and Sherman were as broad and luminous as the proceedings of the British Government at the opening of the Crimean war were meagre and uncertain.

In our own errors we may be in some sort comforted by observing how utterly unable certain other Powers are to understand the present realities of war. The occupation of the Quadrilateral by Austria down to 1866 was simply as monstrous an error-if it really were a defensive measure- —as was ever perpetrated by Mack or Weyrother. With the Adriatic open behind to a French fleet, with the neutrality of England secured, the value of the once potent line of Mantua and Verona was gone. The garrisons which could be turned by an army thrown by steam into Venetia would only be lost to the Austrian Empire. As a base for the offensive against Italy, the Quadrilateral was, on the other hand (as Radetski proved), simply invaluable. This was the menace against which Italy raised her monstrous army: for this all Europe was long kept in uneasiness and suspense. But the true line of defence for Austria Proper is that of her mountains. In keeping it advanced to the Po she either had secretly in view an aggressive and dangerous policy, or she was still the most shortsighted and blundering strategist of the age.

The complaint often made by English officers of the want of a comprehensive and accessible guide to the study of the higher branches of their profession has hitherto been just. The elaborate works of Napoleon, the Archduke Charles, Clausewitz, and Jomini on strategy, of Bülow, Hardegg, Decker, De Ternay, and Lallemand on tactics, would fill a library; so copious are their contents, and so laden with histo

6

6

rical and critical dissertations. To condense their spirit and modify their precepts to suit the requirements of a progressive age, has been nowhere attempted in our language, if we except Macdougall's Theory of War,' a work too slight, incomplete, and unfinished-as we judge by his new publication -to satisfy the author, and yet too abstract in its method of treatment for the practical soldier. The want will be for the future in great part supplied by the Operations of War' of Colonel Hamley, who has used his rare opportunities so well as to take at a step the very first rank among the theorists of his profession. Though intended for the professional student, to whom its publication will be a real boon, this volume is so stripped of dry technicality, and made so luminous by the author's brilliancy of style, that all general readers who would raise their knowledge of modern warfare above that dead level implied by a trust in the gorgeous but inaccurate history of Alison would do well to see for themselves in its pages how armies are really subsisted, moved, and fought.

Englishmen, let us add in conclusion, need not be ashamed to interest themselves in the improvement of their military force. The existence of standing armies is a fact statesmen cannot afford to overlook; and our countrymen should take care that their own is neither petted into indolence, nor suffered to decay from neglect. The spirit of progress is thoroughly awakened in our soldiers. Let it be permitted to work out its honest fruits without discouragement, that the nation, grown more liberal in their treatment, may find a due reward in troops excelling all others

in skill and readiness as well as in courage and devotion. Let it be remembered that much lost ground had to be recovered in our army, due partly to a spirit of false economy, and partly to what we must hold to be the mistaken views of Wellington in his old age. During the latter years of his military rule, it is too apparent (despite of Mr. Gleig's able defence of his hero), that the dead weight of a mighty name opposed to all reform or change crushed out the active life of every portion of the service.

Even the mild and colourless régime of Lord Hardinge revived the military spirit in some degree. Then came our bitter lessons in the field, Varna's pestilential marshes, Balaclava's freezing heights. The nation was fairly wakened to a sense of what was due to the military service; and the work of reform began. Whether under a succession of good but worn-out warriors of the Peninsula we should have been able to show the proofs of progress which every arm now bears, is a question we will not attempt to determine here. In looking back on the former history of our Horse Guards it is plain that too many of those honoured veterans came of a school in which reform was held in odium and improvement deemed impossible. While such men held office or advised Ministers, the army fell behind the rest of the nation, and the safety of England's future was allowed to rest on the glories of the past.

Such is not the spirit that at present rules the British Army. It is not our purpose to eulogise the Prince who is at the head of the service, or to pretend that the present War Office administration is faultless.

But, on the whole, it is progressive, just, and active; and its care is felt to extend from the education of the staff officer to the teaching of the soldier's child. Under it the service has been advancing to its proper place in the State, improving in the day of rest, and preparing to answer the call for action without unreadiness or mistakes. Long may it so advance, that the soldier may find his profession honoured by his countrymen in time of peace, and that in war the national courage which bore the Six Hundred through their fierce charge at Balaclava may be guided by the science which was wanting in their chiefs. Many are the reforms that have been introduced since that sad yet glorious day; and if to impatient critics we still seem behind other nations in the march of military progress, it is rather that our neighbours have pressed forward than that we have stood still.

58

THE MILITARY GROWTH OF PRUSSIA.1 [Reprinted from the EDINBURGH REVIEW, October 1866.]

THE peace awakens universal joy. For my own part, being but a poor old man, I return to a city where I now know nothing but the walls; where I cannot find again the friends I once had; where unmeasured toil awaits me; and where I must soon lay me down to rest in that place in which there is no more unquiet, nor war, nor misery, nor man's deceit.' Thus wrote, more than a century since, a saddened philosopher-king, wearied, as he would have the world believe, of all earthly greatness and success; and if these reflections run too closely in the vein of the wise monarch of Israel to give their author claim to originality, it must be admitted that Frederic the Great had as good reason as any one in Prussia for feeling worn out at the close of the Seven Years' War, having spared his own person as little as his suffering country. The banded powers of half Europe had not indeed sufficed to tear from him any part of his dominions, or abated a jot of his pretensions, but the realm he ruled had paid dearly for his

11. Preussen als Militärstaat; eine historische Skizze: Vienna, 1866. 2. Der einjährige Freiwillige im Preussischen Heere: Berlin, 1862. 3. Allerhöchste Verordnungen über die grösseren Truppenübungen: Berlin, 1861. 4. A Military Memorial, translated from the German of Prince Frederic Charles: London, 1866. 5. Military Correspondence of the Times during the late Campaign: London, 1866.