CHAP. XXV.] CAVALRY UNDER NAPOLEON. 



411 



and the strength of his enemies in that arm, fully 

 expected that it would be used vigorously against him, 



up 



moving 



and made his preparations to meet it by ^v,,.^^ „^, 

 his infantry in large squares, supported by artiUery, 

 while he retained his cavalry in rear in reserve. The 

 allied horse not being used, however. Napoleon won a 

 victory. 



After Leipzig the allied cavalry were in enormous 

 numbers, amounting altogether to about 60,000, and 

 should have eflFected greater results than they did in 

 following up the retreat of Napoleon's beaten army. 

 Tchernichetf, Orloff Denizoff, and the Cossacks harassed 

 the French troops and cut ofi' the stragglers ; but there 

 was no such pursuit as that of Murat after Jena. 



Twenty squadrons of Prussian cavaliy, under Colonel 

 Dolfs, won a decisive success over General Maison's 

 division of French troops on the 26th May, 1813, near 

 Hanau. He attacked Maison, who had his men formed 

 in eight squares, aided by eighteen guns, and in fifteen 

 minutes had thoroughly defeated him, killing, wounding, 

 or capturing the whole force with the exception of a 

 small body of cavalry that escaped.' 



The Prussian cavalry pursued the French army very 

 vigorously after Waterloo, although 1,500 of them under 

 Colonel Sohr, advancing incautiously, were surprised and 

 captured at Rocquencourt, near Versailles, on the 1st 

 July, 1815, in the last combat of the long and hardly 

 contested wars of Napoleon. '^ 



The system of tactics among the European cavalry 

 during this epoch was almost the same in all countries, 

 the Cossacks alone being somewhat peculiar in their 

 irregular method of fighting. 



The English cavalry did well in the war in Spain, and 

 maintained there the high reputation they had acquired 

 in the campaigns in the Netherlands in 1793-94. At 

 the battle of Salamanca the fate of the day was mainly 

 decided by the gallant charge of the British cavalry of 

 Le Marchant and Anson led by Sir Stapleton Cotton. 

 The effect was instantaneous; in a few minutes the 



Nolan, 65. 



Humbert, 237. 



