Chapter II: Part 2

Nelson's arrangement, however, was quite different. His plan was to attack at two points and break through the Armada, throwing the ships into confusion right and left. This brought his own vessels into the arrangement of two harrows, each pointing the apex against the designated vessels of the opposing squadron. One of the harrows was to be led by Collingwood in his ship called the "Royal Sovereign." Nelson led his column in his flagship the "Victory." The preliminaries of the battle extended to noon, and then the British attack was begun by Collingwood, who bore down on the two opposing vessels, the "Santa Anna" and the "Fougeux." Nelson also sailed to the attack in the "Victory" and broke through the enemy's line between the "Redoubtable" and the "Santissima Trinidad." The "Victory" in passing poured terrible broad-sides into both vessels.

It seems that both the British admirals in going into battle outsailed somewhat their supporting ships; but these soon came into action and the battle line of the allied fleet was fatally broken at both points. All the vessels were soon engaged, and the rear line of Villeneuve gave way as well as the first. Nevertheless, the battle continued furiously for about two hours. The "Santissima Trinidad" was at that time the largest warship and the most formidable that had ever been built. The "Redoubtable" was only second in strength and equipment. Five or six others were men-of-war of the heaviest draught and metal. The French and Spanish soldiers fought bravely, going into the battle with flying streamers and answering shouts.

Nelson, utterly fearless, seems to have had a premonition of his fate. He had made a hasty codicil to his will, and entered the struggle to conquer or die. Both fates were reserved for him. From the beginning of the battle the French and Spanish ships suffered terribly from the British fire; but they also inflicted heavy losses on their assailants. Here and there a French vessel was shattered and fell out of the fight. Nelson was struck with a ball, but refused to go below. Again he was hit in the shoulder by a musketeer from the masts of the "Redoubtable" and fell to the deck. "They have done for me at last, Hardy," said he to Sir Thomas Hardy, captain of the ship. He was carried below by the officers, and as he lay bleeding the news was brought to him that already _fifteen_ of the enemy's ships had surrendered. "That is well," said the dying hero; "but I had bargained for twenty." Then his thoughts turned to Lady Hamilton, to whom he was devoted. "Take care of Lady Hamilton, Hardy; take care of poor Lady Hamilton," said he, as the death dew dampened his brow. He then embraced the captain and expired.

The victory of the British fleet was complete. The allies lost nineteen ships. Admiral Gravina was killed, and Villeneuve was taken prisoner. He never reacted from the mortification of his defeat, but lingered until the following year, when he despaired of life and hope and committed suicide. Nelson, in the midst of a pageant hitherto unsurpassed, was buried in St. Paul's. The battle of Trafalgar passed into history as the first and greatest naval conflict of the century.

CAMPAIGN OF AUSTERLITZ.

The first four years of the present century were a lull before a tempest. These years covered on our side of the sea the administration of the elder Adams. In Europe they corresponded to the period of the transformation of the Consulate into the French Umpire. This change was rapidly and easily effected. The star of Napoleon emerged from the chaos and the cloud and rose rapidly to the zenith. But the mood of the age was war, war. Could Europe in these first years have foreseen the awful struggles that were just before, then Europe might well have shuddered.

Now it was that the ascendancy of the Corsican brought in a reign of violence and blood. Napoleon became the trampler of vineyards. His armies made Europe into mire. England--agreeing at Amiens not to fight--fought. Pitt, now in the last year of his life, used all of his resources to bring about a league against France. He persuaded Alexander of Russia, Francis of Austria, and Gustavus of Sweden--all easy dupes of a greater than themselves--to make a new coalition. He tried to induce Frederick William of Prussia to join his fortunes with the rest; but the last-named monarch was for the time restrained by the weakness of prudence. The agents of Napoleon held out to the king suggestions of the restoration of Hanover to Prussia. But Austria and Russia and Sweden pressed forward confidently to overthrow the new French Empire. That Empire, they said, should not see the end of the first year of its creation!

The Austrians were first in the field. The Russians, under Kutusoff, came on into Pomerania from the east. Out of Sweden, with a large army, came down Gustavus, the Don Quixote of the north, to crush Bernadotte, who held Hanover. Napoleon for his part sprang forth for the campaign of Austerlitz, perhaps the most brilliant military episode in the history of mankind. With incredible facility he threw forward to the Rhine an army of 180,000 men. His policy was--as always--to overcome the allies in detail.

On the twenty-fourth of September, the Emperor left Paris. The Empress and Talleyrand went with him as far as Strasburg. On the second of October, hostilities began at Guntzburg. Four days afterward the French army crossed the Danube. On the eighth of the month, Murat won the battle of Wertingen, capturing Count Auffenberg, with 2000 prisoners. On the tenth the French had Augsburg, and on the twelfth, Munich. On the fourteenth Soult triumphed at Memingen, capturing a corps of 6000 Austrians; and on the same day Ney literally overran the territory which was soon to become his Duchy of Elchingen. Napoleon out-generaled the main division of the enemy at Ulm. The Austrians, under General Mack, 33,000 strong, were cooped up in the town and, on the seventeenth of October, forced to capitulate. Eight field-marshals and generals, including the Prince Lichtenstein and Generals Klenau and Fresnel, were made prisoners. "Soldiers of the Grand Army," said Napoleon, "we have finished the campaign in a fortnight!"

On the day of the capitulation of Ulm, Massena in Italy drove back the army of the Archduke Charles. The Austrians to this date, in a period of twenty days, had lost by battle and capture fully fifty thousand men! On the twenty-seventh of October, the French army crossed the Inn. Saltzburg and Braunau were taken. In Italy, Massena, on the thirtieth, won the battle of Caldiero, and took 5000 prisoners. The French closed toward the Austrian capital. On the thirteenth of November, Napoleon, having obtained possession of the bridges of the Danube, entered Vienna. He established himself in the imperial palace of Schonbrunn. The Austrian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire--which was its shadowy penumbra--seemed to vanish like ghosts before him.

Out of Pomerania into Moravia, to the plain of Olmutz, the great Russian army under the Czar and Kutusoff, came roaring. There they were united with a heavy division of the Austrians, under the Emperor Francis. The latter had fled from his capital, and staked his last fortunes on a battle in the field. The allied army was 80,000 strong. Napoleon, with 60,000 men, commanded by Soult, Lannes, Murat and Bernadotte, advanced rapidly from the direction of Vienna, as far as Brunn, and there awaited the onset.

Just beyond this town, at Austerlitz, the French were arranged in a semicircle, with the convex front toward the allies, who occupied the outer arc on a range of heights. Such was the situation on the night of December 1, 1805. The morrow will be the first anniversary of our coronation in Notre Dame--a glorious day for battle!

With the morning of the second, Napoleon could scarcely restrain his ardor. The enthusiasm of the army knew no bounds. On the night before, the Emperor, in his gray coat, had gone the circle of the camps, and the soldiers, extemporizing straw torches to light the way, ran before him. Looking eagerly through the gray dawn, he saw the enemy badly arranged, or moving dangerously in broken masses under the cover of a Moravian fog. Presently the fog lifted, and the sun burst out in splendor. The onset of the French was irresistible. The allied centre was pierced. The Austrian and Russian emperors with their armies were sent flying in utter rout and panic from the field. Thirty thousand Russians and Austrians were killed, wounded and taken. Alexander barely escaped capture. Before sunset the Third Coalition was broken into fragments and blown away. At the conference between Napoleon and Francis, two days afterward, at the Mill of Sar-Uschitz, some of the French officers overheard the father of Maria Louisa lie to her future husband, thus: "I promise not to fight you any more."

"FRIEDLAND--1807."

Whoever visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Central Park, New York, is likely to pause before a great historical painting by Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier. The picture is entitled "Friedland--1807." There goes a critical opinion that, though common fame would have Austerlitz to be the greatest battle of the Napoleonic wars, the palm ought really to be given to Friedland. At any rate, the martial splendor of that day has been caught by the vision and brush of Meissonier, and delivered, in what is probably the most splendid painting in America, to the immortality of art.

Let us note the great movements that preceded the climax of Friedland. In the summer of 1806, the historical conditions in Europe favored a general peace. Pitt was dead, and Fox agreed with Napoleon that a peace might now be secured by the restoration of Hanover to England. Suddenly, however, on the thirteenth of September, 1806, Fox died, and by the incoming of Lauderdale the whole complexion was changed. Toryism again ran rampant. The Anglo-Russo-Prussian intrigue was renewed, and the rash Frederick William sent a peremptory challenge to Napoleon to get himself out of Germany.

The Emperor had in truth agreed to withdraw his forces, but the Czar Alexander had also agreed to relinquish certain vantage grounds which he held--and had not done it. Therefore Napoleon's army corps would remain in Germany. Frederick William suddenly declared war, and in a month after the death of Fox, Napoleon concentrated in Saxe-Weimar an army of a hundred thousand men. Then, on the fourteenth of October, 1806, was fought the dreadful battle of Jena, in which the Prussians lost 12,000 in killed and wounded, and 15,000 prisoners. On the same day, Davout fell upon a division of 50,000 under the Duke of Brunswick and Frederick William in person, and won another signal victory which cost the Germans about ten thousand men.

Prussia was utterly overwhelmed by the disaster. Her fortresses were surrendered without resistance, and Napoleon, in less than a fortnight, occupied Berlin. On the twenty-first of November, he issued from that city his celebrated Berlin decree, declaring the British Islands in a state of blockade, and interdicting all correspondence and trade with England! The property of British subjects, under a wide schedule of liabilities, was declared contraband of war.

Meanwhile the aid promised to Prussia by the Czar had been too slow for the lightning that struck at Jena. The oncoming Russians reached the Vistula, but were forced back by the victorious French, who took possession of Warsaw. There the Emperor established his winter quarters, and remained for nearly three months, engaged in the preparation of new plans of conquest and new schemes for the pacification of Europe.

After Jena, Prussia, though crushed, remained belligerent. Her shattered forces drew off to the borders, and were joined by the Russians in East Prussia. The campaign of 1807 opened here. On the eighth of February, the French army, about 70,000 strong, advanced against the allies, commanded by Benningsen and Lestocq. At the town of Eylau, about twenty miles from Königsberg, a great but indecisive battle was fought, in which each army suffered a loss of nearly eighteen thousand men. The Russians and Prussians fell back about four miles to Friedland, and both armies were reinforced, the French to about eighty thousand, and the allies to approximately the same number.

Here for a season the two great camps were pitched against each other. The shock of Eylau and the inclemency of the spring, no less than the political complications that thickened on every horizon, held back the military movements until the beginning of summer. But at length the crisis came. On the fourteenth of June was fought the great battle of Friedland and the allied army was virtually destroyed. The loss of the Russians and Prussians was more than twenty-five thousand men, while the French loss was not quite eight thousand. Napoleon commanded in person, and his triumph was prodigious.

Let not the visitor to the Metropolitan Museum fail to look long and attentively on the picture of the scene which represents the beginning of the battle on the side of the French. There on a slight elevation, in the wheatfield of June, sitting on his white horse, with his triangular hat lifted in silent salutation, surrounded by the princes and marshals of his Empire, sits the sardonic somnambulist, while before him on the left the Cuirassiers of the Guard, on their tremendous horses gathered out of Normandy, plunging at full gallop, bearing down through the broken wheat, with buglers in the van and sabers flashing high and bearded mouths wide open with yellings that resound through the world till now, charge wildly, irresistibly onward against the unseen enemy, reckless alike of life and death, but choosing rather death if only the marble face but smile!

UNDER THE RUSSIAN SNOWS.

The first empire of France was buried between the Niemen and Moscow. The funeral was attended by vultures and Cossacks.

It was on the twenty-fourth of June, 1812, that Napoleon began the invasion of Russia. The dividing line was the River Niemen. The inhabitants fell back before him. He had not advanced far when he encountered a new commander, with whom he was unfamiliar. It was Field-Marshal Nature. Marshal Nature had an army that the Old Guard had never confronted. His herald was Frost, and his aid-de-camp was Zero. One of his army corps was Snow. His bellowing artillery was charged with Lithuanian tempests. Hail was his grape and shrapnel. The Emperor of the French had never studied Marshal Nature's tactics--not even in the Alps.

The Russian summer was as midwinter to the soldiers of France and Spain and Italy. Some of the invading divisions could hardly advance at all. The howling storms made impassable the ungraded roads; the 1200 guns of the Grand Army sank into the mire. Horse-life and man-life fell and perished in the sleet of the mock-summer that raged along the watershed between the Dwina and the Dnieper.

The Russians under Kutusoff fell back to Smolensko. There on the sixteenth of August they fought and were defeated with a loss of nearly twelve thousand men. The way was thus opened as far as the Moskwa. At that place on the seventh of September Kutusoff a second time gave battle, at the village of Borodino. This was one of the most murderous conflicts of modern times. A thousand cannon vomited death all day. Under the smoke a quarter of a million of men struggled like tigers. At nightfall the French had the field. The defeated Russians hung sullenly around the arena where they had left more than 40,000 of their dead and wounded. The Frence losses were almost equally appalling. "Sire," said Marshal Ney, "we would better withdraw and reform." "_Thou_ advise a retreat, Michel?" said the marble head, as it turned to the Bulldog of Battles.

Kutusoff abandoned Moscow. The inhabitants receded with him to the great plains eastward. On the fifteenth of September, Napoleon entered the ancient capital. The streets were as a necropolis. All was silence. The conqueror took up his residence in the old palace of the Czars. Here he would spend the winter in luxurious quarters. Here he would extemporize theatres, and here he would issue edicts as from Berlin and Milan. Lo, out of the Bazaar, near the Kremlin, bursts a volume of flame! The surrounding region is lighted with the glare. Moscow is on fire in a thousand places. The equinoctial gales fan the flame. For five days there is the roar of universal combustion. Then it subsides. But Moscow is a blackened ruin. Napoleon tries in vain to open negotiations with the Czar; but Alexander and Kutusoff will not hear. The French are left to enjoy the ashes of a burnt-up Russian city.

Already winter was at hand. The snow was falling. The soldier of fortune had at last found his destiny. On the nineteenth of October, he left Moscow, and the retreat of the Grand Army began toward the Niemen. Had the retreat been unimpeded, that army might have made its way back to France with comparatively trifling losses. Indeed the fame of having burnt the old capital of the Czars might have satisfied the conqueror with his expedition. But no sooner did he recede than the Cossacks arose on every hand, and assailed the fugitives. The soldiers of the West and South dropped and perished by thousands along the frozen roads. The ice-darts in their sides were sharper than Russian bayonets. A hundred and twenty thousand men rolled back horridly across the hostile world. The bridges of the Beresina break down under the retreating army, and in the following spring, when the ice-gorges go down the river, 12,000 dead Frenchmen shall be washed up from the floods!

There is constant battle on flank and rear. All stragglers perish. The army dwindles away. It is almost destroyed. Ney brings up the rear guard, wasted to a handful. At the passage of the Niemen, soiled with dirt, blackened with smoke, without insignia, with only drawn sword, and facing backward toward the hated region, the "Bravest of the Brave" crosses the bridge. He is the last man to save himself from the indescribable horrors of the Campaign of Russia.

The remnants of the Grand Army dragged themselves along until they found refuge in Königsberg. Napoleon had gone ahead toward France. After Moscow he took a sledge, and sped away across the snow-covered wastes of Poland, on his solitary journey to Paris. There is a painting of this scene by the Slavic artist Kowalski, which represents the three black horses abreast, galloping with all speed with the Emperor's sledge across the cheerless world which he traversed. He came to his own capital unannounced. None knew of his arrival until the next day. At four o'clock in the morning of that day, some one entered his office at the Tuileries, and found him with his war-map of Europe spread out on the floor before him. He was planning another campaign! In doing so, he could hardly forget that the Grand Army of his glory was under the Russian snows!

WATERLOO.

One battle in this century rises in fame above all other conflicts of the ages. It is Waterloo.

It was on the night of the seventeenth of June, 1815, that the British and French armies, drawing near each other on the borders of Belgium, encamped, the one near the little village of Waterloo and the other at La Belle Alliance. They were close together. A modern fieldpiece could easily throw a shell from Napoleon's headquarters over La Haie Sainte to Mont St. Jean, and far beyond into the forest. During the afternoon of the seventeenth, and the greater part of the night, there was a heavy fall of rain. On the following morning the ground was muddy. The Emperor, viewing the situation, was unwilling to precipitate the battle until his artillery might deploy over a dry field.

As to the temper of the Emperor, that was good. Hugo says of him: "From the morning his impenetrability had been smiling, and on June 18, 1815, this profound soul, coated with granite, was radiant. The man who had been sombre at Austerlitz was gay at Waterloo. The greatest predestined men offer these contradictions; for our joys are a shadow and the supreme smile belongs to God.

"'Cæsar laughs, Pompey will weep,' the legionaries of the Fulminatrix legion used to say. On this occasion Pompey was not destined to weep, but it is certain that Cæsar laughed.

"At one o'clock in the morning, amid the rain and storm, he had explored with Bertrand the hills near Rossomme, and was pleased to see the long lines of English fires illumining the horizon from Frischemont to Braine l'Alleud. It seemed to him as if destiny had made an appointment with him on a fixed day and was punctual. He stopped his horse and remained for some time motionless, looking at the lightning and listening to the thunder. The fatalist was heard to cast into the night the mysterious words, '_We are agreed_.' Napoleon was mistaken; they no longer agreed."

The arena of Waterloo is an undulating plain. Strategically it has the shape of an immense harrow. The clevis is on the height called Mont St. Jean, where Wellington was posted with the British army. Behind that is the village of Waterloo. The right leg of the harrow terminates at the hamlet of La Belle Alliance. The left leg is the road from Brussels to Nivelles. The cross-bar intersects the right leg at La Haie Sainte. The right leg is the highway from Brussels to Charleroi. The intersection of the bar with the left leg is near the old stone chateau of Hougomont. The battle was fought on the line of the cross-bar and in the triangle between it and the clevis.

The conflict began just before noon. The armies engaged were of equal strength, numbering about 80,000 men on each side. Napoleon was superior in artillery, but Wellington's soldiers had seen longer service in the field. They were his veterans from the Peninsular War, perhaps the stubbornest fighters in Europe. Napoleon's first plan was to double back the allied left on the centre. This involved the capture of La Haie Sainte, and, as a strategic corollary, the taking of Hougomont. The latter place was first attacked. The field and wood were carried, but the chateau was held in the midst of horrid carnage by the British.

Early in the afternoon a Prussian division under Billow, about 10,000 strong, came on the field, and Napoleon had to withdraw a division from his centre to repel the oncoming Germans. For two or three hours, in the area between La Haie Sainte and Hougomont, the battle raged, the lines swaying with uncertain fortune back and forth. La Haie Sainte was taken and held by Ney. On the whole, the British lines receded. Wellington's attempt to retake La Haie Sainte ended in a repulse. Ney, on the counter charge, called on Napoleon for reinforcements, and the latter at that moment, changing his plan of battle, determined to make the principal charge on the British centre, saying, however, "It is an hour too soon." The support which he sent to Ney was not as heavy as it should have been, but the Marshal concluded that the crisis was at hand, and Napoleon sought to support him with Milhaud's cuirassiers and a division of the Middle Guard. Under this counter charge the British lines reeled and staggered, but still clung desperately to their position. They gave a little, and then hung fast and could be moved no farther. In another part of the field Durutte carried the allied position of Papelotte, and Lobau routed Bülow from Planchenois. At half-past four everything seemed to portend disaster to the allies and victory to the French.

If the tragedy of Waterloo had been left at that hour to work out its own results as between France and England it would appear that the latter must have gone to the wall; but destiny had prepared another end for the conflict. Waterloo was a point of concentration. Several tides had set thither, and some of them had already arrived and broken on the rocks. Other tides were rolling in. The British wave had been first, and this had now been rolled back by the tide of France. A German wave was coming, however, and another French billow, either or both of which might break at any moment.

On the morning of June 18, at the little town of Wavre, fifteen miles southeast of Brussels and about eight or ten miles from Waterloo, a battle had been fought between the French contingent under Marshal Grouchy and the Prussian division under Thielmann, who commanded the left wing of Marshal Blücher's army. That commander had a force of fully forty thousand men under him, and was on his way to join his forces with those of Wellington on the plateau of Mont St. Jean. Grouchy had at this time between thirty and forty thousand men, and was under orders from Napoleon to keep in touch with his right wing, watching the Prussians and joining himself to the main army according to the emergency.

These two divisions--Blücher's and Grouchy's--were _sliding along_ toward Waterloo, and on the afternoon of the eighteenth it became one of the great questions in the history of this century which would first arrive on the field. Napoleon believed that Grouchy was at hand. Wellington in his desperation breathed out the wish that either night or Blücher would come. The ambiguous result of the principal conflict made it more than ever desirable to both of the commanders to gain their reinforcements, each before the other. The event showed that the arrival of Bülow's contingent was really the signal for the oncoming of the whole Prussian army. The French Emperor, however, remained confident, and at half-after four he felt warranted in sending a preliminary despatch of victory to Paris.

Just at this juncture, however, an uproar was witnessed far to the right. The woods seemed to open, and the banners of Blücher shot up in the horizon. Grouchy was _not_ on his rear or flank! Napoleon saw at a glance that it was then or never. His sun of Austerlitz hung low in the west. The British centre must be broken, or the empire which he had builded with his genius must pass away like a phantom. He called out four battalions of the Middle and six of the Old Guard. In the last fifteen years that Guard had been thrown a hundred times on the enemies of France, and never yet repulsed. It deemed itself invincible.

At seven o'clock, just as the June sun was sinking to the horizon, the bugles sounded and the finest body of horsemen in Europe started to its doom on the squares of Wellington. The grim horsemen rode to their fate like heroes. The charge rolled on like an avalanche. It plunged into the sunken road of O'Hain. It seemed to roll over. It rose from the low grounds and broke on the British squares. They reeled under the shock, then reformed and stood fast. Around and around those immovable lines the soldiers of the Empire beat and beat in vain. It was the war of races at its climax. It was the final death-grip of the Gaul and the Teuton. The Old Guard recoiled. The wild cry of "_La Garde recule_" was heard above the roar of battle. The crisis of the Modern Era broke in blood and smoke, and the past was suddenly victorious. The Guard was broken into flying squadrons. Ruin came with the counter charge of the British. Ney, glorious in his despair, sought to stay the tide. For an hour longer he was a spectacle to gods and men. Five horses had been killed under him. He was on foot. He was hatless. He clutched the hilt of a broken sword. He was covered with dust and blood. But his grim face was set against the victorious enemy in the hopeless and heroic struggle to rally his shattered columns.

Meanwhile the Prussians rushed in from the right. Wellington's Guards rose and charged. Havoc came down with the darkness. A single regiment of the Old Guard was formed by Napoleon into a last square around which to rally the fugitives. The Emperor stood in the midst and declared his purpose to die with them. Marshal Soult forced him out of the melee, and the famous square, commanded by Cambronne--flinging his profane objurgation into the teeth of the English--perished with the wild cry of "_Vive l'Empereur!_"

Hugo says that the panic of the French admits of an explanation; that the disappearance of the great man was necessary for the advent of a great age; that in the battle of Waterloo there was more than a storm, that is, the bursting of a meteor. "At nightfall," he continues, "Bernard and Bertrand seized by the skirt of his coat in a field near Genappe a haggard, thoughtful, gloomy man, who, carried so far by the current of the rout, had just dismounted, passed the bridle over his arm, and was now with wandering eye returning alone to Waterloo. It was Napoleon, the immense somnambulist of a shattered dream!"

On the spot where French patriotism afterward planted the bronze lion to commemorate forever the extinction of the Old Guard of the French Empire, and of Napoleon the Great, the traveler from strange lands pauses, at the distance of eighty years from the horrible cataclysm, and reflects with wonder how within the memory of living men human nature could have been raised by the passion of battle to such sublime heroism as that displayed in these wheatfields and orchards where the Old Guard of France sank into oblivion, but rose to immortal fame.

SEBASTOPOL.

In the fall of 1852 Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, Prince President of the French Republic, about to become the French Empire, was invited to a banquet by the Chamber of Commerce in Bordeaux. He was on his triumphal tour through the South of France. At the banquet he spoke, saying: "I accept with eagerness the opportunity afforded me by the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce for thanking your great city for its cordial reception.... At present the nation surrounds me with its sympathies.... To promote the welfare of the country, it is not necessary to apply new systems, but the chief point above all is to produce confidence in the present and security for the future. For these reasons it seems France desires a return to the Empire. There is one objection to which I must reply. Certain minds seem to entertain a dread of war; certain persons say the Empire is only war. But I say _the Empire is peace_."

The last four words of this extract became the motto of the Second Empire. Everywhere the Prince President's saying was blown to the world. "The Empire is peace" was published in the newspapers, echoed on the stage, and preached from the pulpits.

But the Empire was _not_ peace. Just at this time Tennyson wrote his poem against France, as follows:

"There is a sound of thunder afar,
Storm in the South that darkens the day--
Storm of battle and thunder of war;
Well if it do not roll our way!
Form, form; riflemen, form!
Ready, be ready to meet the storm!"

In less than a year the storm broke. It broke in Eastern Europe. Of the personal forces that brought the breaking, the two principal were the Czar Nicholas and the Emperor Louis Napoleon. In 1853 the Czar demanded of the Sultan certain guarantees of the rights of the Greek Christians in the Turkish provinces. This was refused, and the Crimean War broke out on the Danube. The first power in Western Europe to support the Sultan was France, while England and Sardinia came hard after. There was an alliance of England and France in support of the Turkish cause. In the bottom of the difficulty lay this question: Whether Russia might now move forward, gain control of the Black Sea, overawe the Porte, force her way through the Sea of Marmora into the Mediterranean, and thus rectify the mistake of Peter the Great in building his capital on the Gulf of Finland. All this and much more was called _The Eastern Question_.

The coast of the Black Sea became the seat of the war that ensued. The Russians posted themselves strongly in the Crimea. That peninsula was commanded by the famous fortress of Sebastopol, situated at the southwestern extremity. On the twenty-fifth of September, 1854, the heights of Balaklava, lying south of the fortress, were seized by a British division under command of Lord Raglan. In this way the Russians were besieged; for the allied fleets had made their way into the Black Sea, and the land side of Sebastopol was commanded by Balaklava.

The siege that ensued lasted for nearly eleven months, and was one of the most memorable of modern times. On two occasions the Russians sallied forth and gave battle. The first conflict of this kind was on the night of the twenty-fifth of October, 1854, at Balaklava. The Russian attack on the English and Turks was at first successful, and four redoubts were carried by the assailants. At the crisis of the battle, however, the British Highlanders came into action, and the Russians were repulsed. The latter did not attempt to renew the attack, but fell back into their intrenchments. It was at this juncture that the famous incident occurred of the Charge of the Light Brigade, which was immortalized by Tennyson in his poem.

A few days after the battle of Balaklava occurred another hard conflict at the village of Inkerman, at the head of the harbor of Sebastopol. On the fifth of November, 1854, a strong force of Russians descended from the heights, and were met by the allies on the slope opposite the ruins of an ancient town, which occupied the site in the times of Strabo. A severe battle ensued, in which the English and French were victorious. Many other sorties were made from the fortress, but were designed rather to delay the siege than with any serious hope of breaking the investment. Sometimes the conflicts, though desultory, were severe, taking the proportions of regular battles. But nothing decisive was effected, until winter closed on the scene, and brought upon both the besiegers and the besieged the greatest hardships.

The sufferings of the allies, so far away from the source of supplies, were at times beyond description. It is doubtful whether any other siege of modern times has entailed such cruel privations upon a civilized soldiery. At times the combined havoc of hunger, disease and cold was seen in its worst work in the allied camps. The genius of Elizabeth Butler has seized upon the morning "Roll Call," in the Crimean snows of 1855, as the subject of a great painting in which to depict the excess of human suffering and devotion--the acme of English heroism in a foreign land.

Meanwhile, the allied lines around Sebastopol were considerably contracted, and several serious assaults were made on the Russian works. On the twenty-third of February the French in front of the bastion, called the Malakhoff, assaulted that stronghold with great valor, but were unsuccessful. On the eighteenth of the following June an attempt was made to carry the Redan, a strong redoubt at the other extreme of the Russian defences, but the assailants were again repulsed. Then, on the sixteenth of August, followed the bloody battle of Tehernaya, in which the Russians made a final effort to raise the siege. With a force of 50,000 infantry and 6000 cavalry they threw themselves on the allied position, but were beaten back with great slaughter.

In the meantime, the trenches of the allies had been drawn so near the Russian works that there was a fair prospect of carrying the bastions by another assault. A terrible bombardment was begun on the fifth, and continued to the eighth of September, when both the Redan and the Malakhoff were taken by storm. But the struggle was desperate, and the losses on both sides immense. The Russians blew up their fortifications on the south side of the harbor, and retreated across the bay. Nor did they afterward make any serious attempt to regain the stronghold which the allies had wrested from them. The victors for their part proceeded to destroy the docks, arsenals and shipyards of Sebastopol, and, as far as possible, to prevent the future occupancy of the place by the Russians as a seat of commerce and war.

The siege and capture of Sebastopol virtually ended the contest, though the war lagged during the greater part of the ensuing year. On the second of March, 1855, the Czar Nicholas died, and Alexander II. came to the throne, predisposed to peace. It was not, however, until the thirtieth of March, 1856, that the Treaty of Paris was concluded, in which Russia was obliged to yield to the allied powers, among which France held the first place.

The story of the Crimean War, and of the siege of Sebastopol in particular, has passed into history as one of the great events, of the century. The struggles at Balaklava, on the river Alma, at Inkerman, and the storming of the Redan and the Malakhoff became the subjects of great historical paintings, of poems and of songs, the echoes of which are heard to the present day.

SADOWA.

From a military point of view, nothing in this century has been more brilliantly successful than the campaign of Prussia into Bohemia against the Austrians, culminating on the sixth of July, 1866, in the great conflict called the battle of Sadowa or Königgrätz--the one or the other from the two towns near which it was fought. The historical painter, Wilhelm Camphausen, of the School of Düsseldorf, has left among the art trophies of the world a painting of this battle which is as true to the field and the combatants as anything which we recall from the sublime leaves of historical art.

The scene represented is the triumphant conclusion of the battle. The field is wide and stormy. In the centre, riding at full gallop with his staff, is King William. Already he is receiving the cheers and salutations of victory. By his side are seen the stalwart figures of Bismarck, Von Roon, Von Moltke, the Crown Prince, Prince Frederick Charles, and many others destined in the ensuing ten years to rise to the heights of military fame. To the right of the group of commanders charges the column of the Uhlans. The Austrians before are broken, and falling into rout. Far to the left and in the distance may be seen the half-obscured wrecks of battle.

This conflict proved to be the Waterloo of Austria. It was the climax of the Seven Weeks' War. Already the Germans, under the leadership of Prussia, were making haste toward empire. The activity and energy displayed by the Prussian Government at this juncture were prodigious. It was like the days of Frederick the Great come again. The trouble with Austria had arisen about the claims of the Duke of Augustenburg to the government of Holstein. Bismarck desired that that duchy should be disposed of in one manner, while Austria was determined on another.

The German States were drawn into this controversy, and the support of Italy was sought by each of the contestants. Prussia held out to Italy the temptation of recovering Venice, as the reward of her entrance into a Prusso-Italian alliance. This bait was sufficient. The smaller German powers, with the exception of Oldenburg, Mecklenburg, the Saxon States, and three Free Cities, took their stand with Austria, and the German Diet approved of the Austrian demand. It looked for the time as though Prussia, with the exception of the aid of Italy, was to be left naked to all the winds of hostility. The event showed, however, that that great power was now in her element. She declared the action of the German Diet to be not only a menace, but an act of overt hostilities. This was followed by an immediate declaration of war against a foe that had nearly three times her numerical strength.

On the fifteenth of June, 1866, King William called upon Saxony, Hanover, Hesse-Cassel and Nassau to remain neutral in the impending conflict, and gave them _twelve hours_ in which to decide! Receiving no answer, he ordered the Prussians out of Holstein to seize Hanover. This work was accomplished in two days. In another two days Hesse-Cassel was occupied by an army from the Rhine, while at the same time a third division of the Prussian forces was thrown into Dresden and Leipsic. On the twenty-seventh of the month, a battle was fought with the Hanoverians, in which the latter were at first successful, but were soon overpowered and compelled to surrender. George V., King of Hanover, fled for refuge to Vienna.

Within two weeks the field in the South was cleared, and the Prussian army was turned upon Austria. King William's forces numbered 260,000 men. They were commanded by the Crown Prince, Prince Frederick Charles, Von Moltke, Von Roon and General Bittenfeld. The King in person and Bismarck were present with the advance. The impact was more than Austria could stand. On the twenty-seventh and twenty-ninth of June, Frederick Charles defeated the Austrian advance in four indecisive engagements. Count Clam-Gallas, the Austrian general, was obliged to fall back on the main body for support.

In these same days the Crown Prince gained several preliminary successes over the principal Austrian army under Benedek. Then, on the river Bistritz, on the sixth of July, came the great battle of Sadowa. The opposing commanders in the beginning of the engagement were Frederick Charles and Benedek. The battle began at eight in the morning, and raged with the utmost fury until two in the afternoon. Thus far the Prussians had gained but little advantage; but at that hour the powerful division of the Crown Prince, which, like that of Blücher at Waterloo, had been delayed by recent rains, appeared on the Austrian right. The wing of Benedek's army was soon turned. Bittenfeld then broke the left, and under a general advance of the Prussian lines the Austrian centre gave way in confusion. The field was quickly swept. The overthrow of the Austrian army became a ruinous rout, and the out-flashing sun of evening looked upon a demoralized and flying host, scattering in all directions before the victorious charges of the Prussian cavalry.

The overwhelming victory of the Prussians was not without its rational causes. Indeed the antecedents of victory may always be found if all the facts of battle are known and analyzed. It remained for the battle of Sadowa to demonstrate practically the superiority of the needle-gun. This arm had been adopted by the Prussian government and was now for the first time on a great scale brought to the crucial test. Hitherto the old plan of muzzle-loading had been followed by all the nations of Europe and America. In our country the Civil War had come almost to its climax before breech-loading was generally introduced. Austria had continued to use the old muzzle-loading muskets. It seems surprising that nations, of whom intelligence and self-interest may well be predicated, should continue in such a matter as war to employ inefficient weaponry long after a superior arm has been invented.

If one might have looked into the gunshop of M. Pauli at Paris in the year 1814, he might have seen a gunsmith, twenty-seven years of age, plying his trade under the patronage of Napoleon the Great. That gunsmith was Johann Nicholas Von. Dreyse, of Sömmerda, who presently became an inventor as well as a smith, and in 1824, having returned to his own country, he took a patent for a new percussion method in musketry. Three years afterward he invented a needle-gun, retaining the muzzle-loading method. He continued his experimentation until 1836, when he made and patented the first breech-loading needle-gun complete. This was done under the patronage of the Prussian government. It was not until 1841, however, that this arm began to be supplied for Prussian troops, and it was twenty-five years after that date before the general adoption of this arm contributed to the rout of the Austrians at Sadowa.

The Prussians being armed with needle-guns, were enabled to get the double advantage of rapid firing by loading in a chamber at the breech of the piece, and the equally great advantage of a long range and most deadly missile; for in the cartridge of this gun the needle runs through the charge, firing it first at the front of the chamber, thus securing the whole force of the explosive, which burns backward in the enclosed space and expends itself entirely on the projectile. Those breech-loading pieces which fire the cartridge by percussion against its back end have the disadvantage of the charge burning forward, and thus wasting itself partly in the air after the bullet has left the muzzle. This difficulty, however, has been overcome in recent gunnery, and the needle-gun such as it was in the hands of King William's soldiers at Sadowa, must now be regarded as a clumsy and obsolete weapon.

The battle of Sadowa was to Francis Joseph the handwriting on the wall; but he made vain exertions to save his tottering fabric. Now it was that the shadow of a great hand was seen behind the conflict. It was the hand of Bismarck. His scheme was the unification of Germany. The NORTH GERMAN UNION was formed on the basis of Protestantism and the unity of the German race. Already the Empire might be seen in the distance.

CAPTURE OF MEXICO.

Whatever may be said of the justice of our war with Mexico, no criticism can be offered as to the brilliancy of the result. The campaign of General Scott against the ancient capital of the Aztecs, was almost spectacular; certainly it was heroic.

On the ninth of March, 1847, the General, then nearly sixty-one years of age, arrived at Vera Cruz, with an army of 12,000 men. That city was taken in about a week, and the way was opened from the coast to the capital. The advance began on the eighth of April, and ten days afterward the rocky pass of Cerro Gordo was carried by assault. Santa Anna barely escaped with his life, leaving behind 3000 prisoners, his chest of private papers, and his _wooden leg!_

On the twenty-second of the same month, the strong castle of Perote, crowning a peak of the Cordilleras, was taken without resistance. Then the sacred city of Puebla was captured. On the seventh of August, Scott, with his reduced forces, began his march over the crest of the mountains against the city of Mexico. The American army, sweeping over the heights, looked down on the valley. Never before had a soldiery in a foreign land beheld a grander scene Clear to the horizon stretched a living landscape of green fields, villages, and lakes--a picture too beautiful to be marred with the dreadful enginery of war.

The American army advanced by the way of Ayotla. The route was the great national road from Vera Cruz to Mexico. The last fifteen miles of the way was occupied with fortifications, both natural and artificial, and it seemed impossible to advance directly to the gates of the city. The army was accordingly brought around Lake Chalco, and thence westward to San Augustine. This place is ten miles from the capital. The approach now lay along causeways, across marshes and the beds of bygone lakes. At the further end of each causeway, the Mexicans had built massive gates. There were almost inaccessible positions at Contreras, San Antonio and Molino del Rey. Further on toward the city lay the powerful bulwarks of Churubusco and Chapultepec. The latter was of great strength, and seemed impregnable. These various outposts were held by Santa Anna with a force of fully thirty thousand Mexicans.

The first assaults of the Americans were made on the nineteenth of August, by Generals Pillow and Twiggs. The line of communications between Contreras and Santa Anna's army was cut, and in the darkness of the following night an assault was made by General Persifer F. Smith, who about sunrise carried the place and drove the garrison pell-mell. This was the _first_ victory of the memorable twentieth of August.

A few hours later, General Worth compelled the evacuation of San Antonio. This was the _second_ victory. About the same time, General Pillow advanced on Churubusco, and carried one of the heights. The position was taken by storm, and the enemy scattered like chaff. This was the _third_ triumph. The division of General Twiggs added a _fourth_ victory by storming and holding another height of Churubusco, while the _fifth_ and last was achieved by General Shields and Pierce, who drove back an army of reinforcements under Santa Anna. The Mexicans were thus forced back into the fortifications of Chapultepec.

On the following morning, the alarm and treachery of the Mexican authorities were both strongly exhibited. A deputation came out to negotiate; but the intent was merely to gain time for strengthening the defences. The terms proposed by the Mexicans were preposterous when viewed in the light of the situation. General Scott, who did not consider his army vanquished, rejected the proposals with scorn. He, however, rested his men until the seventh of September before renewing hostilities. On the morning of the eighth, General Worth was thrown forward to take Molino del Rey and Casa de Mata, which were the western defences of Chapultepec. These places were defended by about fourteen thousand Mexicans; but the Americans, after losing a fourth of their number in the desperate onset, were again victorious. The batteries were now turned on Chapultepec itself, and on the thirteenth of September that frowning citadel was carried by storm. This exploit opened an avenue into the city. Through the San Cosine and Belen gates the conquering army swept resistlessly, and at nightfall the soldiers of the Union were in the suburbs of Mexico.

During the night, Santa Anna and the officers of the Government fled from the city, but not until they had turned loose from the prisons 2000 convicts, to fire upon the American army. On the following morning, before day-dawn, a deputation came forth from the city to beg for mercy. This time the messengers were in earnest; but General Scott, wearied with trifling, turned them away with disgust. "_Forward!_" was the order that rang along the American lines at sunrise. The war-worn regiments swept into the beautiful streets of the famous city, and at seven o'clock the flag of the United States floated over the halls of the Montezumas. It was the triumphant ending of one of the most brilliant and striking campaigns of modern history.

The American army, as compared with the hosts of Mexico, had been but a handful. The small force which had left Vera Cruz on the march to the capital had lost considerably by battle and disease. Many detachments had been posted _en route_ to hold the line of communications, and for garrison duty in places taken from the enemy. The army had thus dwindled until, after the battles of Churubusco and Chapultepec, _fewer than six thousand men_ were left to enter and hold the capital.

The invasion had been remarkable in all its particulars. The obstacles which had to be overcome seemed insurmountable. There were walled cities to be taken, fortified mountain passes to be carried by storm, and frowning castles with cannon on the battlements to be assaulted by regiments whose valor and impetuosity were their only protection and warrant of victory. Yet the campaign was never seriously impeded. No foot of ground once taken from the Mexicans was yielded by false tactics or lost by battle.

The army which accomplished this marvel, penetrating a far-distant and densely peopled country, held by a proud race, claiming to be the descendants of Cortes and the Spanish heroes of the sixteenth century, and denouncing at the outset the American soldiers as "barbarians of the North," was, in large part, an army of volunteers--a citizen soldiery--which had risen from the States of the Union and marched to the Mexican border under the Union flag.

VICKSBURG.

The story goes that on a certain occasion some friends of General Grant, anxious to make him talk about himself--something he would hardly ever do--said: "General, at what time in your military career did you perceive that you were the coming man--that you were to have the responsibility and fame of the command-in-chief and end the war?" For little while the General smoked on, and then said, "_After Vicksburg!_"

Certain it is that the star of Grant, long obscured and struggling through storm and darkness, never emerged into clear light, rising in the ascendant, until after the capture of the stronghold of the Confederates on the Mississippi. After that it rose, and rose to the zenith.

The position of Vicksburg is hard to understand. The river at this place makes a bend to the north and then turns south again, leaving a delta, or peninsula, on the Louisiana side. Vicksburg occupies a kind of shoulder on the Mississippi side. The site is commanding. The river flows by the bluffs, as if to acknowledge its subjection to them. From the beginning of the war the Confederate authorities recognized the vast importance of holding this key to the great inland artery, and the Federal Government saw the necessity of clutching it from the enemy.