Chapter X: Moltke (2)

Macmahon, at this time, was at Carignan; he confidently expected that he would reach Metz; he boasted, it is said, that victory was at hand. The news of the events of the 30th dispelled these dreams; he hurriedly fell back with his one intact corps, and by the morning of the 31st he had assembled the still large, but beaten, Army of Châlons in the tract that surrounds the fortress and town of Sedan. The state of the French troops was of the worst omen; but an occasion was still open to a great chief, to extricate them from impending ruin. Mézières was not distant, and a French corps had reached the place to support the Marshal; the Meuse spread between his army and the foe, and had he left his _impedimenta_ behind, and made a rapid march, without the loss of an hour, he would certainly have escaped with the great mass of his forces. It is this circumstance which makes the strategy of Moltke inferior, fine as it was, to that which shut up Mack in Ulm; and the Grand Army, it will be borne in mind, had been saved on the Beresina when in far worse straits. Macmahon, however, would not stir from Sedan; there is reason to believe he never knew the immense strength of the hostile force, and he arrayed his army, “ready,” he said, “to fight,” along the uplands, encircled by streams and villages, which overlook Sedan and the valley below. The evening of the 31st had come; the German horsemen made the situation known; and Moltke, who up to this time had only hoped that he might succeed in forcing his enemy across the frontier, saw that he could reckon on a decisive triumph. Orders were issued for an immediate night march; the great German divisions, perfectly led, and the men scenting approaching victory, moved rapidly over the space between, and preparations were made to assail and surround the feeble and shattered Army of Châlons.

It is unnecessary to retrace the scenes of Sedan, the just retribution of foolishness in command, a battle decreed by Fate, in its irony, to be fought around the birthplace of Turenne. The French were first attacked, on that fatal morning, on their southern and eastern front towards the Chiers; and they made for a time a gallant resistance, though the fall of Macmahon and a squabble between two of his lieutenants had a bad effect on the troops. By degrees, however, the overwhelming pressure of forces immensely superior told; the line of defence on the Givonne was carried; and the French were driven back, on Sedan, routed, and huddled around the walls of the fortress. Meanwhile a tremendous attack had been made on the northern and western fronts of the defence; the Germans advancing to the heights of Illy, and moving from the opposite side round the bend of the Meuse, which half encircles the outskirts of Sedan, closed gradually round their doomed foes; and though the French cavalry made heroic efforts, and one corps nobly struggled to the last, it was impossible to withstand overpowering numbers. The last remains of the Army of Châlons were forced, like the first, against the fortress; the German artillery--throughout the campaign it had proved an arm of enormous strength--was brought to bear in masses on the perishing wreck; the fire of 500 pieces searched the scene of carnage; and a white flag soon announced that resistance, no longer possible, had completely ceased. Within a few hours 85,000 men, the survivors of more than 120,000, the victims of worse than insensate leading, were a collection of helpless prisoners of war; and their cries of impotent fury and despair--this was the attitude of by far the greater part--only provoked the pitying scorn of the victors.

This immense disaster, added to that of Metz, all but destroyed the military power of Imperial France on the theatre of war. Moltke had acted harshly at the capitulation of Sedan; he had no respect for the French character; like Hannibal and Napoleon, he treated the force of patriotic passion with contempt; and, leaving a considerable detachment behind, he directed an immediate advance on Paris. The German armies rolled steadily onward, through the valleys of the Aisne, the Oise, and the Marne, masking fortresses and occupying points on their way; and they appeared before the capital on the 19th of September, the chiefs convinced they would meet no resistance. Their expectations seemed about to be realised; an attempt to assail the invaders in flank, as they gathered upon the uplands south of the Seine, was easily defeated, and had bad results; and the Germans were permitted, without a further effort, to surround and invest the beleaguered city. Their lines, constructed with skill and forethought, spread on a circumference of great extent, from the confluence of the Seine and the Marne, by St. Denis, round through Versailles to Bonneuil; and though the besieging forces were at this moment not 150,000 strong, no doubt existed in the German camp--it was, indeed, the general belief of Europe--that a few days would see the surrender of Paris.

Weeks, however, passed, and it became apparent that this calculation was a complete error. The Empire had fallen on the 4th of September; a Government of national defence had been formed; and this Revolution, in the main caused by the passionate wrath of the great mass of the citizens, quickened the general resolve that the capital should hold out, and confront the power of the German armies. Preparations had been made to stand a siege; immense supplies of provisions had been stored; the _enceinte_ and the forts which protect the city had been hastily manned and armed; enormous bodies of men had been assembled to take part in the defence of the place; these were supported by a corps of trained soldiers, and by the corps which had appeared at Mézières, and had been brought back after a skilful retreat; and though these arrangements were rude and imperfect, the strength of the city to resist attack was infinitely greater than Moltke had supposed. Sorties began to be made by degrees; these, though always repulsed, were not contemptible; the armament of the forts was completed; redoubts and entrenchments rose at many points to strengthen and to perfect the zone of defence; the citizens, warlike in all ages, though in peace addicted to pleasure and ease, acquired gradually something like discipline; the materials at least of armies were formed, and Paris assumed the aspect of a huge fortified camp, with a garrison certainly immense in numbers. Moltke took pains to secure his position; he tacitly admitted that he had made a mistake in marching on the capital without having his communications or his base assured, and with forces comparatively small; but he held his ground with determined constancy; he summoned reinforcements to head-quarters, and several corps were employed in besieging Strasbourg and other strongholds on the way from the frontier, and in overrunning Burgundy and Franche Comté. The front and lines of the invasion were thus strengthened; and, though time had passed, the submission of France was held to be a fact of the immediate future. The German chief was to be again deceived, as many warriors had been before, in his estimate of a people, great and heroic, despite of many national faults and failings. It is all very well for the Prussian Staff to sneer at Gambetta, as it has done in its book; but he was a man of great powers, if of real shortcomings; and he was but the most striking figure of millions of Frenchmen. A great and sudden national rising took place; it was more spontaneous than that of 1793; in an incredibly short time 250,000 men were in arms to resist the German hosts; and by making use of the resources of France for war--old soldiers, troops in depôts, and reserves--vast arrays were mustered, which at least contained the elements of real military power. These levies, of course, were bad soldiers, but they were formidable in numbers and in aptitude for war; and, whatever may be said, the position of Moltke had become critical as October was closing; the German armies were, for the most part, engaged on the investment of Paris and to the east of Metz; they were conquerors, and had all the power of success; but they were exposed to attack from within and without at the centres to which they were, as it were, bound; and they were in the midst of an immense insurrection spreading all round.

At this conjuncture, a great disaster showed that Fortune was still most adverse to France. Bazaine had been shut up since Gravelotte at Metz; he had kept his army almost inactive, and he had made no real effort to break the investment. I cannot examine the crooked intrigues in which he played an ignoble part; but he surrendered the great fortress on the 28th of October, and the world beheld the most disgraceful capitulation ever known in war. Even on his pitiful system of passive defence, the Marshal did not nearly do his duty; the place could have held out a fortnight longer, and the respite would have been of extreme importance. The First and Second Armies were now set free to take part in the great invasion; several corps were sent to the north, to crush levies formed in Normandy and other provinces. One was despatched to support the siege; and the remainder, under Prince Frederick Charles, held the tract between the heads of the Seine and Burgundy. The grasp of the Germans on France was thus greatly strengthened; yet the position of Moltke was so unsafe that it was endangered by a single trifling reverse. An army, partly composed of good troops, but in the main of improvised levies, had been assembled south of the Loire; it had been placed in the hands of D’Aurelle, a veteran of real organizing skill, and in a few weeks it numbered 60,000 men, and had acquired something like military worth and power. A Bavarian detachment, perhaps 20,000 strong, and a division under the Grand-Duke of Mecklenburg, sent off to put down insurrection in the west, were the only hostile forces between this large mass of Frenchmen and the lines round Paris; and D’Aurelle, aided by a young chief, Chanzy, who was to prove that France had yet real captains, resolved to attack the Bavarians and to retake Orleans, which had fallen into the enemy’s hands. The Army of the Loire broke up from its camps, and crossed the river in the first days in November; it fell on the Bavarians near the little town of Coulmiers. Had the orders of Chanzy been well carried out, and a turning movement been completed in time, the invaders must have been utterly routed; but, as it was, they were beaten with loss; and they were compelled to fall back on the roads to Paris, abandoning Orleans and the adjoining region.

When this intelligence arrived, unfeigned alarm prevailed at the German head-quarters at Versailles; the besiegers were threatened by an army of relief, and by the unknown multitudes of armed men in Paris; and disseminated as they were on an immense circumference, they were in a situation of no common peril. Moltke made up his mind, as became a true chief; he despatched pressing orders to Prince Frederick Charles to hasten to the capital by forced marches; and, like Bonaparte before Mantua--a Journal, said to be his, alludes to this--he resolved, whatever the result, to raise the siege should the Army of the Loire appear from the south. This single circumstance shows how precarious the position of the Germans had become; and had D’Aurelle boldly followed up his success the consequences to France might have been momentous. Chanzy, it is known, was for the more daring course; Napoleon would have taken it, I cannot doubt; and though it is idle to speculate now, the siege would certainly have been given up and the war would have taken a different turn. D’Aurelle, however, refused to advance; he constructed a great entrenched camp near Orleans; and here he increased and trained his levies, hoping before long to resume the offensive. This, probably, was too great caution; but there were reasons for the step of real weight. Prince Frederick Charles was but a few marches off, and should he reach the flank of the Army of the Loire, on its way to the capital, he would perhaps destroy the best organized force possessed by France. This clearly shows that had Metz resisted, and detained the Prince only a few days longer, the French chief would have had, and perhaps would have seized, an admirable occasion offered by Fortune; and, indeed, a German writer has drily remarked that “the capitulation came in the very nick of time.”

The victory of Coulmiers sent a thrill through France, enormously increased the power of Gambetta, and caused levies to flock to the war in thousands. Notwithstanding the fall of Metz, and all that followed from it, the situation of the Germans was still critical; and owing to the undoubted strategic mistake of marching on Paris with too weak a force, their movements had been incoherent, and far from masterly. By the close of November the Great City had formed three armies out of her armed multitudes; and two of them, probably 150,000 strong, had acquired a certain degree of efficiency; the third, perhaps 200,000 men, being only fit to defend the ramparts. I cannot describe the great sortie which followed; Ducrot crossed the Marne and carried two villages, which had been made part of the besiegers’ lines; but ultimately he was compelled to retreat; and, in fact, the effort was doomed to failure, for the zone of investment and the zone of defence had by this time become all but impregnable, or could be mastered only by the art of the engineer. The sortie from Paris was contemporaneous with an advance of the army of D’Aurelle’s northwards; but here Gambetta unhappily intervened, and his meddling and presumption did enormous mischief. The young civilian had done, no doubt, great things, but since Coulmiers, he had become a kind of Dictator--the history of France has too many examples how foolish hero-worship has such results--he insisted that the Army of the Loire should make for the capital, whatever the risk, though Prince Frederick Charles was near at hand; and, as he had made that army 150,000 strong, he refused to believe that there was serious danger. D’Aurelle and Chanzy protested in vain; two detached corps of the Army of the Loire were directed against Prince Frederick Charles, and were easily defeated by an inferior force; and the Prince, a chief of a very high order, made immediate preparations for a great counter-stroke. The Grand Duke and the Bavarians had been approaching; he quickly united these forces to his own, and he bore down in irresistible strength on the army, mainly of recruits, opposed to him. The centre of the Army of the Loire was broken; its wings fell off in eccentric retreat; one part was driven across the river, and the triumphant invaders re-entered Orleans, having gained rapid and complete success. By the first days of December it had become apparent that Paris could not burst the chain cast around her; and the army had been shattered which had been employed, unwisely at the moment, as an army of relief.

The prospect for France was dark and mournful; but light shone at one point on the gloomy scene. D’Aurelle had been unjustly dismissed by Gambetta; and the part of his defeated army which had crossed the Loire had been placed in the hands of Bourbaki, the chief of the late Imperial Guard. Chanzy, however, commanded the remaining part; and a series of operations followed which show that he had real genius in war. He was attacked by the Grand Duke in all the flush of victory; but he had been reinforced by Gambetta’s orders; he took a strong position, covering both his flanks; and then with true insight he assumed the offensive, essential in the case of French soldiers; and, on the whole, he obtained some success. Prince Frederick Charles now fiercely turned against him; he concentrated all his available forces; but Chanzy made a magnificent stand; and his conduct deserves the very highest praise. Perceiving that the relief of Paris should be the true object of the French armies in the field, he fell back from the Loire to the Sarthe, drawing toward the capital with great skill; and in this he showed that he was a real strategist. Nor was he less admirable as a tactician; he continually, in retreat, took an offensive attitude; he turned defensive positions to the best account, and he contrived that the superiority of the French rifle should tell with full effect on the advancing enemy. Prince Frederick Charles pursued in vain; Chanzy made good his way to Le Mans; he was nearer to Paris than when he had left the Loire; his army had not been once beaten; and the Germans were not only worn out, but showed signs of demoralization and fear, for thousands had perished to no purpose; the hardships of the winter campaign had been frightful; and it seemed impossible to overcome the enemy.[32]

A pause in the conflict now occurred, to the astonishment of Europe, still doubtful--a war of races, in which colossal force was confronted by a national rising. The Germans were still, for the most part, victorious; their armies surrounded imprisoned Paris; they had mastered most of the fortresses of France, proved to be of little use in the struggle; and they had made their lines of operations secure, and had overrun a full third of the country. But Chanzy was in the field unconquered; Faidherbe, a commander of real gifts, had admirably conducted a campaign in the north, attacking the invaders when he saw a chance, and falling back on the strongholds of the Somme; Bourbaki was at the head of a great force, continually increasing, on the Middle Loire; and France had realised her proud boast that she had but “to stamp her foot, and legions would spring from the earth at her bidding.” Grave[33] anxiety was felt at head-quarters at Versailles, spite of noisy boasting of German triumphs; and Moltke, reading the facts with a true general’s eye, insisted on having large reinforcements to strengthen the wearied and thinned invaders. Troops in tens of thousands from the trained reserves of Germany were called into the field; shrunken regiments and corps were restored in numbers; new corps entered the east of France, and preparations were made on an immense scale to quicken, by a bombardment, the fall of Paris. The organization of the German armies, though strained to the utmost, bore the test; and if the trials of the war had told heavily on the young soldiers who crowded the ranks, a fierce national passion still upheld the invasion. Moltke made excellent use of these new forces. Up to this time, his movements had suffered from the effects of the premature advance on Paris; but the error was now completely rectified, and his dispositions were able in the extreme. Keeping his grasp on the capital with stern tenacity, he so distributed his corps on the theatre of war that a far-spreading external zone of resistance protected the inner zone of investment; and should an attempt, therefore, be made to relieve Paris, he would have a double set of armies to oppose the French and interior lines on the whole circumference. Secure within this circle, he defied the enemy, but he was ready at all points to take a bold offensive, and he eschewed the whole system of mere passive defence. The exertions of France were also prodigious. Independently of the Parisian forces, she had placed 500,000 men in the field, with from 1,300 to 1,400 guns, and history, despite the Prussian staff, will pronounce this a gigantic effort. These levies, however, were most inferior troops. They were no match for their trained adversaries; they were not equal to long marches, and at this supreme moment they were wrongly directed. Chanzy, the master-spirit of the national defence, saw what the situation was, and what it required; he appreciated the ability of Moltke’s strategy; but even now he did not despair of success, and in a despatch, marked with true insight in war, he urged that all the provincial armies should endeavour to combine and march on the capital, which, in turn, should fiercely attack the besiegers. This last effort would, I believe, have failed; but it was the true course and perfectly conceived; and it was that which Moltke expected and feared. Unhappily for France, Gambetta rejected the counsels of her most distinguished soldier, and, giving ear to a silly theorist, he adopted a plan for the operations at hand, false in principle and, as facts stood, ruinous. At this moment Werder, in the east of France, was engaged with his corps in the siege of Belfort; the garrison was making a firm stand; Bourbaki, in command of his large army, was in the Nivernais, on the verge of Burgundy; Garibaldi had a motley array near Dijon, and a large army was ready to march from the south. In this state of affairs, instead of directing all the forces of France in a march on Paris, Gambetta resolved to make a great effect to relieve Belfort and to enter Alsace. For this purpose the collective forces of Bourbaki, Garibaldi, and the south were to join, and the result, it was hoped, would place the French armies on the communications of the invaders from the Rhine, and would have great and glorious results. This plan, strikingly resembling those of Carnot in 1793–1794, was, even in the abstract, misconceived; the detachment to the east of the French armies would expose and isolate Chanzy on the west, and even were the communications of the Germans reached, this would be at a point too remote to relieve Paris, or seriously to affect the issue of the campaign. But, in the actual state of affairs, the project was little less than foolishness; the armies intended to relieve Belfort and to attain Alsace were not equal to a great operation of real danger, and the scheme in truth was of much the same kind as that which had led to the catastrophe of Sedan.

In the last days of December, Bourbaki’s army set off from the Nivernais to reach Franche Comté. The march of the columns was pitiably slow; the troops suffered terribly from cold and disease; and signs of evil omen had become manifest long before Belfort had been approached. This eccentric movement set the Grand Duke and Prince Frederick Charles completely free to attack Chanzy upon the Sarthe; and the German chiefs, who had had their forces recruited to a very large extent, broke up from Chartres, Nogent le Rotrou, and Orleans, and bore down on the French commander, advancing on an ever narrowing front. Chanzy had detached flying columns to observe the enemy; these fell back as the assailants drew near; and the French army, by the 10th of January, was concentrated within its lines at Le Mans, which had been fortified with skill and care. A fierce and protracted struggle followed; Chanzy, very different from the incapable Bazaine, really did wonders with his raw young troops; but, at nightfall on the 11th, his extreme right was turned by a desperate effort of Prince Frederick Charles. He evacuated Le Mans, and lost thousands of prisoners; but he made good his way to the Mayenne; and here he still kept his foes at bay, having in his retreat drawn nearer Paris. He was still full of hope, and wrote in that sense; but before long a tremendous disaster befell the ill-fated forces of France in the east. Bourbaki was joined by a part of Garibaldi’s troops, and by the army moving from the south; and with this force, fully 130,000 strong, he crossed the Ognon, and almost reached Belfort. He was, however, defeated with ease by Werder, with a force very inferior in numbers; and, after one or two fruitless efforts to outmanœuvre his victorious enemy, he fell back baffled, and made for Besançon. Here he gave up his command, and tried to commit suicide; his ruined army continued to retreat, but Moltke saw that his opportunity had come and he turned it to account, with great skill and decision. Three corps were detached from the external zone; Manteuffel, at the head of them, bore down on the enemy; Werder, with part of his corps, pressed forward from Belfort; and Bourbaki’s whole army, under its new chief, Clinchant, was surrounded and driven across the Swiss frontier. This was the end of Gambetta’s ambitious enterprise, which alike had caused the defeat of Chanzy and had ruined the last hope of success for the provincial armies.

It fared almost as ill with France in the north, on the theatre where Faidherbe conducted the war. That skilful officer had continued the game of harassing the enemy, and falling back; and he had even fought a battle at Bapaume, which he had some right to describe as a victory. But about the middle of January he advanced towards St. Quentin, in the hope, it is supposed, of either relieving Paris, or of making eastward towards Bourbaki’s army. Moltke sent off a corps from the zone of investment, and defeated him with considerable loss; and, though he effected his retreat to Lille, his forces were for the time paralyzed. The military strength of France outside Paris was thus rendered almost powerless; Moltke had made the best use of his interior lines, on a great and complex field of manœuvre; and the false direction given to Bourbaki’s army had practically decided the contest in the field. The proud capital alone remained; and invincible famine was already at hand. In the first days of January the bombardment began; for fully three weeks shot and shell crashed through all parts of the beleaguered city; but no impression was made on the _enceinte_ or the forts, and still less on the great mass of the citizens. The attack, in fact, altogether failed; it does no credit to the German Engineers, and it attests Moltke’s dislike of Frenchmen; and it must be condemned as barbarous warfare, for it was known that Paris must ere long surrender. Towards the end of the month the end came; a last sortie for the honour of arms was easily repulsed with great slaughter; and on the 28th of January 1871 the capitulation was signed. German horsemen defiled under the Arch of the Star, a monument to the Grand Army, as the Guards of Napoleon had passed through Berlin; the tricolour has been plucked down from Metz and Strasbourg; and France mourns the calamitous Peace of Frankfort. Yet the defence of Paris, and the efforts made by the improvised armies of Chanzy and Faidherbe, were exploits worthy of a great nation; in the hour of misfortune France may say, like her king, that she has not lost honour; the resistance she made, all things considered, was grander than that of 1793, and it has redeemed the ignominy of Metz and Sedan.

The success of the conquerors in this gigantic war is the greatest, perhaps, recorded in history. The Imperial Army of France was carried away captive; her improvised armies were nearly half destroyed; her fortresses yielded one after another; her capital held out, but succumbed to famine. The theme is a fine idol for the worshippers of success; and Moltke has been held up to the admiration of mankind as the greatest military genius in the annals of war. Yet, if we calmly examine the course of the contest, we perceive that the operations of the German chief do not reveal one grand strategic conception, and are characterized by several grave errors; they exhibit science, decision, and strength of character, and perfect execution of the thoughts of others, not originality, or “the faultlessness” claimed for them. Moltke--and this does not detract from his fame--owed much to his foes, and much to fortune; Bazaine and MacMahon, in different ways, sink to the level of the Soubises and Clermonts; the fall of Metz was a godsend to Germany; but Chanzy was a warrior of real powers; he kept the issue of the struggle long doubtful, and had he had the supreme control of the forces of France, it is impossible to say what might not have happened. Some of the lessons taught by the war are commonplace; well-organized armies, of overwhelming strength, defeat armies inferior in every respect; trained and disciplined troops beat raw levies; disaster is all but certain to follow when the simplest rules of the military art are disregarded for supposed reasons of State. Two great facts, however, require special notice; the German armies are the most formidable which have ever appeared in the modern world; there is an element of weakness in their young soldiers, but they represent a mighty race in arms, ready at any moment to march on to conquest; and this has been the result of years of training. On the other hand, the national rising of France, after Metz and Sedan, was a noble movement; it was marked by heroic courage and self-sacrifice; and yet it failed, and probably was doomed to fail, though the resources of France for war are enormous, and the French are a people of born soldiers.

I have come to the last of my Great Commanders; what is Moltke’s place in that august succession? It is difficult to catch a true likeness of a figure not in the perspective of Time, and whose career belongs to the history of the day. Moltke has many, I think, of the gifts of Frederick; he is a thoroughly accomplished and educated man; he has extraordinary force of application and thought; his perseverance deserves the highest praise; and though he has not been tried by the test of ill-fortune, he has evidently the tenacity and firmness of the Prussian king. Like Frederick, however, he wants supreme genius and the imaginative power of the greatest chiefs; but he is far superior to Frederick in all that relates to the large combinations and movements of war, though probably his inferior on the field of battle. It is his special characteristic that he was one of the first to see what are the new conditions of war in this age, and that he turned them to the very best account; the Prussian Army and that of the lesser German States have been, in a great measure, created by him; and Moltke, I conceive, has “organized victory” more thoroughly than has ever before been seen. His place as a strategist is more doubtful; his countrymen have called him “the great strategist,” but this is the exaggeration of national sympathy; and in this sphere of the art, I certainly think he holds an inferior rank to Turenne, and he has not even approached the height of Napoleon. We miss originality in his conceptions of war. If he really directed the converging movement into Bohemia, in 1866, whatever have been the modifications of the art, this was inconsistent with its true principles; his advance on Paris was a distinct mistake; and in his operations at Metz we see many errors which Bazaine possibly might have made disastrous. His peculiar strategic merit is that he can work out to perfection accepted views, and improve upon the ideas of others; but in this there is not the masterly power seen in the campaigns of 1674 and 1675, of 1796 and of 1800. Still Moltke is a real chief of the grand school of Napoleon; he can move large armies on a wide theatre with remarkable forethought and scientific skill; his marches against the army of Châlons, and the army of Bourbaki, are very fine, and he made the best use of his interior lines in the final operations around Paris. His merits as a tactician are less easy to estimate; in the case of the immense battles of the present day, the real head of an army can do no more than make arrangements of a general kind; but if he directed Gravelotte, it was ill-directed, though it is well known he condemned Steinmetz; and in theory he is a master of modern tactics. Moltke seems to have a cold and passionless nature; like Wellington, he has commanded the respect of officers and men but not their devotion; Prince Frederick Charles was the real hero, in the eyes of the German soldiery in 1870–71; and this remarkable chief possessed in a high degree the peculiar gifts of his greatest ancestor. It is astonishing, however, if we bear in mind that Moltke was in his sixty-seventh year when he first commanded an army in the field, that he should have achieved what he has achieved. He is a great commander, beyond dispute, and as an administrator in war he has never been excelled.

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1815.