3HK BRITISH ARMY OR TEE CC NT] IT ENT OF EUROPE. 
155 
first order; the invasion of Russia was a horrible and appalling mis¬ 
take, more costly in men than all our mistakes since the battle of 
Castillon. “ Show me a general,” said the immortal Corsican, “who 
never made a mistake and I will say ho never made war.” 1 con less 
I am weary to death of adulation and imitation of foreigners and 
disparagement of ourselves. 
In 1805 the danger of invasion was over; and, secure behind the 
inviolate sea, Britons were not only able to strike hard on every ocean 
against Napoleon's prohibitive commercial continental policy, but to 
send out expeditions to every part of the world : India, the Dutch 
possessions, Mauritius, Egypt, Buenos Ayres, the United States. Some 
of these were failures, but the expedition from Sicily to Calabria proved 
at Maida, 1806, that British officers and men could cope with French 
veterans. Our expedition to Copenhagen, 1807, w r as also a success, 
and in 1808 wo began in the Peninsula a career of success which 
ultimately brought our troops, first of all the allies, across the French 
frontier to the ruin of our mighty antagonist. 
I maintain that the strategy and tactics of Wellington in the cam¬ 
paign of 1815 were just as good as the strategy and tactics of Napoleon, 
Grouchy, D'Erlon or Blucher in the same campaign. Some say that 
after all the British did not win the battle of Waterloo; that tlioy had 
not 30,000 men there. Well, gentlemen, enough is as good as a 
feast; the injury they did Napoleon sufficed; he did not want any 
more Britons there; somehow or another, after all his efforts from 1798 
till 1815, the only part of the British empire that he ever invaded was 
St. Helena and that was against his will. Others say that the Prussians 
won the battle of Waterloo, though they admit that the Prussians did 
not win either Ligny or Quatro Bras. Well, they certainly had not 
won the battle at 5 o'clock, for it was not till that hour that they came 
into the arena to any very considerable extent. I know that about 
1 o'clock they had to be watched. The truth is, gentlemen, that your 
ancestors, the invincible British infantry and gunners and cavalry, re¬ 
pulsed the chosen troops of the Emperor, foiled him and that the 
Prussians completed his ruin. Chesney proves all this beyond doubt. 
What does General Foy say ? Surely there could bo no more com¬ 
petent or less prejudiced authority—he says in words that should be 
inscribed in golden letters on the walls of every British school from 
the Boards school of the Stratford lo Bow of London to Eton and 
Harrow. I read it in English as my French, is after the “school” of 
the former place : “ The cavalry had been cut to pieces ; the fro of the 
artillery was extinguished ; general officers and staff galloped from 
one square to the other, uncertain of obtaining shelter; carriages, 
wounded men, reserve parks, auxiliary troops, fled in confusion to 
Brussels ; death was before them and in their ranks. In this terrible 
condition the bullets of the Imperial Guard and tho cavalry of victorious 
France failed to shake the immovable British infantry. One would 
have supposed that they had taken root in the earth if the battalions 
had not, as the sun set, spread themselves out, and given to Wellington 
as his reward, for maintaining such an attitude, the most decisive 
