THE BRITISH ARMY ON THE CONTINENT OP EUROPE. 
153 
the principal failures of tlie British in all these three hundred years. 
These seem to be a source of infinite satisfaction to a certain class of 
military writers and the Walcheren expedition in 1809 completes the 
sum of their happiness. These little Englanders trot out anything 
that may tend to disparage their race and they forget the glories 
indicated in this lecture. 
Gentlemen, a distinguished statesman recently said that it was 
absurd to say that the Peninsular war produced any particular effect 
on the fortunes of: Napoleon. Now that was a most extraordinary 
statement by this marvellous statesman. Napoleon himself ought to 
be some judge of his own fortunes, and at St. Helena Napoleon said 
that it was the Spanish ulcer which destroyed him. But who kept the 
Spanish ulcer troublesome, who exasperated it, who tickled it up and 
who irritated it?-—-The British army. The Spanish i*egular army was 
most insufficient. The Spanish guerillas did very nearly as much harm 
to their country then as they did to the French, at anyrate in some parts 
of the theatre of operations and their proceedings gave an atrocious 
tone to the conflict. But the British never stopped till it had defeated 
every French army in succession. But surely a detaining force., even a 
rhetorician might know, can play as important a part in a war as the 
main force. I think General Hamley says “ the skilful use of a detaining 
force is the principal weapon in the military armoury.” 
When Napoleon had been driven back from the Beresina to the Oder 
and the Elbe he was very short of men indeed in 1813. I have 
some figures to prove that that was so. But the British kept shut up 
in the Peninsula in the year 1813, 191,000 men, and if these men Lad 
been on the Elbe during the campaign of Dresden, would the Russians, 
Austrians and Prussians have been able to cross the Rhine in the be¬ 
ginning of 1814 ?—They would not. But more than that, Wellington, 
in the south of France, detained 90,000 men under Soult and Suchet 
in 1814. If Napoleon was able to carry on the campaign from February 
till March with 100,000 men, what would he have been able to do with 
190,000 men, and he would have had those but for Wellington’s army ? 
Therefore, if the British did nothing but to act as a skilful, detaining 
force in the Peninsula, they conduced very much indeed to the fall of 
Napoleon and to the liberation of Europe from his tyranny. 
lam sure it must be very trying to you to listen so patiently to my 
long lecture, and as time is getting short and there are plenty of 
officers here, I will leave them to dwell upon the exploits of the 
artillery. 
I am dealing with the military forces of the Crown and the energy 
of the nation from ■which they sprang, and the decision of the politicians 
who, with all their faults, directed them so well for so many years. I 
say 1 could pick out from those battle-fields (marked in red on those 
maps on the wall) examples of every form of military excellence and 
go on for hours describing them, shewing the strategic skill and the 
tactical ability that have always been so often displayed. I say the 
strategy of Marlborough was just as good as that of any Prussian who 
ever lived. I say the tactics of the British in the Peninsula were at 
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