ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE.
THE eighth volume of this work was announced as to be the last; but the diffuse and rhetorical style of the author, with the , fault which it involves of treating every thing upon nearly ' the same scale of' grandiloquence, have outrun Mr. A LISON's cal- culations. The battle of Waterloo is now fixed tbr the ninth volume—" to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow "— but we question whether that epoch will be reached in another volume, even if, like the present, it should extend to upwards of eight hundred pages, unless the author entirely change his mode of writing. The book befbre us only embraces the domestic his- tory of Great Britain front 1 809 to 18 I3, the campaigns of WELLINGTON ill 1811 and 1 8 1 2, the episodes of the war be- tween the Turks and Russians, and the elevation of .13ERNA-
norm to the throne of Sweden, with (last and greatest) the
invasion of Russia and the retreat. from :Moscow. We there- fore suspect that fir. Ards()); will find the campaigns of NAPO- LEON in Germany and of 'WELLINGTON in Spain, the invasions of France, the downfal of the Empire, the first restoration of the Moorhens, the Congress Of Vielllha, the emergence from Elba, the Hundred Days, the campaign of Waterloo, and the final settlement of Europe by the peace, too much for one volume—unless, as we have said, lie entirely change the nature of his work. The grand section of the volume is the Rust ill invasion; where the gigantic nature of the enterprise, the greatness of the events, the rapid change of fortune, the delusive brilliancy of the advance, the terrible disasters of the retreat, and the influence it really exerei.:ed, in Mr. ALISON'S favourite phrase, upon "the destinies of the world," hurry the reader along without much re- gard to the writer. The interest of the matter so absorbs the mind, that the form is little la garded ; provided the narrative lie unclogged, the stream of events carries us along : it is only when the technical description of military manceuvres OCCur,,, that the eye passes over the words without much caring for their meaning, till the action revives the suspended attention. In the narrative or this great event, Mr. AusoN, however, is entitled to high praise. A more condensed and philosophical account of it 15 indeed readily enough conceivable; but the showy vtn:I of the subject, the striking magnificence of some of its incidents, and the gloomy desolation of others, are not ill adapted to his florid style. Ile seems to have felt, too, the greatness of' his theme, and to have endeavoured to raise himself to it. Nor should his impartiality be passed without notice—if; indeed, his admiration of the military skill and heroic courage of NA eof.nox and his ,'llarshals does not blind him to the unjust nature of the aggression, the total disregard of common humanity towards the troops themselves in the manner of waging war, and the tremendous loss of life by which it was attended. These things, of course, arc mentioned; but it is obvious they are rather in Mr. ALISON's occasional periods than coustantly present to his mind.
In his remarks on the campaign, it appears to us that the historian has in one particular misconceived his authorities, or been led, from a mistaken artistieal notion of contrast, to paint the feeling of the troops as one of wdversel exultation, reserving the misgivings tbr the old generals ; and which misgivings he attributes less to their foresight, than to the love of case and aversion to risk, that cha- racterize elderly gentlemen who have made their ibrtune. But DUAIAS describes the whole army as pervaded by It gloomy pre- sentiment ; the officers disturbed by vague reports of the intended tactics of the Russians, which turned out so fhtally, and the troops devoid of their wonted spirits, even when the Emperor reviewed them.
Mr. Ar.rsoN's judgment upon the campaign is sound and un- prejudiced. Ile denies that Ni vomioN displayed any deficiency of genius either in the advance or the retreat ; or that the winter contributed any thing to his downfd, beyond totally de- stroying the army, some fragments of' which might otherwise have escaped. The cause of his fidlure was seated in the nature of things. The principle of making the war maintain itself, could not be carried on in a thinly-inhabited country like Russia, especially when the Russians carefully removed or destroyed every available thing they could. The army was too great to be fed. hence', even at the very outset of the campaign, betbre actual warfare had begun or Russia Proper was entered, it had lust one third of its numbers from the sickness induced by hardship, hunger, exposure, and irregularity- " One hundred ;tad twenty pieces of cannon and five hundred caissons were left at Wilna without the means of transport ; above ten thousand dead horses
were foutid on the highway leading to that city alone ; thirty thousand dis-
banded soldiers spread desolation round the army ; and before it had been six days in the Russian territory, or a single shot hired, twenty-five thousand sick and dying men filled the hospitals of \Vilna and the villages of Lithuania. * * " Already the extraordinary consumption of human life in the campaign had become apparent ; for as the Emperor reviewed the troops at Wilna, they were almost struck down by the pestilential smell which the westerly wind blew
from the long line of carcases of horses and bodies of men which lay unburied on the road from Rowno."
The distress and irregularities, with their consequent losses, in- creased as the army advanced. By the time NAPOLEON reached Witcpsk, and before the main body had been engaged with the enemy, the horses of the advanced guard were so exhausted that they could not act with effect against the rear of the retiring Russians ; and when one of their attacks was repulsed, with se- rious loss, the " retreating riders could only save their extenuated horses by leading them by the bridles." This was the state of the main body- " The losses of the army during their long march had been such that it was absolutely necessary to make a halt. 'Napoleon had accomplished the advance from Kovno and Grodno to Witepsk, without magazines or convoys, in little more than thirty days; whereas Charles the Twelfth bad taken eight months to traverse the Mine space, with the whole stores of the army accompanying its columns. From the want of magazines and the impossibility of conveying an adequate supply of provisions for so immense a host, disorders of every hind had accumulated. in It frightful manner on the flanks and rear of the army; neither iwead nor spirits were to be had ; the flesh of over-driven ani- mals and bad water constituted the sole subsistence of the soldiers ; the burn- ing sun during the day and cold dews at night multiplied dysenteries to an ex- traordinary degree. Pillage was universal; the necessities of the soldiery burst through all the restraints of discipline; and a crowd of stragglers and marauders on all sides, now swelled to above thirty thousand, both seriously dilniai,lied the strength and impaired the character of the army. * * * " .klready it had become apparolt that a difficulty was to be encountered in this Ivar, to which Napoleon in all his former invasions had been a stranger. Pillage and disorders arc always the inseparable concomitants of the assemblage of large bodies of men, and were fits from being unknown in his previous cam- paigns; but on these occasions they had been the accompaniment only of the advancing columns ; order and dieipline were soon established in the rear ; and when the troops went into quartcrs and received their rations regularly, they were maintained with almost as little difficulty as in their own country. But in the Russian war, when disorders once commenced, they never ceased ; and, whatever discipline the Emperor established in the iminediate vicinity of his own head-quarters, the whole lines of communication in the rear were filled with straggler:, and presented a vet ne of pillage, contitsion, and suffering. Napoleon was perfect Ii aware of the existence of these disorders, and inde- fatigable not only in his censure to his lieutenants for permitting their exist- eoce, but in his own efforts to arrest them : yet it was all in vain ; the evil NVCIII on continually increasing to the dos:: of the campaign, and proved one gre:it cause of the disasters in which it terminated. The reason was, that the expedition was conducted on a scale which exceeded the bounds of human strength, mid hail to combat With difficulties which were only augmented by the multitude who were assembled to insure its success.'' When fighting began, the casualties of' violence were added to the effects of hunger and disease. After the bloody victory of Borodino, the loss, especially in cavalry, was so great, and the army reduced to such a plight, that " even the heroic Ney himself strenuously recommended a retreat." Even ammunition was scarce : " the battle of Borodino, where ninety-one thousand cannon-shot had been discharged, had reduced the reserved stores so low, that there did not remain enough for a general engagement;" and had the Russians stood firm at Moscow, it is probable that. the French must have been defeated or compelled to retreat. The exclamation of NAcoixoN in the exulting joy of beholding Moscow, indicated his own sense of his position- ,. Struck by the magnificence of the spectacle, the hailing squadrons halted, and exclaimed, Mo:cow l Moscow !'• and the cry, repeated from rank to rank, at h ugth reached the Emperor's Guard. The soldiers, breaking their array, rushed tumultuously forward ; and Napoleon, hastening in the midst of them, gazed impatiently on the splendid scene. If is first words were, Behold at last that famous city'—the next. It was full time ' " Under these circumstances, it became obvious that a retreat must be eery disastrous: if such disorders and deaths took place under the excitement of hope and victory, they must be aggravated by the despondency of mind and the defiance of discipline that are the usual concomitants of a retreat, especially through a country entirely exhausted. And the necessity of this retreat soon became imperative, front the total impossibi- lity of feeding the army in Moscow. The deficiency of the French in cavalry and light troops prevented them from foraging, whilst clouds of Cossacks constantly hove red round Moscow, cutting off parties, intercepting supplies, and even threatening the communications with Smolensk°, the French base. So far front the frost causing the destruction of the army, the winter was very late in setting in ; and whatever its influence, it fell as heavily on the Russians as the French, the diminu- tion of their threes for present operations having been as great as that of their adversaries—for it is a remarkable medical fact, that the natives of' Southern France bore the cold better than either Germans, Prussians, Poles, or Russians, as British troops can endure a forced march under an Indian sun better than Sepoys. Deducting prisoners, the Russian loss during the march scents to have been greater than that of NAPOLEON. Upon the Emperor's conduct for lingering so long at Moscow, Mr. Amsox remarks, that in a military point of view, the retreat must still have been made under the same disadvantageous circumstances had he quitted the city earlier ; and that in a political sense, he did right in remaining. " The French Emperor had every ground for believing that the occupation of Moscow would terminate the war gloriously for his arms. lie bad uniformly timnd that the capture of a metropolis led, sootier or later, to the subjugation of a country ; and his former exv.rience of the character of Alexander, gave him no reason to believe that he would be able to resist the force! of circum- stances which had so often brought Austria and Prussia to submission. It may reasonably be doubted, therefore, whether Napoleon would have judged wisely in commencing his retreat at an earlier period, and thereby throwing away at once the chance which he hail, by a protracted stay or the capital, of vanquishing the firmness of the Russian Government. By so doing, he would have certainly incurred the evils of a disastrous retreat, and of a general insur- rection against him in Europe, and thrown away the probable chance of a sub- mission which would, during his lifetime at least, place his power beyond the reach of attack."
The historian's closing reflections embody a great general truth, and offer a striking contrast to the presumption, not to say blas- phemy, which has been poured forth on a recent occasion, by the manly rejection of "special interference," in a case where the magnitude of the events themselves and the importance of their consequences would seem to warrant its belief if it be ever warrantable.
" All the heroism of Alexander, and all the devotion of the Russians, great and memorable as they were, would have failed in producing the extraordinary revolution which was effected in this campaign, if they had not been aided by the moral laws of nature, which impel guilty ambition into a boundless career of aggression, and provide a condign punishment in the vehement and univer- sal indignation which its violence occasions. Madame de Stela has said that Providence never appeared so near human affairs as in this memorable year ; and the faithful throughout Europe, struck with the awful nature of the catas- trophe, repeated with feelings of awe the words of the Psalm, 'Efflavit Deus at dissipantur.' Yet, while no reasonable mind will doubt the agency of Su- preme Power in this awful event, it is perhaps more consonant to our ideas of the Divine administration, and more descriptive of the established order of the universe, to behold in it the consequence of the fixed moral laws of our being, rather than any special outpouring of celestial wrath. It was the necessity of conquest to existence, which Napoleon throughout his whole career so strongly felt and so often expressed, which was the real cause which precipitated him upon the snows of Russia; and we are not to regard the calamitous issue of the expedition as the punishment merely of his individual ambition, but as the inevitable result and just retribution of the innumerable crimes of the Revolu- tion. The steps which brought about this consummation now stand revealed in imperishable light ; the unbounded passions let loose during the first fervour of that convulsion, impelled the nation, when the French throne was over- turned, into the career of foreign conquest ; the armed multitude would not submit to the cost which their armies required ; the maxim that war must maintain war, flowed from the impatience of taxation in the Parisian, as it had done in the Roman people ; and the system was of necessity adopted of precipi- tating armies, without magazines or any other resources except warlike equip- ment, to seek for subsistence and victory in the heart of the enemy's territory. Thence the forced requisition, the scourging contributions, the wasting of na- tions, and the universal exasperation of mankind. Nothing was wanting in the end, but the constancy to resist the vehemence of the onset ; for the spirit of universal hostility was roused."
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