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combat at Casa de Salinas just before Talavera, and as to the formation of Ney's corps at Bussaco. The writers disagree in their estimate of some authorities; evidently Mr Fortescue does not rate Grattan of the 88th nearly so high as Prof. Oman is disposed to do. Occasionally Mr Fortescue supplements or corrects some of the details in the earlier narrative; among others those concerning Lord Blayney's extraordinary excursion to Malaga. But in the main their conclusions are in substantial agreement; and he will be a bold man who will dispute verdicts supported by two such authorities.

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It is therefore much to be regretted that neither of these works should figure in the authorities cited by Prof. Lindner in his Weltgeschichte,' the seventh volume of which covers the period between the outbreak of the French Revolution and the fall of Napoleon. Reference to either would have enabled him to avoid so serious a blunder as the statement that Masséna attempted to storm the lines of Torres Vedras and was repulsed with heavy losses. Writers of a universal history cannot be expected to escape errors of detail, and it would be unfair to a work of the scope and general value of Prof. Lindner's to judge it entirely by its treatment of the struggle in the Peninsula. Best known as a writer on medieval history, Prof. Lindner has acquitted himself with considerable success in the more modern periods to which the progress of his attempt to produce a world-history has brought him down. His seventh volume shows many of the merits that distinguished the earliest portions of the work, reviewed in these pages ten years ago.* Unity of conception, a remarkable power of eliminating unessentials, a wide grasp of the varied aspects of human activity, which is shown in the equal prominence of industrial and intellectual topics with political, all these serve to make Prof. Lindner's volume readable and valuable. It is a pity, therefore, that the few pages he devotes to the contest in the Peninsula should be considerably below the level of the volume as a whole, both in accuracy of detail and in appreciation of the main features of the struggle. One finds Wellesley held responsible for the failure to pursue Junot after Vimiero

'Quarterly Review,' vol. 198, pp. 44-46

(vii, 317), and the war regarded as advantageous to Napoleon, because it occupied English forces which otherwise would have been employed to attack him further eastward (vii, 352). That there should be no mention of Marmont's defeat at Salamanca and its far-reaching effects, not even of Soult's evacuation of Andalusia, is surely a serious oversight.

Prof. Oman has further enriched the literature of the Peninsular War with a volume on 'Wellington's Army,' which stands in the same relation to the History' as Mr Fortescue's invaluable but somewhat oddly named 'County Lieutenancies and the Army' does to his main work. It tells of things which would interrupt the thread of the narrative and cannot therefore be treated as fully as they deserve in the main work. It deals with the general and his chief subordinates, with his tactics and those of his adversaries, with the organisation and composition of the force under his command, with its administration, commissariat, discipline, equipment, uniforms and spiritual life, in a word it enables us to see of what sort that army was which was 'fit to go anywhere and do anything.' Perhaps its most valuable chapters are those which describe the methods by which Wellington faced and defeated the all-conquering Imperial armies (pp. 73–93).

Confident in the superiority of the English two-deep formation over the heavier order of the French battalions, since every English musket could be brought to bear on the French columns, the rear ranks of which could not possibly reply; confident also that the English infantry would watch undismayed the threatening advance of the formidable columns by which Continental armies were 'half beaten before the battle began,' Wellington did not defeat the column merely by sticking to the old linear tactics of the 18th century. His system was far more profound. Its first principle was that of using ground to the best possible tactical advantage, concealing his line so that it should be screened from view and from the enemy's fire until the last moment. From Vimiero and Bussaco down to Waterloo, Wellington always sought for a position in which his men should not be unnecessarily exposed; and time after time he surprised his adversaries by the unexpected disclosure of hidden

troops. Indeed, the French generals came to conclude that British troops must be lurking behind every hillside on which they could not be seen. Reminiscences of rude surprises in the Peninsula held Ney back during the critical hours of June 16 from attacking at Quatre Bras. The moral ascendency Wellington had established over his adversaries made Marmont and Dorsenne refrain on September 26, 1811, from attacking the Fuente Guinaldo position where Wellington was so audaciously standing at bay. We cannot see the English, therefore they must be there' is no exaggeration of the belief which Wellington had instilled into his opponents' minds. Again, he developed the use of light troops as skirmishers to counteract the tirailleurs, who usually pushed on ahead of the French columns and paved their road to success by a vigorous and well-sustained fire-attack, to which Prussian and Austrian lines, unprotected by skirmishers, had found reply almost impossible. Lastly, he was careful to cover the flanks of his line, either by the ground, as at Talavera and Fuentes de Oñoro, or by cavalry and artillery, as at Salamanca. This tactical system was sketched by Mr Oman in his first volume (pp. 114-22); the chapter in Wellington's Army' which sets it forth is far fuller and more exhaustive. Another matter to which the book devotes a good deal of space is the exact composition of the army, its ever-changing distribution into brigades and divisions, and the methods adopted for keeping it up to strength. This is a subject to which constant references are made in the History,' but it is convenient to have all the scattered references together.

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When in January 1809 Napoleon turned back from Astorga, leaving to Soult the task of pursuing Moore, he believed his presence to be no longer needed in Spain. In his rejection of Lanfrey's view that Napoleon wanted an excuse for abandoning an enterprise which was proving unexpectedly difficult, Prof. Oman is supported by M. Fournier, whose excellent life of the Emperor has recently been translated-none too skilfully-into English. M. Fournier regards Austria's menacing attitude and the intrigues of Talleyrand and Fouché as the reasons of Napoleon's departure (ii, 69-71), and certainly all the orders for completing the subjugation of the Peninsula

bear out the view that he believed the back of the resistance to be broken. But if he had routed the Spanish armies, and if for the moment Andalusia seemed at his mercy, Moore's stroke had, nevertheless, been most successful. The main field force of the French had been drawn off to the rugged remoteness of Galicia, and so southern Spain was given an invaluable breathing space to reorganise her resistance. It is true that the mania for pitched battles, which possessed nearly every Spanish general except la Romana, led to Cartoajal's ruining the Army of La Mancha at Ciudad Real on March 27 and to Victor's routing Cuesta's Army of Estremadura at Medellin next day; but neither victory could be followed up, nor could Soult improve upon his capture of Oporto (March 29). Everywhere the French came to a standstill for want of reinforcements and through the impossibility of co-operation.

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Napoleon's plan for the simultaneous invasion of Portugal by Soult from the north and Victor from the east betrays his failure to realise the conditions under which his lieutenants had to operate. It is impossible,' as Mr Oman says (ii, 176), ' to give effective aid to a colleague whose condition and whose whereabouts are unknown.' The insurgent peasantry were far more formidable than the organised armies of Spain; the greater the disaster suffered by the national troops,' so Marshal Jourdan declared, 'the more willing were the population to rise and take arms.' The French could not subdue the country as they had subdued Italy and Germany. As they passed on, the peasants rose behind them, cut their communications and intercepted their messengers, until, in the words of a French officer-diarist, Fantin des Odoards,' the march of the Second Corps was like the progress of a ship on the high seas: she cleaves the waves, but they close behind her, and in a few moments all trace of her passage has disappeared.' The French could only subdue Spain by actually occupying not only the chief towns but every village, since, if left unoccupied, it became a centre of active resistance. But while any hostile army remained ' in being' such dispersion was impossible. And by April 1809 such a force was in effective existence. When Moore advanced into Spain some 10,000 British had remained in Portugal under Sir John Cradock, and when,

towards the end of February, Castlereagh decided to continue the struggle in the Peninsula and carried his colleagues with him, this handful formed the nucleus of the army he entrusted to Wellington. Prof. Oman criticises Cradock severely. Instead of concentrating his force round Lisbon as though about to evacuate Portugal, Cradock, he argues, should have advanced to Abrantes or Almeida and made all possible show (ii, 202). But Mr Fortescue has come across some of Cradock's letters which Prof. Oman was unable to find, and by their aid makes out a good defence (pp. 117-19). Cradock's instructions were obscure and seemed to point rather to evacuation than to the continuation of the contest. Mr Fortescue is not quite so successful in his efforts to minimise the differences between the views of Moore and Wellesley as to the defensibility of Portugal (pp. 126 ff.). He argues that Moore was treating the Portuguese army as valueless, whereas its restoration to efficiency was the basis of Wellesley's readiness to undertake the defence. This is so; but there is still an enormous difference between Wellesley's 'I have always been of opinion that Portugal might be defended, whatever the result of the contest in Spain,' and Moore's 'If the French succeed in Spain it will be vain to attempt to resist them in Portugal.'

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Wellesley came out to Portugal with a definite plan, based upon a really remarkable insight into the prevailing conditions (Oman, ii, 290 ff.). He had gauged perfectly well the situation and the difficulties of the French,' he had grasped the fundamental truth that 'the more ground the French hold down, the weaker will they be at any given point.' 'The Emperor could not send to Spain a force sufficient to hold down every province and also to provide a field army large enough to beat the AngloPortuguese and capture Lisbon. If the French dispersed and kept down the vast tracts of conquered territory, they had no force left with which to take the offensive against Portugal: if they massed their armies, they had to give up broad regions which immediately relapsed into insurrection.' Thus, when in June 1811 a French concentration forced Wellington to abandon his second siege of Badajoz, the French had to pay for their success: promptly as Soult hurried back to Seville, he never quite

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