THE REAL WATERLOO.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1163, 26 June 1911, Page 6

THE REAL WATERLOO.

— ♦ ; OUR DEPLORABLE BOOKSi ■ 'MOONSHINE AND HAIiD FACT. (Br Gyro.) To tho interesting anniversary sketch which appeared last week, and which embodied tho impressions of a Dominion reporter, who visited tho field_ of Waterloo some time ago, the following article is given as a, complementary study. It is intended to show how unreliable most of our literature on war is, and it has a present-day value. For what shapes our national attitude to and conception of war? Books chiefly.

We Join the "Eighth of the Line." Conceive ourselves in Paris in 1793-90. It is tho only way to get a picture of an exceedingly difficult matter which is religiously omitted from English histories, and which tho silver and real gold, and pale moonshine of the Victorian ago has successfully buried beneath such a' mass of ornamental trimmings that, at this lapso of time, we really cannot seo tho thing itself.' "The thing," by'tho way, is Waterloo. And no ordinary subject either, for we know that our notion of "military greatness" (which will assuredly be tested before 1925) is based on Waterloo, and practically nothing else. Every war in our timo—Sudan, Tirah, Boer—is, or ought to have been, an eye-opener, since the national effort -which was .ultimately required to win has invariably been about ten times aa great as the nation, a priori, supposed that it would be. But, always, of course, we have had that splendid prop—Waterloo—to lean back upon. I noticed, recently, on the hill-board of the Y.M.C.A. that sin esteemed city clergyman was to lecture on "World-shaking Waterloo." Now, before anything else is said, let.it be understooeL.tliat Waterloo was in no senso world-shaking, sinco it seems idle, and against reason, to suppose that the same combination of forces which brought Napoleon down in 1812, and again in iSI3, and once more; in lSlt, would not liavo .tumbled' him in 1815, whichever way the result of Waterloo had gorie; Behold us, then, in Paris in 1793-95, just as wo should have been—out of work. The Revolution would have done that much forus.; Wo walk about, day after day, till our boots grow very thin, and hunger calls on resolution to wake up. 'We finally jump at the only employment offering, and join the army. Wo are rather severely, drilled at one of tho depots for a number of weeks, still wearing mufti and our very attenuated boots. After some time the drill-master privately reports that we are "not fit for tho Guard or other corps d'elite," and we are drafted to some regiment of the line. We receive, two tickets one, let us say: "Leger huitiemo." while tho other warns any and every villager that, if he'does not give us food, and rest, and billet whenever, a.t specified times, we may need it, ho will be shot. At some further spot on the routo we aro given a really resplendent uniform and a musket, cartouche-box, and bayonet. Meanwhile and somehow, we have also picked up discipline, which means that the corporal is always in the right when be speaks to you, the sergeant when ho speaks to the corporal, the sub-lieutenant When ho deigns a word to the sergeant, and so on to tho Marshal of France.

The Discipline As It Was. Arrived in the bivouacs of the Eighth of the Line, -things grow a little more complex. We are, .as has been said, merely men thrown out of work-by circumstances over which wo:have had no control, arid .we soon.'.begin'.to learn' that it';is;.v'uriprofitable, in-.;every respect, to open ...our .mouths, especially,'' in regard to the politics of "the day. ' Here, for instance, is some/incautious private of the "Lcger, huitieme" who has merely remarked that "Napoleon .was a good gen'crhl/but—etc., etc.," "or> that "Things in Paris were not going as well as might be." As.we boil our coffee we do not pay much heed to him, but w;o know more the matter next evening, when some 'fencer of the' Guard'"happens"along in front of the fire, and slaps him in the face, and calls him out. In fifteen minutes that political roaror is dead. We then (such is our bit of make-believe) begin to understand things, and; if we have a reflective turn of mind, we perceive that Bonaparte will have no political spouters... He wants doers. And he knows— no one.better—that the habit of analysis, to which our imaginary private gave'way and was, in consequence, called out anil killed, is very unfavourable to achievement. In this way the ranks of the army very soon contain nothing but silent and resolute men. That was the quality of the. French in the years before. 1808,- and before the British came on the scene at all. '

The Tactics Before the English Came. There cofnes at length the day of battle, and then we .(Lcger huitieme) are introduced to-a new thing altogether—the tactical system—which, to bo sure, Napoleon borrowed from a paper tactician named Mesnil Durand without a word of acknowledgment. It. is the more remarkablo becauso it is, in principle, something like the system on which a British force would deploy for battle today though, of course; there are certain differences due to the changes which time has wrought in firearms. But how to describe it? A military book would call it "lino' of contiguous double company columns at ileploying intervals" which, of course, to the ordinary, reader means just nothing at all. But, it was something like this:— Each little block had a front of 120 men or thereabouts, and each.was.four ranks deep! Tho drill, of course, was matchless, and the effect of the system depended absolutely on tho word of command, and instant and intelligent conformity t'o it. . To quite understand it we have to carry our little illustration—the Lcger .huitieme— just, ono step further. i It is, say, 3 o'clock in the afternoon, 'and.o.ur "Eighth of tho Line" has, since early morning, been. standing motionless in colurhri'of route'perhaps half a mile behind the'guns. Now, however, we aro moved up quite close to them, and formed into line of doable company columns. There we are left standing for perhaps another half hour and, occasionally through the smoko we sco.our own cannon shots descending on the enemy like a shower of peas for (against' a favourable background) the flight of artillery projectiles in those days," could' often be followed with tlio naked eye.

Presumably some general, or marshal, or .maybe the Emperor himself thinks that the moment is opportune and, instantly, a major or a captain jumps to the head of each little block of men, and draws his sword, and shouts "En Avaut!" The Leger huitieme and other rjgiments pass through the line of the batteries, and hurry forward. The little doublecompany columns move very fast' and suffer comparatively little, but, if a round shot does happen to hit one, the company and regimental officers at once give the command: -"Closo tho ra.nks!" "Close tho Tanks," and every, good private knows that the gap, which has been created by tho opposing artillery, must bo closed up at once. It requires good drill on the part of the intelligent men. In fifteen or twenty minutes the whole thing is over. Tho columns approach, say, within one hundred yards of the enemy and then, t'ho word of command, given by the captains and other company officers at the right moment, unlocks the columns, and deploys them. Such a system, combining as it did the handiness.and mobility of the column and the lighting power of the line, was irresistible and, up till 180(i, it practically swept tho nations of Europe off their feet. English armies, as has been mentioned, did not dawn on tho scene till .1803. The Tactics After the English Came. 'Now, supposing that some private of the Leger huitieme, had left the army in 1806 and had rejoined it, say, at tho time when tho English troops first landed in Spain, ho would have found it so changed that ho would hardly have known it. No longer would ho have seen the handy little columns of ■100 or 500 men, but huge ones of 10,000 each with a front of COO, and deep in Such great tareets were al-

I most impossible for tho opposing artillery to miss, ami sometimes u shut would pass through as ninny us fifty ranks, knocking down a. man each time. Tho carnage from artillery fire alone was very demoralising, anil, as the lingo lump got nearer, the English always met it in line, and smote it with three or four volleys. This was always done just as the great column was in tho act of attempting to deploy, and, of course, when fired into like that, it never could deploy. That is what went on all day at Waterloo, and, indeed, in all Wellington's battles, and it is the explanation of Wellington's own words in describing Waterloo—"Bonaparte did not manoeuvre at all! he just came on nil day iu the old way, in deep columns."

And Why the Great Change Happened,

But why did the Emperor have to do so suicidal a thing? Simply because he could do nothing else. Long wars sap efficiency, and the best men and officers usually fall first. The intelligent, educated regimental and company officers which tho devolution had thrown into the ranks of tho army had mostly perished many years before Waterloo, and, in their place, had come an undesirable class—the political spouters, roarers, ranters, and agitators of tho cities. Such men, however valiant on the platform, proved here (as they did again in tho American Civil War) that they had but poor stomachs for real fighting, and that was whv tho system of small columns had to be abandoned,and tho huge ones formed. It was dono in order that a rabble of weaklings might get that confidence which timid souls acquire by going forward in the middle of a great body of their fellow men.

So here wo have a light on a great national event, though it is not to be found in the popular histories, which make no mention of the great deterioration of the French Army at all, though they do prattle prettily about the "veterans of Austerlitj! and Jena," and all that sort of moonshine.

What would have happened had England met Franco on land as early as 1805—in the day of the small columns— we can only speculate upon, and the speculation would be profitless. What seems important to state is just what has been said before—that every one of our wars in our own time has turned out totally different to what our national expectation regarding it was, and. everywhere, we are led astray by our defective histories and wretched war literature.

Waterloo is, no doubt, a good prop for the national pride, but do not let us lean too heavily on it lest, perchance, it break. It was won under special circumstances which aro never likely to recur, nnd tho=e special circumstances are hardly alluded to in our deplorablo books. What book, for instance (except one by Sir Evelyn Wood), even mentions the tact that, at Waterloo, in the Old Guard (18,000 strong), nearly 5000 were raw recruits? And, in tho line regiments, some of the officers did not even know the word of command.