been recently torn down from Metz and Strasbourg, in the agony of a conquered people, whose military supremacy had been long recognized.

agree with the leading idea of Colonel Wilson throughout these pages, that the art of war has been as finely illustrated in the mighty deeds of the illustrious dead as in those of the living chiefs of armies

it is doubtful, indeed, if a greater commander than Hannibal has been ever seen, and Napoleon's wonderful campaign of Italy is the grandest passage of modern war— - and we believe with him that, at the present time, the moral forces that decide battles, the ability of leaders and the energy of troops, are scarcely held in suffi. cient account.

Marshal Berwick was a distinguished soldier in what may be called the first period of the ascendency and the reverses of France in war, that part of the reign of Louis XIV. which begins with the wellknown league of Augsburg, and terminates at the peace of Utrecht. If not entitled to rank among the masters of war of that splendid era, he had some of the qualities of a great captain; it was his fortune to win the first battle, which marked a turn Berwick was born in 1670, a son of in the tide of the disasters of France, James II. by Arabella Churchill, the plainwith lasting results of immense impor faced sister of a brilliant youth who was tance; and if the campaigns conducted to develop into the great Duke of Marlby him do not bear the stamp of tran- borough. To conceal probably his mothscendent genius, they are examples of er's shame, the child was sent to France prudence, of skill, and of judgment. He soon after his birth; and he was carefully was eminent, too, in the war of sieges, a brought up at Jesuit schools, a training remarkable feature of that period; and if which, spite of many defects, has been not loved as a leader of men, as Condé, that of many a distinguished soldier. Villars, and even Vendôme were loved, While still in his teens he passed into the he inspired confidence and commanded hands of one of the best military teachers respect; and he was an administrator of the day; and soon afterwards he was of no ordinary resource, solicitous as sent to Vienna, with some youthful scions to the wants of his troops, and, in a special manner, chary of their blood. If his character, moreover, was in the main that of a soldier of fortune of high degree, cold, stern, calculating, with few scruples, and with little sympathy outside the camp, it is to his credit that, in a rev olutionary age, he steadily adhered to the side he chose; and his reputation is wholly free from the dark charges which will ever tarnish the fame of his great kinsman, Marlborough. We avail our-whelming defeat of Mohacz; and he gave selves of the volumes before us to notice the career of this eminent man, an Englishman, and of an English nature, though unhappily, through life, a foe of England. Colonel Wilson's book can scarcely be called a military work of the highest order; his narratives of campaigns want breadth and clearness, and are overloaded with tedious details; and his criticisms are somewhat indistinct and timid. Nevertheless, taken as a whole, this is an excellent study of Berwick and his age; it abounds in valuable information and research, though the author has borrowed too much from the pages of Henri Martin; and it is fluently and agreeably written, apart from the fault of repeated quotations of poetry, brought in rather in schoolboy fashion. We entirely

(1) James II. and the Duke of Berwick. (2) The Duke of Berwick, Marshal of France, by C. T. Wilson, Lieut.-Colonel. London: 1876, 83.

of the noblesse of France, to behold war in its stern realities. The menacing tide of Ottoman conquest, which had lately surged round the Austrian capital, was now receding to the lower Danube; and Christendom, for a moment at peace with itself, had despatched volunteers from many lands, to take part, with the Imperial armies, in a crusade against the still dreaded infidels. Berwick witnessed the terrrible siege of Buda, and the over

such promise of valor and skill, that he attracted the notice of Charles of Lorraine and was given honorary rank in the Austrian service. He was ere long, however, summoned to England, the crown, on the death of Charles II., having devolved on his ill-fated parent, at this moment in full enjoyment of the popularity he was soon to forfeit. James II. seems to have loved the youth with an affection rare in that heartless age; he gave him a regiment of household troops, the lieutenancy of Hampshire, and the command of Portsmouth; and he raised him to the highest place in the peerage, with the title which he was to render famous. All went well, for a time, with the stripling duke; but it is significant of the state of opinion, that the sturdy Protestant squires of Hampshire soon became jealous of their "Popish "lord; and the hand of Berwick was scornfully refused by a daughter of

less, if invasions like those of 1814, 1815, and 1870 were not yet within the power of man, great operations in the field were possible; and if a single siege sometimes cost a campaign, the march of Marlborough from the Meuse to the Danube, and Villars's plan of assailing Austria were combinations of the highest order. As regards armies, they were comparatively small; but they were large enough to task to the utmost the best powers of their ablest chiefs; for it is doubtful, indeed, if a single commander can properly direct the immense multitudes which stand arrayed in the battles of this day. For the rest, the organization and weapons of armies were still imperfect, cumbrous, and weak; but as this inferiority prevailed in all, capacity in administration and skill in tactics were relatively as valuable then as now; and, indeed, the ascendency still retained by cavalry made energy, resource, and promptness in command, perhaps even more important than they are in our time.

The most conspicuous figure in this great contest was certainly the renowned Marlborough; and it may be doubted if a more perfect general has ever appeared on the stage of history. He possessed, in an extraordinary degree, penetration, insight, and quick decision; and he was thus enabled, with unerring judgment, to seize advantages on the field of battle which caused victory to attend his stan

the war closed, he had, indeed, been engaged in planning an insurrection in England; but the charge has certainly no foundation that he took part in Jacobite plots against the life of William III. He witnessed the death of his dethroned parent; was selected to head the band of exiles who proclaimed "King James III." at St. Germains; and thenceforward became the most confidential friend of Mary of Modena, though she once disliked him with the dislike of a wife for the son of a concubine. The beginning of the war of the Spanish succession found him still only with a general's rank; but he acquired before long a marshal's bâton, a promotion to which he was well entitled, as his military abilities became manifest. We have no space even to trace the outline of the mighty contest which shook Europe from 1701 to 1715, and which was surpassed only by the gigantic strife of the French Revolution and first empire. The Grand Alliance fashioned by William III. held together after the death of its author; and though Italy and Germany were in part divided, almost the whole of Europe was banded together against France and her domineering master. For a time the contest seemed not unequal; the jealousies and opposed interests of the Allies greatly impaired their power; and more than once France seemed on the verge of success that probably would have broken up the League. By degrees, however, the superior strength of the coa-dards. No one has surpassed him in the lition, more ably directed than ever had been the case before, began to tell with decisive effects; one great victory saved Germany; another set the Low Countries free; a succession of efforts at last broke through the barriers of the French frontier; and though France struggled heroically to the last, and even plucked safety from the depths of peril, she was a defeated power after the Peace of Utrecht, and for a century ceased to give law to Europe. It is more to our purpose to glance at the state of the art of war at this stirring epoch, and of the armed masses of men which may be called its instruments. War still bore traces of the feudal age; campaigns in winter were almost unknown; and as communications were still few and difficult, as fortresses were extremely numerous, and as the resources of countries were still scanty, it was impossible to make the decisive marches, and to strike the rapid and overwhelming blows which have been witnessed in the present century. Neverthe

art of seeing the weak points in an enemy's line, and in strengthening the positions held by himself; and he had the steady purpose and the calm, firm will which turned this knowledge to the best account. His two greatest triumphs, Blenheim and Ramilies, were due largely to these peculiar gifts; in the first he perceived that the point of junction between the armies of Tallard and Marsin was the spot upon which to collect his efforts; in the second he saw that the French left was paralyzed through its false position, and that he could strike the right with overpowering force; and his admirable plans of attack were carried out with a vigor and power that were all his own. He was, in a word, a consummate tactician; nor was he inferior, perhaps, as a strategist. The backward state, indeed, of the military art, and his dependence on jealous and timid allies, prevented him from carrying out projects of the highest order in the annals of war; and he probably had not the transcendent

faculties which characterize the great | conspicuously seen in two sieges, in moves of Napoleon. The operations, which he showed skill of a high order, however, that led to Blenheim were ad- and gave proof of decision of character, mirable specimens of combination; and more valuable in the case of generals than Marlborough's daring plan of invading mental accomplishments, however splenFrance, neglecting or masking the frontier did. In 1705 Berwick sat down before fortresses, was far in advance of the ideas Nice, then a fortress of extraordinary of his age, and anticipated the Napoleonic strength; and he had received all but strategy. We do not undervalue Eugene positive commands from Versailles to diof Savoy; he was an excellent commander rect the attack in a way prescribed by on the field of battle, as his great victory Vauban, the greatest of French engineers. of Turin proves; and his campaigns on Yet after reconnoitring the place with the Adige and the Po show that he had a care, Berwick satisfied himself that the fine intelligence and a strong, bold char- plan was a bad one; and he planted his acter. In our judgment, however, the batteries against a front wholly different only chief who approached Marlborough, from that which had been pointed out, in this memorable strife, was the high- with ultimate and triumphant success. If souled and most able Villars, one of the we recollect how immense was the authorgrandest soldiers of the French monity of Vauban in cases of sieges, this was archy. Villars, doubtless, had not the astonishing skill in manœuvre of his farfamed rival; he was out-generalled more than once by Marlborough; and the Englishman forced the celebrated lines, which the Frenchman boasted were "his ne plus ultra." Nevertheless Villars was a great captain; he was alike daring, and prompt in action, and yet singularly prudent and wise in judgment; his tenacity and vigor have been seldom equalled; and no general has possessed in a higher degree the faculty of playing a losing game, of bidding defiance to adverse fortune, of animating troops with his own heroic spirit. As a strategist, too, he is in the foremost rank; his project of invading Austria was that of Napoleon in 1805-9; and his stubborn defence of the French frontier, against the victorious troops of Marlborough, with ultimate and surprising success, if not faultless, was able in the extreme. Denain, moreover, was, in its way, as decisive as any battle in the war; and if Villars fell back from the field of Malplaquet the grandest perhaps of defensive actions-his defeat was worth many triumphs for France, for it really dissolved the alliance against her, and saved the monarchy of Louis XIV.

Berwick was not the equal of these famous men in genius, resource, and deeds of daring. He was, however, a very able chief; and he possessed, though in an inferior degree, some of the special gifts of his great kinsman. He had not Marlborough's coup d'œil on the field; at least he had few occasions to display this quality; but, time and thought being accorded to him, he had much of Marlborough's singular power of discovering the vulnerable points of a foe. This was

a very remarkable feat, especially consid ering that, at this period, the marshal was only in his thirty-fifth year. The same great qualities were also shown in the memorable siege of Barcelona, one of those astonishing instances of the defence of fortresses which abound in the mili tary records of Spain. This last refuge of Catalan freedom was assailed by Berwick in 1714; and he selected what has been since admitted to have been the most favorable point of attack, in this case, too, overruling engineers, who, however, seem to have been inferior men. Breaches having been made in two bastions, a desperate assault was made and repulsed; and the engineers "following mere routine," had "nothing to propose but " renewed efforts," which, in the existing state of the place and the garrison, would have probably ended in fruitless butcheries. Berwick, however, "having well weighed the matter," and perhaps recollecting old days at Limerick, resolved to delay the assault until the broken ramparts would permit troops to pour in, in a mass, with resistless force, and though murmurs arose from young lieutenants, his sagacity and prudence met a just reward, for the place fell, though after a fearful contest. Berwick's skill in battle was, nevertheless, seen most evidently on the field of Almanza, one of the most important actions of the war; and in this instance he scarcely fell short of Marlborough in readiness and decided judg ment. In this battle — among other things remarkable for this, that the English army was commanded by a Huguenot refugee and that of France by an English exileRuvigny had committed a twofold mis take; his left had a ravine in its immedi

ate rear, and his infantry and cavalry were | so intermixed that neither arm could act with proper effect. Seizing the opportunity, Berwick directed a tremendous charge against the allied left and drove it, in slaughter, across the ravine, and then, turning fiercely against the uncovered centre, he shattered it with one of those great attacks of horsemen which, in that age, were so often decisive, the enemy, though stubbornly fighting to the last, being paralyzed through its vicious for mation. The defeat ruined the cause of the Allies in Spain; and the credit is fairly due to Berwick, though it has been said that the last great charge-like that of Kellermann at Marengo was the inspiration of a skilful lieutenant.

French, and may have counselled Villeroi and Boufflers; but this rests on conjecture only, and the real reason, we suspect, was that the great Englishman, not hav ing yet made his absolute superiority in war manifest, was completely trammelled by the Dutch deputies. Berwick shows badly, compared with Marlborough, in the campaign of Oudenarde and Lille, but this was because he could not act in concert with such a man as Vendôme; and possibly his illustrious kinsman would have been foiled as he advanced to the Scheldt, had Berwick's advice to attack been fol lowed. The campaign of Berwick on the Portuguese frontier, if not brilliant, shows much forethought; and his operations after the fall of Madrid are admirable alike for skill and judgment. The reputation, however, of this able chief rests principally on his memorable defence of the south-east of France in 1709-12. We must refer our readers to Colonel Wilson, to explain how Berwick drew his wellplanned lines from the mouths of the Var

he closed the Alpine passes, taking care however to have means of exit, and so placing his troops on the theatre as always to hold the chord of the arc; and how, stationed behind this barrier, he baffled for years the efforts of Daun, and ultimately compelled his foes to retreat. For a long period this scheme of defence was deemed a model of the military art, and a perfect specimen of mountain warfare; and, regard being had to the existing state of communications and of the power of armies, it may be said to have been admirable in the extreme. Now, indeed, it would be of little use and obsolete, when this and other sub-alpine districts can be traversed with comparative ease, and when armies have acquired a "mobility" and force they did not possess in the days of Berwick; but it does not fol low that it was not of the very highest merit at its peculiar time.

Berwick was thus a really great tactician, taking the word in its most comprehensive sense. He had other qualities of a general, too, which entitle him to rank high among soldiers. As an administrator he was very efficient; severe, methodical, and strict in discipline, he contrived that the armies under his orders should to the heads of the Rhone; how skilfully be better equipped and provided than those of his more brilliant comrades; and while the troops of Vendôme and Villars starved, his own were usually ready for the field. In this excellence he resembled Wellington; and there was this additional point of resemblance, that he was extremely careful of the lives of his men, yet was esteemed rather than loved in the camp, in this respect being the exact opposite of generals like Villars, and, above all, Napoleon. What, however, determines the real place of a leader of armies, in the annals of war, is his capacity for large operations in the field; his ability, in a word, as a strategist; and tried by this test Berwick, too, stands high, though he did not attain the highest rank. Here, again, we see a likeness to Wellington; his skill as a strategist lay in defence, though he was capable of a fine offensive; and it is remarkable that one who, in early youth, was conspicuous It is unnecessary to dwell on the career only as a dashing swordsman, became, of Berwick after the end of the war of the under the responsibilities of command, Spanish succession. Honors had fallen one of those prudent, wary, and sagacious largely on the successful warrior. He chiefs who succeed rather by wearing out had been made a grandee of Spain; and an enemy, than by striking him down with he had received the ducal title of Fitzwell-directed blows. We can only glance James, with a fitting appanage, from Louis at Berwick's career in the great war of XIV. During the years that followed the Spanish succession. Colonel Wilson the Peace of Utrecht he held several high suggests that one cause of the compara- commands in France, in which he maintive want of success of Marlborough in|tained order and upheld authority with the second of his compaigns in Flanders, the severity of a soldier of fortune, not in was that Berwick was in the camp of the sympathy with the wants of the people;