Sayfadaki görseller
PDF
ePub

that this is but a tenth of the total amount consumed in this country, we obtain an average of six millions of inchoate fowls sacrificed annually in this new worship of the sun in the United Kingdom alone! When to this is added the far larger consumption of Europe and America, which we do not attempt to put in figures, the imagination is startled by the enormous total inevitably presented for its realization. In the absence of exact data, we hesitate to estimate the consumption of the precious metals, the mountains of silver and monuments of gold, which follow as matters of necessity. A calculation based on facts enables us to state, however, that for every twenty thousand eggs employed, nearly one hundredweight of nitrate of silver is consumed. We arrive thus at an estimate of 300 hundredweight of nitrate of silver annually used in this country alone in the production of photographs. To descend to individual facts more easily grasped, we learn that the consumption of materials in the photographs of the International Exhibition of 1862, produced by Mr. England for the London Stereoscopic Company, amounted to 2,400 ounces of nitrate of silver, nearly 54 ounces of terchloride of gold, 200 gallons of albumen, amounting to the whites of 32,000 eggs, and 70 reams of paper; the issue of pictures approaching to nearly a million, the number of stereoscopic prints amounting to nearly 800,000 copies. We have already glanced at the statistics of the card portraiture of public men. Some estimate may easily be formed of the industries stimulated or created by the circulation of these and other photographs in cases, frames, fittings, and apparatus of various kinds. house alone, and by no means the largest among manufacturers, has issued little short of a million of albums for the card pictures. Stereoscopic pictures have had a circulation only less than that of the portrait cards, and these as certainly involve stereoscopes as cards involve albums. Accurate figures as the exact extent of the various branches of manufacture, arising solely out of photography, cannot, of course, be obtained; but the facts already named are sufficiently suggestive.

One

Our review of photography as art, science, and commerce, has already extended beyond the limits we had prescribed for it, notwithstanding that we have only stated the leading facts of its history and applications with the utmost brevity compatible with completeness. Whether its future progress will bear any relation to that which has characterized the first quarter of a century of its existence we do not conjecture; but it is clear that this youngest born of the arts is destined to play an important part in the progress of that civilization which will prevail in the fulness of time.

[blocks in formation]

ART. III. Notes on the Battle of Waterloo. By the late Sir JAMES S. KENNEDY, K.C.B. London: Murray 1865.

THE author of this small but valuable work says truly, that the campaign of Waterloo will be always a matter of interesting enquiry. The settlement of Europe which resulted from it, has indeed gradually yielded to time; Imperial France, Emancipated Italy, Constitutional Belgium, the Crimean war, a United Germany, and a vast shifting of continental alliances, show that its effects have not been permanent; but it closed a long era of revolutions, and set lasting bounds to a colossal despotism. Moreover, in a military point of view, it suggests perhaps more important problems than any contest recorded in history; it confronted, and placed in terrible antagonism the greatest military reputations which modern times, at least, have beheld; and, having opened with fair prospects to the mighty commander who was the assailant, it terminated in the space of four days in his utter ruin and that of his army. A drama, at once so pregnant with interest to the student of the art of war, so grand in its scenes, and so tragic in its issues, will always arrest the attention of our race; and probably to the latest generation, mankind will dwell on the daring spring which Napoleon made upon Blucher and Wellington, on the movements that led to Ligny and Quatre Bras, on the mortal struggle of the 18th of June, on the brilliant march that decided that day, and on the train of mistakes and false purposes that, notwithstanding the heroism of the French, produced the final and complete catastrophe. Our remotest descendants will be attracted to the plains of Belgium in 1915, with the same sympathy which attracts us to the battle-fields of Zama and Pharsalia.

In the descriptions given of this great conflict, the vanquished nation, in our judgment, has certainly gained a victory over its conqueror. General Kennedy indeed, who like a true soldier, has little respect for any accounts of the campaign, except those of military eye-witnesses, says justly that the narrative of Napoleon, though marked with the stamp of his brilliant genius, overflows with falsehood and misstatement, and we much prefer the report of the Duke, though that is necessarily meagre and imperfect. But we cannot exclude from our consideration those historians who, though not spectators, have studied, and elucidated the subject; and, taking the list, the French, we think, have greatly eclipsed their English competitors. Colonel Charras's book, though very one-sided, and composed obviously to decry Napoleon, is a very able and elaborate work; and even the

gorgeous romance of Thiers, though full of Bonapartist flattery and boasting, is, in its way, a remarkable performance. M. Quinet, too, has written some papers of sterling value upon the campaign, and Jomini's tract, if somewhat superficial, deserves certainly a reader's attention. On the other hand, the English accounts, are, almost without exception, deficient in some main requisite of a military narrative. Sir Archibald Alison is tawdry and confused, and does not convey a vivid impression; the description of Siborne, though rich in details, and wonderfully accurate in its particular facts, is without order and general views; and the useful volume of Mr. Hooper, the best English sketch we possess, is wanting in striking effect and animation.

In this state of comparative dearth we turned eagerly to General Kennedy's volume to ascertain if it satisfied our conception of a good English account of Waterloo. We have been much pleased in some respects, and not a little disappointed in others. General Kennedy's description of that part of the battle of the 18th of June, which he witnessed himself, is in a very high degree important, and differs from every other we have read; his observations on the manœuvres of the day deserve study, and are singularly clear, and his criticism on some of the phases of the campaign are often ingenious, acute, and masterly. But his "Notes" unfortunately do not comprehend a great deal of the earlier operations, especially those of the 16th of June, strategically of the very highest interest; and his method and style, though logical and simple, are not those of a real historian who can place before us events like a drama. His tract, therefore, is a mere fragment, an essay, useful, but incomplete; and his narrative is a military anatomy rather than a series of vigorous military pictures. We think, too, that he has not studied the evidence existing on the subject fully; so much so, that we venture to doubt, whether, though he takes the allies to task for their dispositions at the outset of the campaign, he has ever read the celebrated defence of Wellington on this cardinal point, in his formal reply to General Clausewitz. On the whole, this volume, though of much value as a contribution to Waterloo literature, is not all that the reader wants; and, like several other works of the kind, it makes us regret that the stirring theme was not undertaken by Sir William Napier, whose thorough appreciation of the science of war, just estimate both of Napoleon and Wellington, and fine genius for military painting marked him out as the fitting historian of the contest. Sir William, however, as is well known, declined always to enter on the subject, believing, what we very much doubt, that the truth, respecting one crisis of the campaign, the movements of

[blocks in formation]

Grouchy on the 17th and 18th of June, remained undiscovered for this generation.

The volume commences with a brief account of the life and services of General Kennedy. These qualified him for the task of describing and criticising events of military history; and we may add, what the author omits, that they did not prevent the assiduous care which he gave to letters from an early age, and which is visible in every line of his compositions.

General Kennedy was trained by Sir John Moore in that celebrated school for practical soldiers, which was formed under that accomplished general when our shores were menaced in 1805 by invasion. He was present at the siege of Copenhagen in 1807, and witnessed the long retreat on Corunna, that dark prelude to our Peninsular triumphs. In 1809 he distinguished himself as aide-de-camp to the gallant Craufurd, and in the next year served in the campaign which, beginning on the heights of Busaco, and closing at Fuentes D'Onoro, repelled Massena from Torres Vedras and perceptibly lowered the prestige of Napoleon. His heroism at the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo is commemorated by Napier in immortal language; and he attracted notice during the campaign of 1812, in the operations that led to the battle of Salamanca. After the retreat from Burgos his health broke down, and indeed never completely recovered; and he did not take part in the series of victories which marked the progress of Wellington from Portugal into the heart of France at the close of the contest. In 1815 he returned again to active service, and was engaged on the 17th and 18th of June in most critical and important duties as Deputy-Assistant Quarter-Master-General attached to Alten's, the 3rd division. His senior officer being wounded at Quatre Bras, it devolved on him to reconnoitre the line of the retreat of that division on Waterloo, an operation of the greatest nicety, as it lay exposed to the French at Ligny. On the 18th, General Alten selected him to direct the formation of the division into squares to resist the great attacks of cavalry against the centre of the British line, a duty he performed in a masterly manner, and by a method devised by himself; and when, after the capture of La Haye Sainte, the British army was seriously threatened, he happened to be the officer to report the untoward circumstance to the Duke, and to receive his orders upon the subject. He served with distinction in the Army of Occupation, and conducted the delicate diplomatic operation of providing for the temporary possession of Calais, a point which had been omitted in the treaties. During the long peace he held some commands of a responsible and important kind; and, undoubtedly,

but for his failing health, would have filled posts of the highest eminence. The leisure hours withdrawn from his profession he devoted to the cultivation of letters, and as is well known, he gradually became an accomplished writer on military subjects. His death occurred a short time ago, and these "Notes," we believe, were his last work.

We think it better, in examining this volume, to invert the method of General Kennedy, and to begin with his general views of the campaign, before noticing the particular details he gives us on the battle of Waterloo. There is much truth in his view as a whole that Napoleon's general conception of the campaign, and even his general calculations in his movements, were superior to those of the Duke of Wellington, but that Wellington showed more vigour in execution, and more personal ability and energy. The manner in which the French emperor concentrated his forces for the attack on Belgium, and carried them rapidly across the frontier to the very point where the allied armies were weakest as regards the power of uniting, was undoubtedly one of his grandest manœuvres. The strategy which directed the attack on Ligny, and a flank march of Ney from Quatre Bras was quite in Napoleon's finest style; and had the latter movement succeeded, Ligny would have terminated in a second Jena. Again, the plan of attack at Waterloo, on the supposition of Blucher's absence, was, by the admission of all, a masterpiece; and General Kennedy truly remarks, that its main strength was levelled against the weakest point in the whole British lines, as by a kind of intuitive genius. On the other hand, some of the operations of the French army were very ill conducted, and though, as we shall endeavour to show, Napoleon was not so blameable for this, as General Kennedy thinks he was, and we do not entirely concur with our author in his estimate of the operations themselves, it is certain, we think, that the French Emperor showed less attention to details of importance, and far less activity than his antagonist. It is almost inconceivable, we think, regard being had to Napoleon's antecedents, that he did not, at the crisis of the 16th, interpose peremptorily to bring up D'Erlon, and that, after the battle of Ligny, he retired to his head-quarters at Fleurus, and did not satisfy himself as to the retreat of the Prussians, the main cause of his subsequent disaster. Again, whatever opinion may be formed as to his power of reaching Wellington on the 17th, he certainly was strangely remiss and inattentive in the whole course of his communications with Grouchy; and even his pursuit of Wellington on Waterloo was not marked by his ordi

« ÖncekiDevam »