A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study
by
Logan Marshall
Part 2 out of 6
products are carpets, tapestry, fine muslins, lace and cotton
goods. Products of different character are numerous and their
value large. The fisheries of France are also of much importance.
Its commerce, while large, is very considerably less than that of
Great Britain and Germany, France being especially a
self-centered country, largely using what it makes.
There is abundant provision for internal trade and travel, there
being 30,000 miles of railway, 3,000 miles or canal, and 5,500
miles of navigable rivers. The annual revenue approaches
$1,000,000,000, and the public debt in 1914 was at the large
total of over $6,200,000,000. This is much the largest debt of
any nation in the world, the debt of Russia, which comes next in
amount, being about $l,l700,000,000 less. It is largely due to
the cost of the war of 1870 and the subsequent large payment to
Germany. Yet the French people carry it without feeling seriously
overburdened.
Coming now to the French military system, it rivals that of
Germany in efficiency. The law requires the compulsory military
service of every French citizen who is not unfit for such
service. They have to serve in the regular army for three years,
in the regular reserves for six years, in the territorial army
for six years, and finally in the reserves of this army for ten
years. This gives France a peace strength of 720,000 and a total
war strength of 4,000,000. The navy is manned partly by
conscription, partly by voluntary enlistment, the naval forces
comprising about 60,000 officers and men.
The naval strength of the republic embraces 17 modern
battleships, 25 of older type, 18 first-class, 13 second and
third-class cruisers, 173 torpedo boats, 87 destroyers, and 90
submarines. There is another element of modern military strength
of growing importance and sure to be of large use in the war
under review. This is that of the airship. In 1914 France stood
at the head in this particular, its aeroplanes, built or under
construction, numbering 550. Germany had 375, Russia 315, Italy
270, Austria 220, Britain 180 and Belgium 150. In dirigible
balloons Germany stood first, with 50. France had 30, Russia 15,
Austria 10 and Britain 7. These air-soaring implements of war
came into play early in the conflict and Tennyson's vision of
"battles in the blue" was realized in attacks of aeroplanes upon
dirigibles, with death to the crews of each.
RESOURCES OF GREAT BRITAIN.
Great Britain, the remaining party to the five-fold war of great
European Powers, is an island country of considerably smaller
area than those so far named. Including Ireland it has an area of
121,391 square miles, about equal to that of the American State
of New Mexico and not half the size of the Canadian province of
Saskatchewan. Its population, however, surpasses that of France,
amounting to 45,221,615. If the outlying dominions of Great
Britain be added it becomes the greatest empire in the world's
history, its colonial dominions being estimated at over
13,000,000 square miles, and the total population of kingdom and
colonies at 435,000,000, the greatest population of any country
in the world. And Britain differs from France in the fact that
much of this outlying population is available for war purposes in
case of peril to the liberties of the mother country. At the
outbreak of the war of 1914 the loyal Dominion of Canada sprang
at once into the field, mobilized its forces, and offered the
mother land material aid in men and gifts of varied nature.
The same sense of loyalty was shown in Australia and South Africa
and in others of the British oversea dominions, while India added
an important contingent to the army and much other aid.
As for the immediate kingdom, it is not of high value in
agricultural wealth, being at present divided up to a
considerable extent into large unproductive estates, and it is
quite unable to feed its teeming population, depending for this
on its large commerce in food products. Its annual imports amount
to about $3,000,000,000, its exports to $2,250,000,000.
Commercially and industrially alike Great Britain stands at the
head of all European nations. Its abundant mineral wealth,
especially in coal and iron, has stimulated manufactures to the
highest degree, while its insular character and numerous seaports
have had a similar stimulating effect upon commerce. Its revenue,
aside from that of the colonies, amounts to about $920,000,000
annually, and its public debt reaches a total of $3,485,000,000.
The British government depends largely for safety from invasion
upon its insular position and its enormously developed navy, and
has not felt it necessary to enter upon the frenzy of military
preparation which pervades the continental nations. No British
citizen is obliged to bear arms except for the defense of his
country, but all able-bodied men are liable to militia service,
the militia being raised, when required, by ballot. Enlistment
among the regulars is either for twelve years' army service, or
for seven years' army service and five years' reserve service.
The peace strength of the army is estimated at about 255,000 men,
the reserves at 475,000; making a total of 730,000.
It is in its navy that Great Britain's chief warlike strength
exists, the naval force being much greater than that of any other
nation. It possesses in all 29 modern battleships, many of them
of the great dreadnaught and super-dreadnaught type. In addition
it has 10 cruiser battleships, and 38 older battleships, most of
the latter likely to be of little service for warlike duty. There
are also 45 first-class, and 70 second and third-class cruisers,
58 torpedo boats, 212 destroyers and 85 submarines, the whole
forming a total navel strength approaching that of any two of the
other Powers.
SERVIA AND BELGIUM
As regards the remaining nations engaged in the war, Servia, in
which the contest began, has an area of 18,782 square miles, a
population of 4,000,000, and a standing army of 240,000, a number
seemingly very inadequate to face the enormously greater power of
Austria-Hungary. But the men had become practically all soldiers,
very many of them tried veterans of the recent Balkan War; their
country is mountainous and admirably fitted for defensive
warfare, and their power of resistance to invasion was quickly
shown to be great.
Belgium, the other early seat of the war, is still smaller in
area, having but 11,366 square miles. But it is very densely
populated, possessing 7,432,784 inhabitants. Its army proved
brave and capable, its fortifications modern and well adapted to
defense, and small as was its field force it held back the far
more numerous German invaders until France and Great Britain had
their troops in position for available defense. This small
intermediate kingdom therefore played a very important part in
the outset of the war.
If one judges by the figures given of the available military
strength of the nations involved, the huge host said to have
followed Xerxes to the invasion of Greece could easily be far
surpassed in modern warfare. The fact is, however, that these
huge figures greatly exceed the numbers that could, except in the
most extreme exigency, be available for use in the field, and for
real active service we should be obliged to greatly reduce these
paper estimates. It must be taken into account that the fields
and factories of the nations cannot be too greatly denuded of
their trained workers. It was a shrewd saying of Napoleon
Bonaparte that "An army marches on its stomach," and the
important duty of keeping the stomach adequately filled can not
be overlooked.
In actual war also there is an enormous exhaustion of military
material, which must be constantly replaced, and this in turn
demands the services of great numbers of trained artisans. The
question of finance also cannot be overlooked. It needs vast sums
of money to keep a modern army in the field, this increasing
rapidly as the forces grow in numbers, and no national treasure
chest is inexhaustible. Tax as they may, the war lords cannot
squeeze out of their people more blood than flows in their veins,
and exhaustion of the war-chest may prove even more disastrous
than exhaustion of the regiments. For these reasons a limit to
the size of armies is inevitable and in any great war this
limitation must quickly make itself apparent.
Chapter IV. GREAT BRITAIN AND THE WAR
The Growth of German Importance - German Militarism - Great
Britain's Peace Efforts - Germany's Naval Program - German
Ambitions - Preparation for War - Effect on the Empire
The influence of the European War permeated everything from and
through the nation to the individual, from trade and commerce and
world-finance to the cost of food and the price of labor. The
whole world, civilized and uncivilized, was drawn into this
whirlpool of disaster - the majority of the population of the
earth was actually at war. Was it possible that such a vast
conflict - so far reaching in its racial and national elements,
so bitter in its old and new animosities, so great in its
territorial area, so tremendous in the numbers of men in arms -
could come, as some commentators say, like a thief in the night
or have fallen upon the world like a bolt from the blue! All
available information of an exact character, all the preparation
of the preceding few years, all the inner statecraft of the world
as revealed in policy and action, prove the fallacy of this
supposition.
THE GROWTH OF GERMAN IMPORTANCE
As a matter of fact one nation had been for nearly half a century
the pivot upon which European hopes and fears have turned in the
matter of peace and war, of military and naval preparation, of
diplomatic interchange. During this period Germany rose to a
foremost place amongst the nations of Europe, to the first place
in strength of military power and organized fighting force, to
the second place in naval strength and commercial progress. The
growth itself was a legitimate one in the main; and, given the
character of its people and their cultivated convictions as to
inherent greatness, was inevitable. For other nations the vital
question asked in diplomacy and answered in their military or
naval preparations was equally inevitable: How would Germany use
this power, against whom was it aimed, for what specific purpose
was it being organized with such capable precision, such splendid
skill?
GERMAN MILITARISM
Great Britain, meanwhile, had devoted her main attention to the
trade and diplomacy and little wars associated with the
maintenance of a world-empire and, in self-defense, had
cultivated friendships with Russia and France and the United
States and Japan as this German power began to come closer and
touch the most vital British interests. France naturally
strengthened itself as its historic enemy grew in power; Russia
improved her military position after the Japanese was as she was
bound to do; Germany appeared to set the pace upon sea and land
with an aggressive diplomacy in Morocco and in China, at Paris
and at St. Petersburg, which was bound to cause trouble and to
promote what is commonly called militarism. The vast ambitions
and persistent policy of the German ruler and his people, the
unsatisfied characteristics of German diplomacy, the militant
ideals and military preparations and naval expansion of Germany
between 1900 and 1914 became the dominant consideration in the
chancelleries of Europe. Armies and navies, wars in the Balkans
or struggles for colonial spheres of influence, financial
reserves and naval construction and volunteer forces - all came
to be measured against current developments in this center of
European gravity.
GREAT BRITAIN'S PEACE EFFORTS
Great Britain tried to hold aloof from this international
rivalry, this preparation for a war which her people and leaders
hoped against hope would be averted. Royal visits of a pacific
character were exchanged, parties of Great Britain's business men
visited Berlin, while leaders such as King Edward and Lord
Haldane exercised all their ability in striving for some mutual
ground of friendly action. Lovers of peace wrote many volumes and
filled many newspapers with articles on the beneficence of that
policy and the terrors of militarism - books and articles which
were never seen in Germany except by those who regarded them as
so many confessions of national weakness. Between 1904 and 1908
Grear Britain actually reduced her naval expenditures and limited
her construction of battleships in the hope that Germany would
follow the lead, pleaded at two Hague Conferences for
international reduction of armaments, kept away from all increase
in her own almost ridiculous military establishment, urged upon
two occasions (in 1912-1913) a naval holiday in construction. The
following figures from Brassey's authoritative NAVAL ANNUAL shows
that her naval expenditure upon new ships in 1913 was actually
less than in 1904, that Germany's was nearly three times greater,
that France and Russia and Italy had doubled theirs:
---------------------------------------------------------
Great Britain/Germany/France/Russia/Italy/Austro-Hungary
----------------------------------------------------------
1904 (in British pounds)
----------------------------------------------------------
13,508,176/4,275,489/4,370,102/4,480,188/1,121,753/1,329,590
----------------------------------------------------------
1908
----------------------------------------------------------
8,660,202/7,795,499/4,193,544/2,703,721/1,866,158/716,662
----------------------------------------------------------
1911
----------------------------------------------------------
17,566,877/11,710,859/5,876,659/3,240,394/2,677,302/3,125,000
----------------------------------------------------------
1912
----------------------------------------------------------
17,271,527/11,491,157/6,997,552/7,904,094/2,500,000/3,620,881
----------------------------------------------------------
1913
----------------------------------------------------------
13,276,400/11,176,407/7,595,010/10,953,616/2,800,000/3,280,473
-------------------------------------------------------------
GERMANY'S NAVAL PROBLEM
Between 1909 and 1914 British leaders became convinced, as France
and Russia and other countries had long been certain, that
Germany meant war as soon as she was ready; that her policy was
to take the two border enemies, or rivals, first with a great
war-machine which would give them no chance for preparation or
success, to dictate a peace which would give her control of the
sea-coasts and channel touching Britain, to make that country the
seat of war preparations, naval uncertainty, perhaps financial
difficulty and commercial injury, to prepare at leisure for the
war which would conquer England and acquire her colonies. In the
first-named year British statesmen of both parties told an amazed
Parliament and country that German naval construction of big
ships was approaching the British standard, that the cherished
policy of a British navy equal to those of any two other nations
was absolutely gone, that England would be lucky if, in a few
years, she held a 60 per cent superiority over that of Germany
alone, that the latter country's naval construction was clearly
aimed at Britain and could be for no other than a hostile
purpose. British ships had already been recalled from the Seven
Seas to hold the North Sea against the growing naval power of a
nation which had 5,000,000 soldiers behind its ships as compared
with England's 250,000 men scattered over the world. From that
date in 1909 all who shared in the statecraft of the British
Empire understood the issue to be a real one - with France and
Russia as allies or without them.
What was back of this situation? Germany was already dominant in
Continental Europe. It had compelled Russia to submit when
Austria in 1908 annexed the Slav states of Bosnia and Herzegovina
and defied Servia to interfere or its proud patron at St.
Petersburg to prevent the humiliation; it had brought France to
her knees over the Morocco incident and the Delcasse resignation,
and would have done so again in 1911 if Great Britain had not
ranged herself behind the French republic; it held the issues of
peace and war between the great Powers during the Balkan
struggles of 1912 and 1913 and prevented Servia from winning its
legitimate fruits of victory or Montenegro from holding what it
had won; it had watched with delight the defeat of unorganized
Russia at the hands of Japan and saw what its writers described
as a decadent British Empire holding in feeble hands a quarter of
the earth in fee, with revolt coming in Ireland, rebellion
seething in India, dissatisfaction in South Africa, separation
upon the horizon in Canada and Australia. Here lay the secret of
German naval policy, of German hopes that Britain would remain
out of the inevitable struggle with France and Russia, of German
ambitions for a world-empire.
GERMAN AMBITIONS
The German nation had not up to the passing of Bismarck been the
enemy of the British people and until its belated entrance upon
the field of world politics and expansion the people had not even
been rivals. In the long series of European wars between 1688 and
1815, the German states were allies and friends of England. After
that, Prussia, and then the German Empire, became gradually a
great national force in the world and its spirit of unity, pride
of power, energy in trade, skill and success in industry, vigor
of development in tariffs, progress in military power and naval
construction were, from the standpoint of its own people,
altogether admirable. Following the Franco-Prussian War it had
steadily attained a position of European supremacy. Then came the
increase of population and trade, the desire for colonies, the
restriction of emigration to foreign countries.
It was a natural though difficult ambition. The marriage of Queen
Wilhelmina, and later the birth of a heir, averted any immediate
probability of acquiring Holland and, with it, the Dutch colonial
possessions, except by means of force. The assertion of the
United States' Monroe Doctrine checked German efforts which had
been directed to South America and concentrated in Brazil, where
100,000 Germans had settled and where trade relations had become
very close. British diplomacy of a trade, as well as political
character, in Persia, prevented certain railway schemes from
being carried out, which would have given Germany a dominating
influence in Asia Minor and on the Persian Gulf. Although the
partition of Africa gave the German Empire nearly one million
square miles and an obvious opening for colonization and power,
the inexperience and ineptitude of German officials in Colonial
government, the dislike, also, of Germans for emigration and the
fact that the movement of settlers abroad steadily decreased in
late years, tended to prevent, on the Continent, an expansion
which would have been assured under British colonization and
business effort.
At the same time the acquisition of these and other regions such
as Samoa was significant. Prior to 1870 Germany was a
geographical expression which meant a loose combination of States
with sometimes clashing interests, and incoherent expression, and
varied patriotism. German trade was then small, the industries
too poor to compete with those of Britain, while its people
possessed not an acre of soil beyond their European boundaries.
Since then it had become a closely-united people with an army of
over five million men - admittedly the best-trained troops in the
world; with a trade totalling $4,400,000,000 and competing in
Britain's home market, taking away her contracts in India and
some of the colonies, beating her in many foreign fields; with an
industrial production which included great steel works such as
Krupps, ship-building yards said to be of greater productive
power than those of Britain, factories of well-kept character
operating at high pressure with workmen trained in the best
technical system of the world today; with other productive
conditions aided by high protective duties and with exports
totalling (1910) $2,020,000,000 and imports of $2,380,000,000;
with Savings Bank deposits in 1911 totalling $4,500,000.0000 as
against a British total of $1,135,000,000.
Couple these conditions with Colonial ambitions dwarfed, or
unsuccessful in comparison with British success; continental
power as supreme, by virtue of military strength, as Napoleon's
was one hundred years before by the force of genius, but
hampered, as was his, by the power of Britain on the seas; a
productive force of industry increasing out of all proportion to
home requirements, competing with British commerce in every
corner of the world and threatened by a possible but finally
postponed combination of British countries in a system of
inter-Empire tariffs; a population of 64,000,000, increasing at
the rate of one million a year and having no suitable opening for
emigration or settlement within its own territories; and we have
conditions which explained and emphasized German naval
construction. Both German ambition and German naval construction
were therefore easily comprehensible.
Nor was the ambition for sea-power concealed. The first large
naval program was passed by the Reichstag in 1898 and fixed the
naval estimate up to 1903, when the total expenditure was to be
$45,000,000 - in 1906 the naval expenditure was over $60,000,000.
The second Naval Bill was passed in 1900 during the Boer War, and
the preamble to this Act stated that its object was to give
Germany "a fleet of such strength that even for the mightiest
Naval Power, a war with her would involve such risks as to
endanger its own supremacy." Other Acts were passed in 1906 and
1908, and for the years 1908 to 1917 arrangements were made for a
total expenditure of $1,035,000,000 - this including a portion of
the "accelerated program" and the Special Dreadnought
construction which caused the memorable debate in the British
Commons in 1909.
The Law of 1912 - passing the Reichstag on May 21st of that year
- provided for an addition to the program of three battleships,
three large cruisers and three small ones. During the years 1898
-1904 Grear Britain launched 26 battleships to Germany's 14, with
27 armored cruisers, 17 protected cruisers and 55 destroyers to
Germany's 5, 16 and 35 respectively, or a total of 125 to 70. In
1905-11 Great Britain launched 20 battleships to Germany's 15,
with 13 armored cruisers, 10 protected cruisers and 80 destroyers
to Germany's 6, 16 and 70 respectively, or a total of 123 to 107.
Excluding destroyers Great Britain launched 70 sea-going warships
in the first period to Germany's 25 and in the second period 43
to 37.
PREPARATION FOR WAR
Meanwhile German preparations for war went on apace in every
direction. Following up the war teachings of Nietzsche and
Treitschke and others, General Von Bernhardi issued book after
book defining in clear language the alleged national beneficence,
biological desirability and inevitability of war, which, when it
came, would be "fought to conquer for Germany the rank of a
world-power;" the universities and schools and press teemed with
militarist ideals and practices; the army charges rose to
$250,000,000 and the trained soldiers available at the beginning
of 1910 were alleged to have 6,000 field-guns; Colonel Gaedke,
the German naval expert, stated on February 24th of that year
that the German government was building a fleet of 58 battleships
and that "the time is gradually approaching when the German fleet
will be superior to all the fleets of the world, with the single
exception of the English fleet," and that in the past twelve
years Germany had spent on new ships alone 63,200,000 pounds, or
$316,000,000, while between then and 1914 she would spend
57,500,000 pounds more, or $287,500,000.
The annual report of the German Navy League in 1910 showed a
total of 1,031,339 members as against an estimated membership in
Britain's League of 20,000. Professor T. Schieman of the
University of Berlin, in the New York MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE for May
of that year, clearly stated that Germany would not submit in
future to British naval supremacy or to any limitation of
armaments. During this period, also, Heligoland, the island
handed over by Britain in 1890 in exchange for certain East
African rights, became the key and center of the whole German
coast defense system against England. Cuxhaven, Borkum, Emden,
Wilhelmshaven - with twice as many Dreadnought docks as
Portsmouth - Wangeroog, Bremerhaven, Geestemunde, etc., were
magnificently fortified and guarded. Whether dictated by
diplomatic considerations and affected latterly by the
British-French alliance or influenced by Colonial and naval and
commercial ambitions, there could be no doubt as to the danger of
the situation at the beginning of 1914. In a book entitled
"England and Germany," published during 1912, Mr. A. J. Balfour,
the British conservative leader, replied to various German
contributors and gave the British view of the situation:
It must be remembered in the first place that we are a commercial
nation, and war, whatever its issue, is ruinous to commerce and
to the credit on which commerce depends. It must be remembered in
the second place that we are a political nation, and unprovoked
war (by us) would shatter in a day the most powerful Government
and the most united party. It must be remembered in the third
place that we are an insular nation, wholly dependent upon
sea-borne supplies, possessing no considerable army, either for
home defense or foreign service, and compelled therefore to play
for very unequal stakes should Germany be our opponent in the
hazardous game of war. It is this last consideration which I
should earnestly ask enlightened Germans to weigh well if they
would understand the British point of view. It can be made clear
in a very few sentences. There are two ways in which a hostile
country can be crushed. It can be conquered or it can be starved.
If Germany were supreme in our home waters she could apply both
methods to Britain. Were Britain ten times Mistress in the North
Sea she could apply neither method to Germany. Without a superior
fleet Britain would no longer count as a Power. Without any fleet
at all Germany would remain the greatest power in Europe.
The Balkan wars proved and strengthened the power of Germany in
diplomacy and in the Eastern Question, while it showed that a
deadly struggle between nations might spring to an issue in a few
days and a million armed men leap into war at a word. The
enormous German special taxation of $250,000,000 authorized in
the first part of 1913 for an additional military establishment
of 4,000 officers, 15,000 non-commissioned officers and 117,000
men indicated the basic strength of the people's military
feeling, and ensured the still greater predominance of its army.
EFFECT ON THE EMPIRE
When war broke out on August 1, 1914, between the five greater
Powers of Europe - Great Britain, Russia and France, on the one
side and Germany and Austria on the other - the issue was at once
brought home to about 450 millions of people in America, Asia and
Africa who were connected with these nations by ties of
allegiance or government, by racial association, or historic
conquest. Of these peoples and lands by far the greater
proportion were in the British Empire and included India, Burmah,
South Africa, Australia, Canada and a multitude of smaller states
and countries. Not the least remarkable of the events which
ensued in the succeeding early weeks of the great War was the
extraordinary way in which this vast and complex Empire found
itself as a unit in fighting force, a unit in sentiment, a unit
in co-operative action. Irish sedition, whether "loyal or
disloyal," Protestant or Catholic, largely vanished like the
shadow of an evil dream; Indian talk of civil war and trouble
disappeared; South African threats of rebellion took form in a
feeble effort which melted away under the pressure of a Boer
statesman and leader - General Botha; the idea that Colonial
Dominions were seeking separation and would now find it proved as
evanescent as a light mist before the sun. The following table
indicates the nature of the resources of opposing nations and the
character of their Colonial sources of support:
Wealth/Population/Total Army/Navy/Population of Colonies
---------------------------------------------------------
Great Britain
$80,000,000,000/45,000,000/800,000/681/368,000,000
----------------------------------------------------
France
65,000,000,000/39,000,000/2,100,000/382/41,000,000
----------------------------------------------------
Russia
40,000,000,000/171,000,000/8,000,000/249/5,000,000
----------------------------------------------------
Germany
60,000,000,000/65,000,000/5,000,000/354/12,000,000
----------------------------------------------------
Austria
25,000,000,000/49,000,000/2,200,000/155/15,000,000
----------------------------------------------------
It was a curious characteristic of the press comments and
magazine articles and book studies of the War during these months
that while varied fighting was going on in the various Colonies
of these Powers and in the case of Great Britain, notably,
countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India were
pouring out men and gifts to aid the Empire, statistical
calculations usually rated Great Britain as not an Empire but
simply a nation with the wealth and population of its two little
islands in the North Sea.
Properly the $80,000,000,000 of estimated British wealth should
have e included the thousands of millions of treasure in India
and Egypt, the gold mines and diamond resources of South Africa,
the wheat fields and mines of Canada, the sheep farms and gold of
Australia and many other sources; the estimate of population
should have included the countless millions from which Britain
could draw and did draw in the day of emergency. In this vast
Empire British capital had been invested to an enormous amount -
the estimated total in 1914 being $2,570,0000,000 for Canada and
Newfoundland, $1,893,000,000 in India and Ceylon,$1,850,000,000
in
south Africa, $1,660,000,000 in Australia, or a total in all
British countries of $8,900,000,000. When the War broke out these
Dominions endeavored to help the Mother Country in every possible
way and the following table shows what was done in Canada alone
during the first few months of the conflict:
THE DOMINION
Expeditionary force of over 32,000 men, fully equipped; 50,000
others under training for the front.
Over 200 field and machine guns.
Two submarines, for general service ($1,050,000); H.M.C.S. Niobe
and Rainbow for general service.
1,000,000 bags of flour.
$100,000 for "Hospice Canadien" in France.
$50,000 for the relief of Belgian sufferers.
THE PROVINCES
ALBERTA: 500,000 bushels of oats; 5,000 bags of flour for
Belgians. Civil service, 5 per cent of salaries up to $1500 per
annum, and 10 per cent in excess of that amount to Canadian
Patriotic Fund.
BRITISH COLUMBIA: 25,000 cases of canned salmon; $5,000 to
Belgian Relief Fund.
MANITOBA: 10,000 men; 50,000 bags of flour; $5,000 to Belgian
Relief Fund.
NEW BRUNSWICK: 1,000 men; 100,000 bushels of potatoes, 15,000
barrels of potatoes for Belgium.
NOVA SCOTIA: $100,000 to the Prince of Wales Fund; apples for the
troops; food and clothing for Belgium.
ONTARIO: $500,000; 250,000 bags of flour; 100,000 lbs of
evaporated apples for the Navy; $15,000 to the Belgian Relief
Fund.
PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND: 100,000 bushels of oats; cheese and hay.
QUEBEC: 4,000,000 lbs of cheese; $25,000 to Belgian Relief Fund.
SASKATCHEWAN: 1,500 horses ($250,000); $5,000 to Belgian Relief
Fund
THE YUKON: $6,000 to the Canadian Patriotic fund
THE CITIES
OTTAWA: $300,000 (for machine gun sections - 4 guns on armored
motors and a detachment of 30 men); $50,000 to the Canadian
Patriotic Fund.
QUEBEC: $20,000 Canadian Patriotic fund; insuring lives of Quebec
volunteers.
MONTREAL: $150,000 (Canadian Patriotic Fund); battery of
quick-firing guns; $10,000 to Belgian Relief fund.
TORONTO: $50,000 (Canadian Patriotic Fund); insuring lives of all
Toronto volunteers; 100 horses for training purposes; carload for
Belgians of canned provisions.
WINNIPEG: $5,000 monthly to Patriotic Fund
REGINA: $1,000 for comfort of the city's soldiers; $62,500 To
Belgian Relief Fund.
CALGARY: 1,000 MEN (Legion of Frontiersmen).
HAMILTON: $20,000 Patriotic Fund; $5,000 for local relief.
BERLIN: $10,000 Patriotic Fund.
ST. JOHNS, N.B. $10,000 Patriotic Fund; $2,000 Belgian Fund
THE WOMEN OF CANADA:
Building, equipping and maintenance of "Canadian Women's
Hospital" of 100 beds to supplement Naval Hospital at Haslar
($182,857); $100,000 To War Office (40 motor ambulance cars
purchased). Women of Nova Scotia $15,170 ($7,000 to Hospital,
$5,000 Canadian Patriotic fund and rest to Red Cross).
THE BANKS AND THE PATRIOTIC FUNDS
BANK OF MONTREAL $110,000
CANADIAN BANK OF COMMERCE 50,000
ROYAL BANK OF CANADA 50,000
MERCHANTS BANK 30,000
DOMINION BANK 25,000
UNION BANK OF CANADA 25,000
BANK OF TORONTO 25,000
BANK OF OTTAWA 25,000
BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA 25,000
BANK OF HAMILTON 25,000
BANK OF BRITISH NORTH AMERICA 25,000
Little Newfoundland sent a contingent of 510; placed a Naval
Reserve force of 1,000 men in training and prepared a second
contingent of 500 men, while contributing $120,000 to a local
Patriotic Fund. Australia handed over its fleet of battleships
and cruisers to the Admiralty and one of these, The Sydney,
captured the Emden of German fame, while the New Zealand, a
dreadnought from the Island Dominion of that name, held a place
in the North Sea fighting line. Australia also sent 20,000 men
who saw service before the end of the year in Egypt, provided
reserves and prepared two more contingents, while sending
donations of all kinds of food supplies for the poor in Britain
or for the Belgian refugees. From India at once went a portion of
the British Army which was replaced by native troops and then a
large contingent of the latter, which took part in the protection
of Egypt and in the fighting in France.
The great Princes of India - notably the Maharajahs of Nepaul,
Gwalior, Patiala, Baratppur, Sikkim and Dholpur - placed the
entire military resources of tens of millions of people at the
disposal of the King-Emperor. The Maharajah of Rewa cabled this
splendid message: "What orders from His Majesty for me and my
troops?" The Nizam of Hyderabad and the Maharajah of Bikanir
offered not only their troops, but the entire resources of their
great states and their own personal services at the front. Bengal
gave a million bags of jute for the army and the Maharajah of
Mysore proffered 3,500 men and 50 lakhs of rupees (about
$350,000). Practically all the 700 native rulers of states in
India offered personal services, men and money. For active
personal service the Viceroy selected the Chiefs of Jodhpur,
Bikanir, Kishangarh, Rutlam, Sachin, Patiala, Sir Pertab Singh,
Regent of Jodhpur, and others. Contingents of cavalry and
infantry, supplies and transports were forwarded besides a camel
corps from Bikanir, horses from many states, machine guns,
hospital-bed contributions, motor cars and large gifts to the
Patriotic and Belgian Relief Funds. New Zealand sent a first
contingent of 8,000 troops and relief forces, prepared to send
more and promised, like Canada and Australia, to continue
training and sending troops as long as they should be required.
On the other hand Great Britain undertook to finance the actual
military operations of these countries by lending the four
Dominions $210,000,000 and undertaking to provide more when
needed.
It was with this unity, and in this spirit, that the British
Empire entered the great War for the redemption of its pledges to
Belgium and adherence to its French obligations - Russia only
coming indirectly into the first stage of the question and Japan,
through the force of its Treaty, undertaking to guard British
interests in the East.
Chapter V. THE WORLD'S GREATEST WAR
Wars as Mileposts - A Continent in Arms - How Canada Prepared for
War - The British Sentiment - Lord Kitchener's Career - A
Forceful Character
The history of the leading events in the nations of Europe during
a hundred years of the past, so far as they related to the
decline of autocratic power in the monarchs and the development
of popular rights and liberty, has been given in the preceding
chapters, where it is brought down to the close of the Balkan War
and the opening of the great war that succeeded in 1914. As
regards this war, its story cannot be told or even summarized in
a chapter, but some indication of its general character may be
given.
WARS AS MILEPOSTS
Wars serve as convenient mileposts in the history of mankind.
They deal with the great struggles which break up the monotony of
peace and bring the nations into volcanic relations. They have
been many and their causes and effects various; strifes for spoil
or dominion; savage invasions of civilized lands; overflow of
vast areas by conquering tribes or nations. But among all the
world has so far known there has been none so stupendous in
character, so portentous in purpose, so vast in fighting
multitudes, so terrible in bloodshed, as the one with which we
are here concerned, the lurid meeting of the nations on the
blood-stained fields of battle which broke upon the quiet of the
world with startling suddenness in the summer of 1914. Launched
on the borders of little Servia, it soon had the continent for
its field of action, and all but one of the greater nations of
Europe for its participants. It may therefore fitly be designated
the Great War. Great it was, alike in the number and strength of
the Powers involved, in the enormous array of armed men engaged,
in the destructive power of the weapons employed, in the loss of
life and waste of wealth that attended its earthquaking
development.
In reading the history of the past we find it thickly strewn with
stories of fierce battles, a day, two days, rarely much longer in
extent, protracted intervals of marching and countermarching
succeeding before the armies again locked horns. Such was the
case in the American Civil War, in which the three days' battle
at Gettysburg was the greatest in length, if the six days'
fighting before Richmond be taken to constitute a succession of
battles.
In the Russo-Japanese war much longer struggles took place. The
armies at Liaoyung fought for eight days and those before Mukden
for twenty days. But a more obstinate struggle still was that of
September and October, 1914, when two armies, stretched out over
a line two hundred miles or more in length, fought with ceaseless
fury, by day and night alike, for more than a month. On the
moving picture screen of time this vast conflict stands out
without parallel in the world's annals, the most unyielding,
incessant battling ever known.
A CONTINENT IN ARMS
In the giant warfare here described we behold a continent, well
nigh a world, in arms. Along the rivers north of Paris three
powerful nations, Germany, France and Britain, wrestled like
mighty behemoths for supremacy. Far eastward, on the borders of
Russia, Austria and Germany, two other great Powers, Russia and
Austria, with German armies to aid the latter, strove with equal
fury for victory.
Thus raged the Great War. How many took part it is difficult to
estimate. Among the war tales of the past the most stupendous
army on record is that of Xerxes, said by Herodotus to number
2,317,600 men, who marched from Asia to face defeat in the
diminutive land of Greece. How large this fabulously great army
really was we shall never know, but even at the figures given it
was dwarfed by the hosts in arms in the Great European War, in
which between four and five million men fought with fierceness
unsurpassed.
The field of action of this mighty contest was not confined to
Europe. On the far-off border of Asia another Power, the warlike
empire of Japan, sent forth its soldiers to drive the Germans
from China. In Africa and on the South Pacific the colonists of
Britain set other forces in motion to invade the German colonial
regions. From British India sailed a strong array of dark-skinned
warriors to take part in the war in France. From Algeria and
Senegal came hordes of sable recruits for the French army, and
from the cities and provinces of the Dominion of Canada came
still another army of ardent patriots eager to aid the forces of
their fatherland. We may well speak of the contest as not one of
a continent but of the entire world.
HOW CANADA PREPARED FOR WAR
The story of the patriotic ardor of the Canadians is of interest,
as given by a correspondent of the London GRAPHIC, who passed
through the Dominion after the opening of the war.
"The news of the great war came like a bolt from the blue. The
effect was startling. The ordinary flow of Canadian life was
suddenly arrested. The customary routine seemed to stop dead
still. The whole of Canadian thought and much of the people's
energy were switched on to the great staggering fact that Europe
was at war, and the old country fighting for its life. A most
wonderful and touching patriotism welled up in the heart of the
Canadians. The air became electric with excitement and
enthusiasm. The prairie was indeed on fire. Passing through
English towns on my journey to London the calm and peaceful
demeanor of the people and the even flow of life seemed in
strange contrast with the land I had just left, where the
population was throbbing with loyal passion, and the war
dominated the existence of the inhabitants, high and low, from
Victoria to Halifax. One Canadian scene that remains impressed
upon my mind was the sea of upturned faces in front of the
offices of the Calgary News Telegram - every ear straining to the
point where the war news was announced at intervals through a
megaphone.
"'We stand shoulder to shoulder.' Sir Robert Borden, the Premier,
had said, 'with Britain and the other British Dominions in this
quarrel, and that duty we shall not fail to fulfil as the honor
of Canada demands.' It is being fulfilled in a score of different
ways, but mainly in the practical spirit that is characteristic
of the country. The Dominion is the Empire's granary, and through
the granary doors, as the Motherland knows, are passing huge
gifts of food to the British population. At the same time the
stoppage of the export of all foodstuffs to other countries is
proposed.
"Soon the Dominion began to mobilize. Regiments seemed to spring
up, as if by magic, from the ground - not hordes of untrained
men, but stalwart horsemen, accustomed to the rifle and inured to
a hard outdoor life. The Germans will knock against another 'bit
of hard stuff' when they meet the Canadian contingents. One of
the regiments carries the name of the Princess Patricia, who, by
the way, holds quite a unique position in the hearts of the
people. The popular Princess was, shortly after I left, to have
presented her regiment with their colors - worked by her own
hands.
"Londoners were happy in the knowledge that more such men could
be sent, if necessary, up to 200,000 in number - such was the
earnestness of the people. One met this practical earnestness in
a dozen different directions - in such facts, for instance, as
the conversion of the great Winnipeg Industrial Hall into a
military training center - and not the least significant feature
in the situation is the manner in which the prevalent enthusiasm
had spread to the American inhabitants of the country. The trade
intimacy between the United States and the Dominion was, indeed,
constantly growing, and the many great American manufacturing
concerns which had planted themselves in Canada had attained
prosperity. It was pleasant and reassuring to think that this had
not weakened the ties of attachment to the old country. In the
days to succeed the war the Dominion can look back with pride
upon the part she bore in sustaining the arms of Mother England,
and can take her place with happy confidence and added strength
as the eldest daughter in the great family of British peoples."
The enthusiasm thus indicated among the Canadians, which had its
outcome in the despatch of 323,000 sons of the dominion in late
September to the seat of war, to be quickly followed by a second
contingent, was paralleled in India, which sent to France 70,000
of its dusky sons to join the struggling hosts. As for the
remaining countries of the British empire, Australia, South
Africa, East Africa, etc., a similar sentiment of loyalty
prevailed, manifested there by the sending of contingents or in
expeditions against the German colonies in the South Sea and in
Africa. The whole empire was ready to support the mother country.
Certainly the Kaiser of Germany, William the War Lord, had set
loose in the air a nest of hornets to sting his well-trained
warriors. By his side stood only Austria, a composite empire
which soon found all its strength too little to hold back the
mighty Russian tide that swept across its borders. Thus this one
stalwart nation, with its weak auxiliary, was forced to face now
east, now west, against a continent in arms. It is difficult to
imagine that the Kaiser could have hoped to succeed, despite the
training of his people and the strength of his artillery. "God
fights with the heaviest battalions," said one who knew, and the
weight of battalions, though at first on William's side, could
not remain so.
THE BRITISH SENTIMENT
While the British people, with their lack of a system of
militarism, were not in condition to send large bodies of troops
at once to the aid of the mobilized French, they were soon ready
to despatch a useful contingent of trained men. Probably the
German emperor counted upon the disturbance in Ireland between
the Ulsterites and the people of the Catholic provinces to tie
the hands of the government, but these people at once suspended
their hostile sentiments in favor of the larger needs of their
country. In England itself the militant suffragettes showed equal
patriotism, at once agreeing to desist from all acts of violence
and offering to aid their country to the extent of their powers.
LORD KITCHENER'S CAREER
The British government appointed Lord Kitchener, the hero of many
successful expeditions, Secretary of State for War, putting the
whole management of military affairs into his competent hands.
His fitness for this was thoroughly attested by his long and
brilliant service, and as the presence of Napoleon was said to be
equal to an army, so was that of this able military leader.
For those who are not familiar with Kitchener's career a brief
statement concerning it may be useful. Born in 1850, Horatio
Herbert Kitchener entered the army in 1871, was in civil life
1874-82, then returned to army duty. He took part in the Nile
expedition of 1884 for the rescue of General Gordon and commanded
a brigade in the Suakim campaign of 1888. Governor of Suakim
1886-88, adjutant-general of the Egyptian army 1888-92, he was
appointed to the command of this army, with the Egyptian rank of
Sirdar, in 1890.
His service in Egypt was during the period of the Mahdi outbreak,
which began in 1883, defeated all the armies sent to quell it,
and for years held the Sudan region of Egypt. In 1896 Kitchener
set out for its suppression, recovering Dongola, and organizing
an expedition against the Khalifa, the successor of the Mahdi. He
defeated the Dervish army of the Khalifa in April, 1898, and on
September 2d of that year utterly crushed the Dervish hosts at
Omdurman, regaining the Sudan for Egypt and Britain.
This exploit brought him the thanks of parliament and the title
of baron, with a grant of 30,000 pounds and a sword of honor. In
1899 he went with Lord Roberts to South Africa as chief of staff,
and on Lord Roberts' return in 1900 he succeeded him as
commander-in-chief and brought the Boer War to a successful
conclusion. He was now made full general, with the rank of
viscount, and subsequently served as commander-in-chief in India.
A FORCEFUL CHARACTER
In an illuminating article in COLLIER'S WEEKLY, the well-known
Irish journalist, T. P. O'Connor, thus brought out the character
of the hero of Khartoum:
"I attribute something of the Lord Kitchener we know to the fact
that, though English by blood, he spent the first years of his
life in wandering over the hills and looking down on the
sea-tossed shores of County Kerry. That tact which enabled him to
settle the issue with Marchand, the French explorer, at Fashoda,
suggests some of the lessons in the soft answer which Ireland can
teach. You remember how, when it was possible that a collision
between him and Marchand might mean a war between England and
France, Lord Kitchener sent some fresh vegetables and champagne
to the daring French explorer, who had gone through the hunger,
thirst, and hardship of the desert for months. Marchand had to go
from Fashoda all the same, but he went with no personal
grievance.
"If I look for the roots of Lord Kitchener's greatness, I trace
them to intense ambition to succeed, to make the most of his
opportunities - above all, to the incessant desire to work and
fill every hour of his days with something done. He is sent as a
youngster to Palestine, through peril to life, through great
privation, through heart-breaking drudgery, he pursues his work
until he has completed a map of all western Palestine to the
amazement and delight of his employers. And he values this
experience so largely because he learns Arabic, and, above all,
he learns the Arabic character. One of the chroniclers of his
career makes the apt observation that, while the baton of the
marshal is in every French soldier's knapsack, Kitchener found
his coronet in the Arab grammar. But how many soldiers or men of
any class would have devoted the leisure hours of a fiercely
active task like Kitchener's in Palestine to the study of one of
the most difficult of languages?
"Hard work, patience, and the utilization of every second of
time, the eagerness always to learn - these are the chief secrets
of Lord Kitchener's enormous success in life. But the man who
works himself is ineffective in great things unless he has the
gift to choose the men who can work for him and with him. This
choice of subordinates is one or Lord Kitchener's greatest
powers. He nearly always has had the right man in the right
place. And his men return his confidence because he gives them
absolute confidence. He never thinks of asking a subordinate
whether he has done the job he has given him; he takes that for
granted, knowing his man; and he never worries his subordinates.
"This is one of the reasons why, though he works so terrifically,
he never is tired, never worried. He sits down at his desk at the
War Office for about ten hours a day; but he sits there calmly,
isn't ringing at bells and shouting down pipes; he does it all so
quietly that it seems mere pastime; and the effect of this
perfect tranquillity produces an extraordinary result on those
who work with him. They also do their work easily, tranquilly,
and without feeling it.
"A great soldier certainly; but perhaps a greater organizer than
anything else. This is his supreme quality, and for that quality
there is necessary, above all things, a clear, penetrating brain.
He doesn't form any visions - as Napoleon used to complain of
some of his marshals. At school he was celebrated for his
knowledge of mathematics, and especially for his phenomenal
rapidity in dealing with figures, and it was not accident that so
truly a scientific mind found its natural place in the engineers.
A mathematician, an engineer, a man of science, a great
accountant - these things he has been in all his enterprises. It
was these qualities that enabled him to make that astounding
railway which brought Cairo almost into touch with the Khalifa,
who, with his predecessor, the Mahdi, and with his tragically
potent ally, the hungry and all-devouring desert, had beaten back
so many other attempts to reach and to beat him.
"This man, who has fought such tremendous and historic battles
and confronted great odds, is yet a man who prefers a deal to a
struggle; and, though he can be so stern, has yet a diplomatic
tact that gets him and his country out of difficult hours. The
nature, doubtless, is complex, and stern determination and
tenacity are part of it; but there is also the other side, which
is much forgotten - especially by that class of writers who have
to describe human character as rigidly symmetrical and
unnaturally harmonious.
"That cold and penetrating eye of his makes it impossible to
imagine anybody taking any liberties with Lord Kitchener; yet one
of his greatest qualities, at once useful and charming, is his
accessibility. Anybody who has anything to say to him can
approach him; anybody who has anything to teach him will find a
ready and grateful learner. This is one of the secrets of his
extraordinary success and universal popularity in Egypt. Lord
Cromer was a great Egyptian ruler, and his services are
imperishable and gigantic; but Lord Cromer was the stern,
solitary, and inaccessible bureaucrat who worked innumerable
hours every day at his desk, never learned the Arabic language,
and possibly never quite grasped the Arab nature. Lord Kitchener
is the cadi under the tree. The mayor or the citizens of the
little Arab village can come to him, and the old soldier, and
even the fellah, alone; and they will find Lord Kitchener ready
to listen and to talk to them in their own tongue, to enter with
gusto into the pettiest details of their daily and squalid lives,
and ready also to apply the remedy to such grievances as commend
themselves to his judgment.
"As an illustration of his accessibility, let me repeat a
delicious story which delighted all Egypt. An old peasant came
out of the depths of the land all the way to Cairo to see the
great Kitchener, with the complaint that his white mule had been
stolen. The whole official machinery was interrupted for a while,
and the old fellah went back with his white mule. You can fancy
how that story was repeated in every fellah cabin in the land,
and how the devotion to Kitchener and trust in his justice and in
his sympathy went trumpet-tongued among this race, downtrodden
and neglected almost from the beginning of time."
Such is the man who, when chosen to head the British War
Department, had his bed sent to the office, that he might be on
duty day and night if needed; who insisted that no raw recruits
should be sent to the front, but put them through a rigid system
of drill and physical exercise to toughen their muscles and fit
them for the work of a soldier; who said that there would be
abundant time for fighting, as in his judgment there was a year
or more of war in prospect.
Chapter VI. THE EARTHQUAKE OF NAPOLEONISM
Its Effect on National conditions Finally Led to the War of 1914
Conditions in France and Germany - The Campaign in Italy - The
Victory at Marengo - Moreau at Hohenlinden - The Consul made
Emperor - The Code Napoleon - Campaign of 1805 - Battle of
Austerlitz - The Conquest of Prussia - The Invasion of Poland -
Eylau and Friedland - Campaign of 1809 - Victory at Wagram - The
Campaign in Spain - The Invasion of Russia - A Fatal Retreat -
Dresden and Leipzig - The Hundred Days - The Congress of Vienna -
The Holy Alliance
When, after a weary climb, we find ourselves on the summit of a
lofty mountain, and look back from that commanding altitude over
the ground we have traversed, what is it that we behold? The
minor details of the scenery, many of which seemed large and
important to us as we passed, are now lost to view, and we see
only the great and imposing features of the landscape, the high
elevations, the town-studded valleys, the deep and winding
streams, the broad forests. It is the same when, from the summit
of an age, we gaze backward over the plain of time. The myriad of
petty happenings are lost to sight, and we see only the striking
events, the critical epochs, the mighty crises through which the
world has passed. These are the things that make true history,
not the daily doings in the king's palace or the peasant's hut.
What we should seek to observe and store up in our memories are
the turning points in human events, the great thoughts which have
ripened into noble deeds, the hands of might which have pushed
the world forward in its career; not the trifling occurrences
which signify nothing, the passing actions which have borne no
fruit in human affairs. It is with such turning points, such
critical periods in modern history, that we are here dealing; not
to picture the passing bubbles on the stream of time, but to
point out the great ships which have sailed up that stream laden
with a noble freight. This is history in its deepest and best
aspect, and we have set our camera to photograph only the men who
have made and the events which constitute history in the phase
here outlined.
The first fifteen years of the nineteenth century in Europe yield
us the history of a man rather than of a continent. France was
the center of Europe; Napoleon, the Corsican, was the center of
France. All the affairs of all the nations seemed to gather
around this genius of war. He was respected, feared, hated; he
had risen with the suddenness of a thunder-cloud on a clear
horizon, and flashed the lightnings of victory in the dazzled
eyes of the nations. All the events of the period were
concentrated into one great event, and the name of that event was
Napoleon. He seemed incarnate war, organized destruction; sword
in hand, he dominated the nations, and victory sat on his banners
with folded wings. He was, in a full sense, the man of destiny,
and Europe was his prey.
Never has there been a more wonderful career. The earlier great
conquerors began life at the top; Napoleon began his at the
bottom. Alexander was a king; Caesar was an aristocrat of the
Roman republic; Napoleon rose from the people, and was not even a
native of the land which became the scene of his exploits. Pure
force of military genius lifted him from the lowest to the
highest place among mankind, and for long and terrible years
Europe shuddered at his name and trembled beneath the tread of
his marching legions. As for France, he brought it glory and left
it ruin and dismay.
The career of Napoleon Bonaparte began in a very modest way. Born
in Corsica and trained in a military school in France, his native
ability as a man of action was first made evident in 1794, when,
under the orders of the National Convention, he quelled the mob
of Paris with loaded cannon and put a final end to the Reign of
Terror that had long prevailed.
Placed at the head of the French army in Italy, Napoleon quickly
astonished the world by a series of the most brilliant victories,
defeating the Austrians and the Sardinians wherever he met them,
seizing Venice, the city of the lagoon, and forcing almost all
Italy to submit to his arms. A republic was established here and
a new one in Switzerland, while Belgium and the left bank of the
Rhine were held by France.
His wars here at an end, Napoleon's ambition led him to Egypt,
inspired by great designs which he failed to realize. In his
absence anarchy arose in France. The five Directors, then at the
head of the government, had lost all authority, and Napoleon, who
had unexpectedly returned, did not hesitate to overthrow them and
the Assembly which supported them. A new government, with three
Consuls at its head, was formed, Napoleon, as First Consul,
holding almost royal power. Thus France stood in 1800, at the end
of the eighteenth century.
CONDITIONS IN FRANCE AND GERMANY
In the remainder of Europe there was nothing to compare with the
momentous convulsion which had taken place in France. England had
gone through its two revolutions more than a century before, and
its people were the freest of any in Europe. Recently it had lost
its colonies in America, but it still held in that continent the
broad domain of Canada, and was building for itself a new empire
in India, while founding colonies in twenty other lands. In
commerce and manufactures it entered the nineteenth century as
the greatest nation on the earth. The hammer and the loom
resounded from end to end of the island, mighty centers of
industry arose where cattle had grazed a century before, coal and
iron were being torn in great quantities from the depths of the
earth, and there seemed everywhere an endless bustle and whirr.
The ships of England haunted all seas and visited the most remote
ports, laden with the products of her workshops and bringing back
raw material for her factories and looms. Wealth accumulated,
London became the money market of the world, the riches and
prosperity of the island kingdom were growing to be a parable
among the nations of the earth.
On the continent of Europe, Prussia, destined in time to become
great, had recently emerged from its medieval feebleness, mainly
under the powerful hand of Frederick the Great, whose reign
extended until 1786, and whose ambition, daring, and military
genius made him a fitting predecessor of Napoleon the Great, who
so soon succeeded him in the annals of war. Unscrupulous in his
aims, this warrior king had torn Silesia from Austria, added to
his kingdom a portion of unfortunate Poland, annexed the
principality of East Friesland, and lifted Prussia into a leading
position among the European states.
Germany, now - with the exception of Austria - a compact empire,
was then a series of disconnected states, variously known as
kingdoms, principalities, margravates, electorates, and by other
titles, the whole forming the so-called Holy Empire, though it
was "neither holy nor an empire." It had drifted down in this
fashion from the Middle Ages, and the work of consolidation had
but just begun, in the conquests of Frederick the Great. A host
of petty potentates ruled the land, whose states, aside from
Prussia and Austria, were too weak to have a voice in the
councils of Europe. Joseph II, the titular emperor of Germany,
made an earnest and vigorous effort to combine its elements into
a powerful unit; but he signally failed, and died in 1790, a
disappointed and embittered man.
Austria, then far the most powerful of the German states, was
from 1740 to 1780 under the reign of a woman, Maria Theresa, who
struggled in vain against her ambitious neighbor, Frederick the
Great, his kingdom being extended ruthlessly at the expense of
her imperial dominions. Austria remained a great country,
however, including Bohemia and Hungary among its domains. It was
lord of Lombardy and Venice in Italy, but was destined to play an
unfortunate part in the coming Napoleonic wars.
We have briefly epitomized Napoleon's early career, his doings in
the Revolution, in Italy, and in Egypt, unto the time that
France's worship of his military genius raised him to the rank of
First Consul, and gave him in effect the power of a king. No one
dared question his word, the army was at his beck and call, the
nation lay prostrate at his feet - not in fear but in admiration.
Such was the state of affairs in France in the closing year of
the eighteenth century. The Revolution was at an end, the
Republic existed only as a name; Napoleon was the autocrat of
France and the terror of Europe. From this point we resume the
story of his career.
The First Consul began his reign with two enemies in the field,
England and Austria. Prussia was neutral, and he had won the
friendship of Paul, the emperor of Russia, by a shrewd move.
While the other nations refused to exchange the Russian prisoners
they held, Napoleon sent home 6,000 of these captives, newly clad
and armed, under their own leaders, and without demanding ransom.
This was enough to win to his side the weak-minded Paul, whose
delight in soldiers he well knew.
Napoleon now had but two enemies in arms to deal with. He wrote
letters to the king of England and the emperor of Austria,
offering peace. The answers were cold and insulting, asking
France to take back her Bourbon kings and return to her old
boundaries. Nothing remained but war. Napoleon prepared it with
his usual rapidity, secrecy, and keenness of judgment.
THE CAMPAIGN IN ITALY
There were two French armies in the field in the spring of 1800,
Moreau commanding in Germany, Massena in Italy. Switzerland,
which was occupied by the French, divided the armies of the
enemy, and Napoleon determined to take advantage of the
separation of their forces, and strike an overwhelming blow. He
sent word to Moreau and Massena to keep the enemy in check at any
cost, and secretly gathered a third army, whose corps were
dispersed here and there, while the Powers of Europe were aware
only of the army of reserve at Dijon, made up of conscripts and
invalids. All was ready for the great movement which Napoleon had
in view.
Twenty centuries before, Hannibal had led his army across the
great mountain barrier of the Alps, and poured down like an
avalanche upon the fertile plains of Italy. The Corsican
determined to repeat this brilliant achievement and emulate
Hannibal's career. Several passes across the mountains seemed
favorable to his purpose, especially those of the St. Bernard,
the Simplon and Mount Cenis. Of these the first was the most
difficult; but it was much the shorter, and Napoleon determined
to lead the main body of his army over this ice-covered mountain
pass, despite its dangers and difficulties. The enterprise was
one to deter any man less bold than Hannibal or Napoleon, but it
was welcome to the hardihood and daring of these men, who
rejoiced in the seemingly impossible and spurned faltering at
hardships and perils.
The task of the Corsican was greater than that of the
Carthaginian. He had cannon to transport, while Hannibal's men
carried only swords and spears. But the genius of Napoleon was
equal to the task. The cannon were taken from their carriages and
placed in the hollowed-out trunks of trees, which could be
dragged with ropes over the ice and snow. Mules were used to draw
the gun-carriages and the wagon-loads of food and munitions of
war. Stores of provisions had been placed at suitable points
along the road.
The sudden appearance of the French in Italy was an utter
surprise to the Austrians. They descended like a torrent into the
valley, seized Ivry, and five days after reaching Italy met and
repulsed an Austrian force. The divisions which had crossed by
other passes one by one joined Napoleon. On June 9th Marshal
Lannes met and defeated the Austrians at Montebello, after a hot
engagement. "I heard the bones crackle like a hailstorm on the
roofs," he said. On the 14th, the two armies met on the plain of
Marengo, and one of the most famous of Napoleon's battles began.
THE VICTORY AR MARENGO
Napoleon was not ready for the coming battle, and was taken by
surprise. He had been obliged to break up his army in order to
guard all the passages open to the enemy. Suddenly attacked and
taken by surprise, his army was defeated and driven back in
retreat in the first stage of the battle. But Napoleon was not
the man to accept defeat. Hurrying up Desaix, one of his most
trusted generals, with his corps, he flung these fresh troops
upon the enemy, following up the assault with the dragoons of
Kellermann. The result was a disastrous rout of the Austrians,
who were driven from the field, leaving thousands of dead, and
other thousands of prisoners in the hands of the enemy.
A few days afterwards on the 19th, Moreau in Germany won a
brilliant victory at Hockstadt, near Blemheim, took 5,000
prisoners and twenty pieces of cannon, and forced from the
Austrians an armed truce which left him master of South Germany.
A still more momentous armistice was signed by Melas in Italy, by
which the Austrians surrendered Piedmont, Lombardy, and all their
territory as far as the Mincio, leaving France master of Italy.
MOREAU AT HOHENLINDEN
What followed must be briefly detailed. Only a truce, not a
peace, had followed the victories of Napoleon and Moreau, and
five months later, Austria refusing to make peace without the
concurrence of England, the war began again. Moreau winning
another famous victory on the plains of Hohenlinden, the
Austrians losing 8,000 in killed and wounded and 12,000 in
prisoners.
Moreau advanced to Vienna, where the emperor was forced to sign
an armistice, giving up to France the valley of the Danube, the
country of the Tyrol, a number of fortresses and large magazines
of war material. This truce was followed by a peace in February,
1801. It was one that left Napoleon the idol of France, the
terror of Europe, and the admiration of the world. He had proved
himself the mate of Caesar and Alexander as a conqueror.
THE CONSUL MADE EMPEROR
The events that followed must be briefly epitomized. For nearly
the only time in his career Napoleon had a period of peace. In
this he showed himself an autocratic but able ruler, making
himself king in everything but name, restoring the old court
customs and etiquette, but not interfering with the liberties and
privileges which the people had won by the Revolution. Feudalism
had been definitely overthrown and Napoleon's supremacy in the
state was one that recognized the popular freedom.
The culmination of Napoleon's ambition came in 1804, when he
followed the example of Caesar, the Roman conqueror, seeking the
crown as a reward for his victories. Like Caesar, he had his
enemies, but, more fortunate than Caesar, he escaped their plots
and was elected Emperor of the French by an almost unanimous vote
of the people. The Pope was obliged to come to Paris at the fiat
of the new autocrat and to anoint him as emperor, the sanction of
the Church being thus given to his new dignity. His empire was
one founded upon modern ideas, one called into existence by the
votes of a free people, not resting upon the necks of a nation of
serfs.
THE CODE NAPOLEON
During his brief respite from war Napoleon's activity was great,
his statesmanship notable. Great public works, monuments to his
glory, were constructed, wide schemes of public improvement were
entered upon, and important changes were made in the financial
system that provided the great sums needed for these enterprises.
The most important of these evidences of intellectual activity
was the Code Napoleon, the first organized code of French law and
still the basis of jurisprudence in France. This, first
promulgated in 1801 as the civil code of France, had its title
changed to Code Napoleon in 1804, and as such stands as one of
the greatest monuments to the mental capacity of this
extraordinary man.
The period of peace during which these events took place was one
of brief endurance. It practically ended in 1803, when Great
Britain, Napoleon's most persistent foe, again declared war. But
actual war did not begin until two years later.
The Emperor's role in this period was one of threat. England had
been invaded and conquered from France once before. It might be
again. Like William of Normandy, Napoleon prepared a large fleet
and strong army and threatened an invasion of the island kingdom.
This might possibly have been successful but for the shrewd
policy of William Pitt, the British Prime Minister, who organized
a coalition of Napoleon's enemies in Europe which gave him a new
use for his army.
CAMPAIGN OF 1805
The coalition embraced Austria, Prussia, Russia, Sweden and
Norway, with Great Britain at their back. The bold Corsican had
roused nearly all Europe against him. He dealt with it in his
usual alert and successful manner.
Quick as were his enemies to come into the field, they were not
quick enough for their vigilant foe. The army prepared for the
invasion of England was at once set in motion towards the Rhine,
and was handled with such skill as to surround at Ulm the
Austrian army under General Mack and force its surrender.
This took place in October. On the 1st of December the two armies
(92,000 of the allies to 70,000 French) came face to face on the
field of Austerlitz, where on the following day was to be fought
one of the world's most memorable battles.
BATTLE OF AUSTERLITZ
The Emperor Alexander had joined Francis of Austria, and the two
monarchs with their staff officers, occupied the castle and
village of Austerlitz. Their troops hastened to occupy the
plateau of Pratzen, which Napoleon had designedly left free. His
plans of battle were already fully made. He had, with the
intuition of genius, foreseen the probable maneuvers of the
enemy, and had left open for them the position which he wished
them to occupy. He even announced their movement in a
proclamation to his troops.
"The positions that we occupy are formidable," he said, "and
while the enemy march to turn my right they will present to me
their flank."
This movement to the right was indeed the one that had been
decided upon by the allies, with the purpose of cutting off the
road to Vienna by isolating numerous corps dispersed in Austria
and Styria. It had been shrewdly divined by Napoleon in choosing
his ground.
He held his own men in readiness while the line of the enemy
deployed. The sun was rising, its rays gleaming through a mist,
which dispersed as it rose higher. It now poured its brilliant
beams across the field, the afterward famous "sun of Austerlitz."
The movement of the allies had the effect of partly withdrawing
their troops from the plateau of Pratzen. At a signal from the
emperor the strongly concentrated center of the French army moved
forward in a dense mass, directing their march towards the
plateau, which they made all haste to occupy. They had reached
the foot of the hill before the rising mist revealed them to the
enemy.
The two emperors watched the movement without divining its
intent. "See how the French climb the height without staying to
reply to our fire," said Prince Czartoryski, who stood near them.
They were soon to learn why their fire was disdained. The allied
force, pierced in its center by the French, was flung back in
disorder and on all sides broke into a disorderly retreat. The
slaughter was frightful. One division, cut off from the army,
threw down its arms and surrendered. Two columns rushed upon the
ice of a frozen lake. Upon this the fire of the French cannon was
turned, the ice splintered and gave way beneath their feet and
thousands of the despairing troops perished in the freezing
waters. Of the whole army only one corps left the field in order
of battle. More than 30,000 prisoners, including twenty generals,
remained in Napoleon's hands, and with them a hundred and twenty
pieces of cannon and forty flags. Thus ended the most famous of
Napoleon's battles.
The victory of Austerlitz left Germany in Napoleon's hands, and
the remodeling of the map of Europe was one of the greatest that
has ever taken place at any one time. Kingdoms were formed and
placed under Napoleon's brothers or favorite generals. His
changes in the states of Germany were numerous and radical. Those
of south and west Germany were organized into the Confederation
of the Rhine, under his protection. Many of the small
principalities were suppressed and their territories added to the
larger states. As to the "Holy Roman Empire," a once powerful
organization which had long since sunk into a mere shadow, it
finally ceased to exist. The empire of France was extended by
these and other changes until is spread over Italy, the
Netherlands and the south and west of Germany.
Changes so great as these could scarcely be made without exciting
bitter opposition. Prussia had been seriously affected by
Napoleon's map-making, and in the end its king, Frederick
William, became so exasperated that he broke off all
communication with France and began to prepare for war.
THE CONQUEST OF PRUSSIA
It is by no means impossible that Napoleon had been working for
this. It is certain that he was quick to take advantage of it.
While the Prussian king was slowly collecting his troops and war
material, the veterans of France were already on the march and
approaching the borders of Prussia. The hasty levies of
"Frederick William were no match for the war-hardened French, the
Russians failed to come to their aid, and on the 4th of October,
1806, the two armies met at Jena.
The Prussians proved incapable of withstanding the impetuous
attack of the French and were soon broken and in panic and
flight. Nothing could stop them. Reinforcements coming up, 20,000
in number, were thrown across their path, but in vain, being
swept away by the fugitives and pushed back by the triumphant
pursuers.
At the same time another battle was in progress near Auerstadt
between Marshal Davoust and the forces of the Duke of Brunswick.
This, too, ended in victory for the French. The king had been
with the duke and was borne back by the flying host, the two
bodies of fugitives finally coalescing. In that one fatal day
Frederick William had lost his army and placed his kingdom in
jeopardy. "They can do nothing but gather up the debris," said
Napoleon.
The occupation of Berlin, the Prussian capital, quickly followed,
and the war ended with new map-making which greatly reduced the
influence of Prussia as a European Power.
THE INVASION OF POLAND
Russia was still in arms, and occupied Poland. Thither the
victorious French now advanced, making Warsaw, the Polish
capital, the goal of their march. The Russians were beaten and
forced back in every battle, and the Poles, hoping to regain
their lost liberties, gladly rose in aid of the invader. But the
French army found itself exposed to serious privations. The
country was a frozen desert, incapable of supplying food for an
army. The wintry chill and the desolate character of the country
seriously interfered with Napoleon's plans, the troops being
obliged to make their way through thick and rain-soaked forests,
and march over desolate and marshy plains. The winter of the
north fought against them like a strong army and many of them
fell dead without a battle. Warlike movements became almost
impossible to the troops of the south, though the hardy
northerners, accustomed to the climate, continued their military
operations.
EYLAU AND FRIEDLAND
By the end of January the Russian army was evidently approaching
in force, and immediate action became necessary. The cold
increased. The mud was converted into ice. On January 30, 1807,
Napoleon left Warsaw and marched in search of the enemy. General
Benningsen retreated, avoiding battle, and on the 7th of February
entered the small town of Eylau, from which his troops were
pushed by the approaching French. He encamped outside the town,
the French in and about it; it was evident that a great battle
was at hand.
The weather was cold. Snow lay thick upon the ground and still
fell in great flakes. A sheet of ice covering some small lakes
formed part of the country upon which the armies were encamped,
but was thick enough to bear their weight. It was a chill,
inhospitable country to which the demon of war had come.
Before daybreak on the 8th Napoleon was in the streets of Eylau,
forming his line of battle for the coming engagement. Soon the
artillery of both armies opened, and a rain of cannon balls began
to decimate the opposing ranks. The Russian fire was concentrated
on the town, which was soon in flames. That of the French was
directed against a hill which the emperor deemed it important to
occupy. The two armies, nearly equal in numbers, - the French
having 75,000 to the Russian 70,000 - were but a short distance
apart, and the slaughter from the fierce cannonade was terrible.
Nature, which had so far acted to check the advance of the French
in Poland, now threatened their defeat and destruction. A
snow-fall began, so thick and dense that the armies lost sight of
each other, the French columns losing their way in the gloom.
When the snow ceased, after a half-hour's fall, the French army
was in a critical position. It was in a wandering and
disorganized state, while the Russians were on the point of
executing a vigorous turning movement.
Yet the genius of Napoleon turned the scale. He ordered a grand
charge of all the cavalry of his army, driving the Russians back,
occupying a hilly ground in their rear, and in the end handling
them so vigorously that a final retreat began.
Thus ended the most indecisive of Napoleon's victories, one which
had almost been a defeat and which left both armies so exhausted
that months passed before either was in condition to resume the
war. It was the month of June before the armies were again put in
motion. Now the wintry desolation was replaced by a scene of
green woodland, shining lakes and attractive villages, the
conditions being far more favorable for warlike operations.
On June 13th the armies again met, this time at the town of
Friedland, on the River Alle, in the vicinity of Konigsberg,
toward which the Russians were marching. Here Benningsen, the
Russian general, had incautiously concentrated his troops within
a bend of the river, a tactical mistake of which Napoleon
hastened to take advantage.
General Ney fought his way into the town and took the bridges,
while the main force of the French marched upon the entrapped
enemy, who met with complete defeat, many being killed on the
field, many more drowned in the river. Konigsberg, the prize of
victory, was quickly occupied by the French, Prussia the ally of
Russia, thus losing all its area except the single town of Memel.
The result was disastrous to the Prussian king, who was forced to
yield more than half his kingdom.
Louisa, the beautiful queen of Frederick William of Prussia, had
an interview with Napoleon and earnestly sought to induce him to
mitigate his harsh terms. In vain she brought to bear upon him
all her powers of persuasion and attractive charm of manner. He
continued cold and obdurate and she left Tilsit deeply mortified
and humiliated.
If Napoleon had come near defeat in the campaign of 1807, he came
much nearer in that of 1809, in which his long career of victory
was for a time diversified by an example of defeat, from the
consequences of which only his indomitable energy saved him. And
this was at the hands of the Austrians, who had so often met with
defeat and humiliation at his hands.
In 1808 the defeat of his armies in Spain by the people organized
into guerilla bands forced him to take command there in person.
He defeated the insurgents wherever met, took the city of
Saragossa and replaced his brother Joseph on the throne. Then the
outbreak of war in Austria called him away and he was forced to
leave Spain for later attention
CAMPAIGN OF 1809
The declaration of war by Austria arose from indignation at the
arbitrary acts of the conqueror, this growing so intense that in
April 1809, a new declaration was made and new armies called into
the field.
The French campaign was characterized by the usual rapidity. But
on this occasion the Archduke Charles, who led the Austrians,
proved equally rapid, and was in the field so quickly that the
widely-spread French army was for a time in imminent danger of
being cut in two by the alert enemy.
Only a brief hesitation on the part of the Archduke saved the
French from this peril. They concentrated with the utmost haste,
forced the Austrians back, and captured a large number of
prisoners and cannon. In Italy, on the contrary, the Austrians,
were victorious, but the rapid advance of Napoleon towards Vienna
caused their recall and the campaign became a race for the
capital of Austria. In this Napoleon succeeded, the garrison
yielding the city to his troops.
Meanwhile the Archdukes Charles and John, the latter in command
of the army from Italy, were marching hastily towards the
opposite side of the Danube. Napoleon, seeking to strike a blow
before a junction between the armies could be made, crossed the
river by the aid of bridges thrown from the island of Lobau and
occupied the villages of Aspern and Essling.
This was done on May 20th, but during that night the strong
current of the river carried away the bridge, leaving the French
in a perilous situation. On the afternoon of the 21st the entire
Austrian army, 70,000 to 80,000 strong, attacked the French in
the two villages, who held their posts only with the greatest
difficulty.
By dawn of the 21st more than 70,000 French had crossed, but at
this critical interval the bridge again gave way, broken by the
fireships and the stone-laden boats sent by the Austrians down
the swift current. The struggle went on all day, the bridge being
again built and again broken, and at night the French, cut off
from their supply of ammunition, were forced to retreat.
Napoleon, for the first time in his career, had met with defeat.
More than 40,000 dead and wounded lay on that fatal field, among
them the brilliant Marshal Lannes, one of Napoleon's ablest aids.
VICTORY AT WAGRAM
Napoleon, however, had no thought of yielding his hold upon
Vienna. He brought forward new troops with all haste, until by
July 1st he had an army of 150,000 men. The Austrian army had
also been augmented and now numbered 135,000 or 140,000 men. They
had fortified the positions of the recent battle, expecting a new
attack in that quarter.
But of this Napoleon had no intention. He had selected the
heights from Neusiedl to Wagram, occupied by the Austrians, but
not fortified by them, as a more favorable point, and during the
night of July 4th he threw fresh bridges from Lobau to the main
land and set in motion the strong force occupying the island.
This moved against the heights of Wagram, occupying Aspern and
Essling in its advance.
The battle of the next day was one of desperate fury. Finally the
height was gained, giving the French the key of the battlefield.
The Archduke Charles looked in vain for the army under his
brother John, which failed to appear, and, assailed at every
point, was obliged to order a retreat. But this was no rout. The
retreat was conducted slowly and in battle array. Both the
Russians and the Austrians were proving worthy antagonists of the
great Corsican. Further hostilities were checked by a truce,
preliminary to a treaty of peace, signed October 14, 1809.
Ambition, unrestrained by caution, uncontrolled by moderation,
has its inevitable end. An empire built upon victory, trusting
solely to military genius, prepared for itself the elements of
its overthrow. This fact Napoleon was to learn. In the outset of
his career he opposed a new art of war to the obsolete one of his
enemies, and his path to empire was over the corpses of
slaughtered armies and the ruins of fallen kingdoms. But year by
year his foes learned his art, in war after war their resistance
grew more stringent, each successive victory was won with more
difficulty and at greater cost, and finally, at the crossing of
the Danube, the energy and genius of Napoleon met their equal,
and the standards of France, for the first time under Napoleon's
leadership, went back in defeat. It was the tocsin of fate. His
career of victory had culminated. From that day its decline
began.
THE CAMPAIGN IN SPAIN
The second check to Napoleon's triumphant career came from one of
the weaker nations of Europe, aided by the British under a
commander of renown. Napoleon, as already stated, after
overturning Spain had been called away by the Austrian war. This
ended by the treaty of peace, he filled Spain once more with his
veterans, increasing the strength of the army there to 300,000
men, under his ablest generals, Soult, Massena, Ney, Marmont,
Macdonald and others. They marched through Spain from end to end,
yet, though they held all the salient points, the people refused
to submit, but from their mountain fastnesses kept up a petty and
annoying war.
Massena invaded Portugal in 1811, but here he was faced by
General Wellington, leading a British army, and was forced to
retreat. Soult, who followed him, was equally unsuccessful, and
when Napoleon in 1812 depleted his army in Spain for the Russian
campaign, Wellington marched his army into Spain and, aided by
the Spanish patriots, took possession of Madrid, driving King
Joseph from his throne.
THE INVASION OF RUSSIA
Meanwhile Napoleon had entered upon the greatest and most
disastrous campaign in his history. Defied by Alexander I, Czar
of Russia, he had declared war upon that empire and sought its
conquest with the greatest army that ever marched under his
banners. On the banks of the Niemen, a river that flows between
Prussia and Poland, there gathered near the end of June 1812, an
immense army of more than 600,000 men, attended by an enormous
multitude of non-combatants, their purpose being the invasion of
the empire of Russia. Of this great army, made up of troops from
half the nations of Europe, there reappeared six months later on
that broad stream about 16,000 armed men, almost all that were
left of that stupendous host. The remainder had perished on the
desert soil or in the frozen rivers of Russia, few of them
surviving as prisoners in Russian hands. Such was the character
of the dread catastrophe that broke the power of the mighty
conqueror and delivered Europe from his autocratic grasp.
We cannot give the details of this fatal campaign, and shall only
summarize its chief incidents. Barclay de Tolly, Alexander's
commander in chief, adopted a Fabian policy, that of persistently
avoiding battle, and keeping the French in pursuit of a fleeting
will-of-the-wisp while their army wasted away from hardship and
disease in the inhospitable Russian clime.
His method was a wise one, desertion, illness, death of the
untrained recruits in rapid march under the hot midsummer sun,
did the work of many battles, and when Smolensk was reached after
two months of bootless marching, the "Grand Army" was bound to
have been reduced to half its numbers.
Moscow, the old capital of the Empire, was Napoleon's goal. He
felt sure that the occupation of that city would bring the
Russians to bay and force them to accept terms of peace. He was
sadly mistaken. The Russians, weary of retreating, faced him in
one battle, that of Borodino. Here they fought stubbornly, but
with the usual result. They could not stand against the impetuous
dash of Napoleon's veterans and were forced to retreat, leaving
40,000 dead and wounded upon the field. But the French army had
lost more than 30,000, including an unusual number of generals,
two being killed and thirty-nine wounded.
A FATAL RETREAT
On the 15th of September, Moscow, the "Holy City" of Russia was
occupied, Napoleon taking up his quarters in the famous palace of
the Kremlin, from which he hoped to dictate terms of peace to the
obstinate Czar. What were his feelings on the next morning when
word was brought him that Moscow was on fire, and flames were
seen leaping into the air in all directions.
The fire had been premeditated. From every quarter rose the
devouring flames. Even the Kremlin did not escape and Napoleon
was obliged to seek shelter outside the city, which continued to
burn for three days, when the wind sank and rain poured upon the
smoldering embers.
The dismayed conqueror waited in vain. He wrote letters to the
Czar, suggesting peace. His letters were left unanswered. He hung
on despairingly until the 18th of October, when he reluctantly
gave the order to retreat. Too long he had waited, for the
terrible Russian winter was about to descend.
That retreat was a frightful one. The army had been reduced to
103,000 men; the army followers had also greatly decreased in
numbers. But it was still a large host that set out upon its long
march over the frozen Russian plains.
The Russian policy now changed. The retreating army was attacked
at every suitable point. The food supply rapidly failed. On again
reaching Smolensk the army was only 42,000 strong, though the
camp followers are said to have still numbered 60,000.
On the 26th of November the ice-cold River Beresina was reached,
destined to be the most terrible point on the whole dreadful
march. Two bridges were thrown in all haste across the stream,
and most of the men under arms crossed, but 18,000 stragglers
fell into the hands of the enemy. How many were trodden to death
in the press or were crowded from the bridge into the icy river
cannot be told. It is said that when spring thawed the ice,
30,000 bodies were found and burned on the banks of the stream. A
mere fragment of the great army remained alive. Ney, who had been
the hero of the retreat, was the last man to cross that frightful
stream.
On the 13th of December some 16,000 haggard and staggering men,
almost too weak to hold the arms to which they still despairingly
clung, recrossed the Niemen, which the "Grand Army" had passed in
such magnificent strength and with such abounding resources less
than six months before. It was the greatest and most astounding
disaster in the military history of the world.
DRESDEN AND LEIPZIG
The lion was at bay, but there was fight left in him still. He
hurried back to France, gathered another army, refused all offers
of peace on the terms suggested by his enemies, and concentrated
an army at Dresden. Here on August 26, 1813, his last great
victory was won.
The final stand came at Leipzig, where, October 16-18, he waged a
three days' battle against all the powers of central and eastern
Europe. Then, his ammunition nearly exhausted, he was forced to
give the order to retreat.
The struggle was soon at an end. France was quickly invaded,
Paris was obliged to surrender, and on April 7, 1814, the emperor
signed an act of abdication and was exiled to the small island of
Elba, in the Mediterranean, with an army of 400 men, chosen from
his famous Old Guard. But the Powers of Europe, despite their
long experience of Napoleon, did not yet recognize the ability
and audacity of the man with whom they had to deal. While the
Congress of Vienna, convened to restore the old constitution of
Europe, was deliberating and disputing, word came that their
dethroned enemy was again on the soil of France and Louis XVIII,
his successor, was in full flight. He had landed on March 1,
1815, and was marching back to Paris, the people and the army
rallying to his support.
THE HUNDRED DAYS
Then came the famous Hundred Days, in which Napoleon showed much
of his old ability, rapidly organizing a new army, with which in
June he marched into Belgium, where the British under Wellington
and the Prussians under Blucher had gathered to meet him.
On the 16rh he defeated Blucher at Ligny. On the 18th he met
Wellington at Waterloo, and after a desperate struggle went down
in utter defeat. All day long the French and British had fought
without victory for either, but the arrival of Blucher with his
Prussians turned the scale. The French army broke and fled in
disastrous rout, three-fourths of its force being left on the
field, dead, wounded, or prisoners. It was the great soldier's
last fight. He was forced to surrender the throne, and was again
exiled, this time to the island of St. Helena, in the south
Atlantic. No such mistake as that of Elba was safe to make again.
Here ended the days of Napoleon Bonaparte, the greatest soldier
the world had ever known. His final hour of glory came in 1842,
when his remains were brought in pomp to Paris, there to find a
final resting place in the Hotel des Invalides.
THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA
This Congress of the rulers and statesmen of Europe, which opened
in September, 1814, and continued its work after the fall of
Napoleon at Waterloo, occupied itself with map-making on a
liberal scale. The empire which the conqueror had built up at the
expense of the neighboring countries, was quickly dismembered and
France reduced to its former limits, while all the surrounding
Powers took their shares of the spoils, Belgium and Holland being
combined into a single kingdom.
As for the rights of the people, what had become of them? Had
they been swept away and the old wrongs of the people brought
back? Not quite. The frenzied enthusiasm for liberty and human
rights of the past twenty-five years could not go altogether for
nothing. The lingering relics of feudalism had vanished, not only
from France but from all Europe, and no monarch or congress could
bring them back again. In its place the principles of democracy
had been carried by the armies of France throughout Europe and
deeply planted in a hundred places, and their establishment as
actual conditions was the most important part of the political
development of the nineteenth century.
THE HOLY ALLIANCE
Map-making was not the whole work of the Congress of Vienna. An
association was made of the rulers of Russia, Austria and
Prussia, under the promising title of the "Holy Alliance." These
devout autocrats proposed to rule in accordance with the precepts
of the Bible, to govern their subjects like loving parents, and
to see that peace, justice and religion should flourish in their
dominions.
Such was the theory, the real purpose was one of absolute
dominion, that of uniting their forces against democracy and
revolution wherever these should show themselves. It was not long
before there was work for them to do. The people began to move.
The attempt to re-establish absolute governments shook them out
of sluggish acceptance. Revolution lifted its head in spite of
the Holy Alliance, its first field being Spain. Revolt broke out
there in 1820 and was quickly followed by a similar revolt in
Naples.
These revolutionary movements roused the members of the Alliance.
An Austrian army invaded Italy, a French one, under the influence
of the Alliance, was sent to Spain, and both the revolutions were
vigorously quelled. The only revolt that succeeded was one in
Greece against the Turkish power. There was no desire to sustain
the Turks, and a Russian army was finally sent to aid the Greeks,
whose freedom was attained in April, 1830.
Such were the chief events that followed the fall of Napoleon.
Reaction was the order of the day. But it was a reaction that was
to be violently shaken in the period now reached, the
revolutionary year of 1830.
Chapter VII. PAN-SLAVISM VERSUS PAN-GERMANISM
Russia's Part in the Servian Issue - Strength of the Russian Army
- The Distribution of the Slavs - Origin of Pan-Slavism - The
Czar's Proclamation - The Teutons of Europe - Intermingling of
Races - The Nations at War
Pan-Slavism against Pan-Germanism was the issue which was
launched when the Emperor of all the Russias took up Servia's
quarrel with Austria-Hungary. Russia, if she wanted a ground for
war, could have found no better one. The popularity of her
aggressive big-brother attitude to all the Slavs was quickly
attested in St. Petersburg. It had been a long time since war had
appealed with the same favor to so large a part of the Czar's
people. Slavs there were in plenty to menace the allied German
Powers, even if there were not allied French arms, on Germany's
other flank, and Britain's naval supremacy to cope with. Slavs in
past times had spread over all of eastern Europe, from the Arctic
to the Adriatic and the Aegean Seas. Their continuity was long
ago broken into by an intrusion of Magyars. Finns, and
Roumanians, leaving a northern Slavic section composed of North
Russians, Poles, Czechs, and Slovaks, and a southern section
comprising the main body of the Balkan people. For over a
thousand years these Slavs have peopled Europe east of the Elbe
River. And for centuries they kept the hordes of Cossacks, Turks
and barbarians off Europe. Russia in those days was called "the
nation of the sword." And over a hundred years ago that sword was
drawn for Servia. After 400 years of vassalage to Turkey, the
Serbs rebelled in 1804, and then only Russian intervention saved
them from defeat. In later wars oppression of the Slavs was a
prominent issue.
RUSSIA'S PART IN THE SERVIAN ISSUE
What rendered the Russian menace so formidable at the opening of
the 1914 war was the unusual enthusiasm which was displayed.
Ordinarily, the huge population of Russia has been rather
apathetic toward the purposes of the Emperor. But in the case of
Austria's injustice to Servia the Czar, judging from the
demonstrations in St. Petersburg, could reasonably count upon
having behind him possibly 100,000,000 Slavs among his subjects.
Moscow and Odessa gave similar demonstrations of good feeling,
and it seemed as if, in the event of the Czar's assuming command
as generalissimo of all the forces, the wave of enthusiasm would
sweep over the whole empire. Who knows that is the strength of
the Russian bear, once he is roused to sullen fury? In the ten
years following the Russo-Japanese War Russia had greatly added
to her army and navy, and materially cut down the time required
for the mobilization of her forces by eliminating many of the
difficulties attendant upon transportation and equipment of
troops. Her quiet advances toward becoming a Power to be feared
by the most formidable European Nation had come to be recognized
even if in a vague way.
In considering the potential strength of the armies which Russia,
in the course of a long war, might put in the field, it may be
pointed out that military service in that empire of more than
160,000,000 people is universal and compulsory. Service under the
flag begins at the age of twenty and lasts for twenty-three
years. Usually it is proportioned as follows: Three or four years
in the active army, fourteen or fifteen in the Zapas, or first
reserve, and five years in the Opolchenie, or second reserve. For
the Cossacks, those fighters who are a conspicuous element of
Russia's military strength, there is hardly a cessation in
discipline during their early manhood. Holding their lands by
military tenure, they are liable to service for life. Furnishing
their own equipment and horses - the Cossack is almost invariably
a cavalryman - they pass through three periods of four years
each, with diminishing duties, until they wind up in the reserve,
which is liable to be called into the field in time of war.
STRENGTH OF THE RUSSIAN ARMY
Russia's field army consists of three powerful divisions - the
army of European Russia, the army of Asia, already referred to,
and the army of the Caucasus. The European Russian field army
consists of twenty-seven army corps - each corps comprising, at
fighting strength, about 36,000 men - and some twenty-odd cavalry
divisions, of 4,000 horsemen each. With the field army of the
Caucasus and the first and second reserve divisions of the
Cossacks, the total would be brought to nearly 1,600,000 men.
With the Asiatic army, the grand total, according to the latest
figures, would give the Russian armies a fighting strength of
1,850,000 men, of whom it would be practicable to assemble, say,
1,200,000 in a single theater of war. With respect to the armies
which could be put in the field in time of urgent demand, there
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