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THE STUDY OF MILITARY HISTORY. 
William very truly says :—" It is a long step from knowledge to doing 
but it is still greater one from not knowing to doing.” 
“ The best lessons for the future we draw from our own experience; 
but, as that must always be limited, we must make use of the experi¬ 
ence of others by studying military history. Besides which, another 
means of furthering our education is the working out of such, supposed 
warlike situations as our problems present.” 
And Moltke's opinion is but a reflection of those which have come 
down to us from Napoleon and many another brilliant genius. Napoleon, 
who assuredly was a heaven-born leader if ever man was so, who startled 
the whole world by the sudden brilliancy of his military career, advised 
every one w T ho would imitate him, “ to read and read again the campaigns 
of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus Adolphus, Turenne, Eugene 
and Frederick.” 
That he himself studied them closely is well known, but he did not 
despise the experiences either of far smaller men. No effort of the 
great Emperor's genius is more admired than his first Italian cam¬ 
paign of 1796. None bears more strongly tlie impress of a master 
mind and none is more worthy of probably the greatest military intel¬ 
lect the world has ever seen. 
Yet that was his first campaign. It is the work of a soldier without 
previous experience in the command of armies, of a young man who had 
never seen large bodies of troops opposed to one another in the field at all, 
had never been at manoeuvres such as are held for instruction now-a-days, 
and who must have depended for knowledge on books and the experi¬ 
ence of others alone. That a man with such antecedents was able to 
beat experienced generals at their own game and was able, not only 
to do well in his first attempt, but to surpass the efforts of almost any 
other general is surely an eloquent argument in favour of reading 
military history, and there is ample evidence that in this particular 
instance Napoleon owed something to the study of past campaigns. 
For in 1745 there had been also a campaign in the same territory 
conducted by a Marshal Maillebois, whose name is unknown to most 
people, and who is never quoted as a master mind in war. And there 
is unimpeachable evidence that Bonaparte knew of a very detailed and 
lucid history of the campaigns of this Marshal which appeared in 1775, 
and that when he went to take command in Italy he applied to the Minister 
of War at Paris that he should be supplied with it and the accompany¬ 
ing plans. The assent of the Minister is still extant, and it is therefore 
reasonably certain that Bonaparte had the work with him. 
Not only that, but there is a considerable similarity between 
Napoleon's conduct of the campaign and that of his forgotten prede¬ 
cessor. In both cases the object was to separate the allies and beat them 
in detail, in both cases the same passes through the Maritime Alps were 
utilized, and in both cases the first objective was the same. 
I do not quote this example in any disparagement of Napoleon. The 
credit is his just as is the crown of poetry Shakespeare's, although he 
often based his masterpieces on stories already turned to account by 
others, but it is nevertheless an interesting example to us, and another 
