenchmen, Prussian; and Belgians, who have all suffered more or less, not from what Wellington said about them, but from the language of his patriotic admirers. The Duke himself gave every credit to his allies, and he never under- rated his enemies ; but beyond question, many foolish Britons did claim for him, at the expense of friends and foes, more than was his due. Colonel Chesney, though not the first in the field who came forward with a fair judgment, since Mr. Hooper pre- ceded him, has done most to remove the bad impressions produced by the errors of biassed enthusiasts, mainly because his labours were confined to professional criticism, and because he occupied a high post in a Military College. He therefore finds favour alike with the Prussian Staff, and such Bonapartists as the Prince Edward de la Tour d'Auvergne ; with the first, because his professional views are sound, with the second because he reduces the halo of Wellington's renown to a minimum. The Prince, in a sweeping accusation, condemns all English writers save Colonel Chesney. Nor, of course, is he quite satisfied even

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t Waterloo Lectures; a Study of the Campaign of 1815. By Colonel Charles Chesney, B.E. Third Edition. London : Longmans. with our author. Most grateful to him for the damage done to Wel- lington, he yet regrets that so far as the French were concerned, "this distinguished and instructed officer should not have 'judged for himself, but have merely reproduced the appreciations of Colonel Charras." Nothing can well be more unjust, but it is by no means uncommon to find even impartial writers steadily accusing others of merely reproducing the views of authors who have gone before. The great value of Charras was that he con- firmed from an original French point of view, and with ample connaissance de cause, many statements and judgments formed in this country, and that he threw a fresh and bright interest over the campaign, from the vigour of his own mind. He wrote with all the ardour of a discoverer, and the results of a profound inquiry were discoveries for him, but in their main features they had long been the common property of students on this side of the Channel. It is, therefore; absurd to charge Colonel Chesney with restricting himself to a reproduction of Charras's views. It is a great point, however, to have won a sort of certifi- cate, alike from the military heirs of Blucher and Napoleon, and to find an age so impartial as to receive with favour what, since we are not all perfect, many will still consider a somewhat grudging estimate of Wellington.

For practically our critic reduces the merits of Wellington to those of an able tactician. He is great on the battle-field, and poor everywhere else. When we first find him, he figures as a General who knows so little of the higher branches of his business as to place the army he commanded in cantonments, which, no doubt, may have answered the purposes he had in view, and safe- guarded political necessities, but which were not adapted to the precise emergency brought about by the will of Napoleon. Next, after having spread out his troops far and wide, a great error in itself, he is guilty of a worse blunder in lingering at Brussels, instead of placing himself at once in the exact spot where we have now all decided it would have been best for him to have fixed his head-quarters. Nor does this exhaust the imperfection of a captain whose reputation for ability is, it seems, so little deserved. He not only stayed too long in the Belgian capital ; he neglected to send out orders almost before he knew whether Napoleon had moved or not. Delaying, after his dull and clumsy fashion, to order any movements, he was unable to support his ally, and owed his escape from defeat at Quatre Bras to the marching and counter-marching of that French General who so strangely swung between two fields of fight. After that he drew himself skilfully out of French clutches, and halting at Waterloo, fought his battle very ably, until the de- velopment of Prussian strength enabled the combined force to win a victory. Accordingly, the idea of Wellington set before us is that, except in dogged hand-to-hand fighting, he was an inferior General, who neither knew how to place his men, nor when nor where to collect them ; that he was not him- self so much victorious as he was a General who, command- ing on the victorious side, had been marvellously favoured by fortune. We have no doubt that if a similar system of criticism were applied to the Indian and, Peninsular campaigns, we should discover that the career of a captain who never experienced defeat affords a fine example of how a little skill and unfailing luck suffice to build up a great renown. Regarded from this point of view, one comprehends at once the popularity of Colonel Chesney's. Lectures on the Continent, and the hopes with which, vainly, doubtless, they inspire the Prince de la Tour d'Auvergne. The real difficulty besetting military criticism is that the critic, how- ever impartial, can scarcely fail to be influenced by his knowledge, not only of the result, but of the processes whereby it was wrought. Nor does be frequently use his imagination to place himself in the pokion occupied by the subject under his scalpel ; and this defect is especially apparent in regard to political considerations. Now, the movements of an army are rarely guided by pure military reasons ; even Napoleon himself, in 1815, had he been sure of France, would not have moved in June, and might have pre- ferred a defensive-offensive campaign, when he did move, to one purely offensive. It appears to us that Colonel Chesney, in . criticising the allied dispositions, has not given sufficient weight to the politics of 1815, and in dealing specifically with Wellington's operations has not allowed enough for the comparatively indifferent staff with which he was endowed by the. Horse Guards. It is on these and similar points that the whole school of military criticism, judged by the rules of equity, are liable to err. Too often they apply their rigid principles as if the evolution of a campaign were governed solely by the purest military laws, whereas the conditions are singularly mixed, and military dynamics must not seldom be materially influenced thereby. When it is all over, down comes

the critic, and demonstrates to everybody's satisfaction that each side would have acted more skilfully bad he done this, or refrained from that. Even a writer of Colonel Chesney's breadth is not exempt from what we must consider grave defects in the military critics of our day.

As regards the present edition of these otherwise excellent Waterloo Lectures, our attention is directed to two interesting novelties. Colonel Chesney, drawing from recently published Prussian information, settles conclusively the fact that a Prussian officer was sent at the close of the battle of Ligny to inform Wellington that Blucher was forced to retreat. The officer sent was Blucher's aide-de-camp, Major Winterfeldt, and he was shot down on the chaussee, near Piermont, close to Quatro Bras. Wounded, he was rescued by the Nassauers, and he asked to see a General of rank, but none came, so that his message was not delivered. It was known before that an officer had nearly reached the English General, but his name and the exact circumstances which cut short his enterprise had not, until recently, been made public. The other point is more remarkable. In discussing the question raised by Napoleon that Wellington fought with a defile in his rear, Colonel Chesney says :—" All this discussion as to the wood becomes of little moment, if it be decided that he had another plan altogether for his retreat, should his centre have been forced. And that this was the case appears from the testimony of General Ziegler, commandant at Namur in 1821, to whom Wellington, after his visit to the ground, declared as follows, illustrating his remarks as he spoke by a pencil sketch The last hour of the battle was indeed a trying one to me. But I should not have retreated on the Wood of Soignie,s, as Napoleon supposed, thinking I should fall back on Brussels and the sea, but should have taken the direction to my left—that is, towards Wavre- which would have given me the substantial advantage of drawing near the Prussian Army.'" Colonel Chesney finds in this resolve "the most proper solution ever offered" for Wellington's obstinacy in retaining at Hal the troops which would have been so useful at Waterloo. We have not space to discuss a question so special and interesting, and can only say here that we should like to have seen the context of General Ziegler's conversation with Wellington in 1821. Meanwhile, it is pretty plain that in future, under the in- fluence of impartial criticism, the English General, at least on the Continent, will continue to be regarded as a lucky but second-rata sort of captain, and it is just possible that England and English power will survive so great a catastrophe. It is no doubt true what the Bengalee ettid, that we British can only make penknives and cotton goods and conquer the world ; and if we accomplish our modest destiny in the future as we have in the past, we can afford to be generally regarded by loftier souls as a dull and inferior nation.