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marked improvement in its quality. The soldiers have written better history; some civilian historians have learnt to appreciate the difficulties of soldiers. The importance of military history is much more generally recognised, and the attention which Oxford and Cambridge devote to it shows how far the reaction has spread. Indeed, perhaps the most considerable and ambitious historical work now in progress in England is the 'History of the Peninsular War,' by the Chichele Professor of Modern History at Oxford. And, next after it, one might name a book of the same complexionMr J. W. Fortescue's History of the British Army,' the latest instalment of which reaches 1810. Prof. Oman's first volume (1902), noticed in this Review along with Sir Frederick Maurice's Diary of Sir John Moore,' in April 1904, reached the re-embarkation of Moore's army at Corunna. The second (1903) told the story of Oporto and Talavera; the third (1908) left Massena checked before the lines of Torres Vedras; the fourth and latest (1911), deals with the least known but certainly not the least interesting year of the struggle, 1811.

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It was indeed high time to tell afresh the story of Wellington's campaigns. The mass of new evidence was crying out to be used, and Prof. Oman has used it to good purpose. He has not only sifted the grain from the chaff out of all the new printed sources-diaries like Tomkinson's Diary of a Cavalry Officer;' regimental histories like Colonel Gardyne's 'Life of a Regiment' (the Gordon Highlanders); memoirs like those of Sir Harry Smith and Colborne-but he has had access to much unpublished material, of which perhaps the most important are the D'Urban papers, containing invaluable information about the staff-work of the Portuguese army under Beresford. And he is as well versed in the French

and Spanish sources. Nobody could maintain that Napier does justice to the Spaniards. His prejudice against them is as strong as his predilection in favour of Napoleon and his hatred of the Tory ministers, Perceval and Liverpool. Not the least service which Prof. Oman has done is that he has put the achievements of the Spaniards in their true light. He shows how well many of Blake's regiments fought at Albuera, brings out the heroism of Alvarez, the stubborn defender of Gerona,

the constant good service of la Romana, of Henry O'Donnell in Catalonia and many others. His censure of the headlong folly of Areizaga at Ocana, of the culpable weakness of Imaz at Badajoz, of Cuesta's perverse obstinacy, is all the more severe because he is ready to admit that good could come out of Galicia or Estremadura. His pages may lack the glowing rhetoric which illumines so many of Napier's, but he makes up for it in lucidity. 'Every schoolboy knows' Napier's wonderful word-picture of the crisis at Albuera, but if one would understand how and why the battle was fought and won, it is from Prof. Oman that one will learn it. Where Napier's brilliance dazzles and confuses, Prof. Oman is clearness itself. Moreover, he has a more judicial mind; his criticisms are sane and reasonable; there is no attempt to prove Wellington infallible; and the new sources from which he has drawn have naturally enabled him to clear up many controversial points. If his book is open to criticism, it is in the matter of the maps. There are hardly enough of them; they do not always quite correspond to the text; and the system of indicating heights in the battle-plans is much inferior to that adopted by Mr Fortescue's draughtsman in the History of the British Army,' where the maps are a great feature, and, being bound up separately, are extremely convenient to use.

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In his earlier volumes it has often been Mr Fortescue's good fortune to write the first adequate account of neglected but important episodes like the West Indian expeditions of 1793-97 or the Duke of York's misadventures in the Netherlands. In his latest volume the Walcheren fiasco and Auchmuty's really remarkable achievements in Java supply him with virgin soil, but in the Peninsula he has not the advantage of being a pioneer. His version is none the less welcome and valuable; indeed, one turns to his narrative of the Douro and the Coa all the more eagerly to see how far his conclusions agree with those of Prof. Oman. With a good deal less space at his disposal-he has about 430 pages to give to the events covered by two of the Oxford writer's substantial volumes-he is not obliged to go into the Spanish operations at length, and hence is able to give almost as much space to Talavera and Bussaco. Differences of detail are numerous, as for example over the

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.

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.

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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

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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.

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

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