402 



A HISTORY OF CAVALRY. 



[period IV. 



resources of its own of providing itself with subsistence 

 and forage, it is certain to be destroyed. Alexander the 

 Great wisely avoided such a danger, and contenting 

 himself with a barren victory over the Scythians on the 

 banks of the Oxus, turned aside from their inhospitable 

 country. Darius, with all the forces of Persia, pene- 

 trated into it and perished. The legions of Marc Antony 

 and Crassus sank under the incessant attack of the 

 Parthian horse ; the genius of Julian proved inadequate to 

 the encounter ; the heroism of Richard Coeur de Lion was 

 shattered against the innumerable squadrons of Saladin. 

 The very magnitude of the carriages with which an 

 European army invades an Asiatic territory proves the 

 immediate cause of its ruin by augmenting its encum- 

 brances and accelerating the period when, from being 

 surrounded by the light horse of the enemy, it must 

 perish from want. The enterprise of Napoleon against 

 Russia thus proved abortive from the same cause which, 

 in every age, had defeated the attempts of refined nations 

 to penetrate the Eastern wilds ; and it is a striking ^ roof 

 of the lasting influence of general causes on the greatest 

 of human undertakings that the overthrow of the 

 mightiest armament which the power of civilised man 

 ever hurled against the forces of the East was in reality 

 owing to the same causes which, in every age, have given 

 victory to the arms of the shepherd kings."^ 



This campaign caused the introduction of partisan 

 warfare. Colonel Davidoff", who wrote a treatise on the 

 subject, recommendei' and carried out this system of using 

 light troons, and in the course of the retreat inflicted 

 many losses upon the French by attacking unsupported 

 points along their line of communications. Several de- 

 tached parties of French were captured by these partisans. 

 The advanced guard of General Baraguay d'Hilliers, 

 under Augereau, were made prisoners at Liakhowo to the 

 number of 2,000 by Count Orloff" Denizotf aided by 

 Davidoff", Seslawin, and Figner." A depot of 1,300 Frei. '• 

 at Klemenstiewo was also surprised and the whole ^ufce 

 captured by Colonel Bistrom, at the head of a detached 

 * Alison, iii. 599. ^ Boutourlin, ii. 201. 



