SIR,—I think that Mr. Hall's letter in the Spectator of
January 2nd is open to a good deal of comment. As regards the composition of Napoleon's army, I quite agree that the number of veterans must have been exceedingly small. The campaign of 1814 must have finally disposed of most of them. But that the cavalry was badly led I doubt. Its leader and master alike made the mistake of supposing that that arm could achieve anything great against unbroken and resolute infantry. The squares of El Bodon, "issuing unscathed, like the holy men of old, from the fiery furnace," might have taught them. That Wellington was hard pressed is true; but then how about the wrecking of the great French battery of seventy guns by the Union and Ponsonby's Brigades P It may be remarked that to say " German Legion and Bruns- wickers " is a tautology. The Legion was the little army of Brunswick taken over en bloc by England when the Duke was forced to abdicate. It is, I imagine, sufficiently notorious that Napoleon had a great contempt for Blucher as anything but a mere fighting man. The way in which he swept him off the ground at Ligny two days before of itself justified it. This opinion was clearly shared by Wellington, loyal and keen coadjutor as he knew him to be. It may be interesting to recall that Frederick declared in General Orders : " Captain v. Bliicher is released from his service, and may go to the devil." As for the Hanoverians, one of their smartest cavalry regi- ments marched deliberately off the field, "as 11-le men could not risk their horses, which they owned." The Duke is generally credited with having declared that " if he had had his Peninsular army, he would have settled the business in four hours." I think we may reckon he had not above fifty thousand men he could rely on, and only a hundred and fifty-six guns against two hundred and fifty-two. A single corps only of the Prussians came into action, thus roughly restoring the balance. But the coup de grace was given by the Guards and the 52nd, which that fine soldier Sir J. Colborne placed en potence, and enfiladed the huge column of the Guard by its fire. The Americans at New Orleans, and, we may add, at Bunker's Hill, began teaching the lesson which, let us hope, the Boer War has at last finally taught us, and which we our- selves taught at Crecy and Agincourt, of the futility of shock tactics in frontal attack against well-posted and skilful marks- men. " The French beat us at Waterloo. They'll swear to that in France " ; but in England, with all due deference, some dispassionate readers will continue to doubt it.—I am,
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