PERSONAL INFLUENCK OF GREAT COMMANDERS IN THE PAST. 67 



involved in a war affect the intellectual and moral natures of 

 men to a far more profound degree than any other form of 

 human activity, and the results of a victorious campaign are so 

 far-reaching, not only in the triumphs or the depression caused, 

 but in the regrouping of nations resulting, that they cannot 

 fail to effect a far greater result in the minds of the nations 

 concerned than the , success or otherwise of civil experience, 

 however admirable and useful that may be. Thus it is that the 

 moral character, for good or evil, of the conqueror or victorious 

 leader, has a profound influence. This may be exerted for evil 

 to a very marked extent. The victories of Frederick, for 

 instance, have exalted him to the position of a great national 

 hero. That he was a great soldier, one of the greatest in history, 

 no one can deny. But the foundation of his success, in the 

 seizure of Silesia, against every principle of international obliga- 

 tion, sanctity of treaty, and private gratitude, was the embodi- 

 ment of the detestable principle that " might is right," and 

 on that foundation not only his subsequent career was built, 

 but also the maUgnant edifice which arose in the wars of the 

 later nineteenth century under Bismarck, and finally found its 

 disastrous culmination in the terrible conflict of our own day, 

 misleading in its dire consequences an entire nation and luring 

 them to their destruction, amid the execrations of the entire 

 world. 



''Not all the perfumes of Arabia," nor the eulogies of Carlyle, 

 can sweeten the character of the great leader who thus debased 

 the morahty of his nation, and though history has done full 

 justice to his military leadership, it must necessarily record the 

 baseness of his methods. 



Where the political as well as the military leadership rests in 

 the same man, it is obvious that his influence, for good or evil, 

 must exercise a more marked effect than in cases where the 

 political power is in the hands of another. Thus to take the 

 case of two great contemporaries, Cromwell and Turenne, both 

 of whom were able and successful generals, the work done by 

 the former had far greater effect on the Enghsh nation, not only 

 at the time, but in subsequent years, than the work of Turenne 

 had, and has had, in France. Yet of the two, Turenne was 

 probably the greater soldier, possessed of somewhat similar 

 noble quahties of character that were conspicuous in the great 

 Enghshman, though undoubtedly not to the same degree. 



In comparing, therefore, the moral influence exerted by great 



