406 
THE STUDY OF MILITARY HISTORY. 
in motion. He can gradually be made to understand that there are 
certain rules which are the outcome of experience, and which it is 
hazardous to infringe, and finally he may be drawn to inquire into the 
host of technical minutiae which go to build up efficiency in vast bodies of 
troops. He will look at things first of all from the purely general view 
of a spectator, then as a professional man seeking guidance, ultimately 
he may devote himself as an expert to some small details of the 
machine, or even set himself to master all the niceties of a most com¬ 
plex organisation. So that it will be understood that while it is an 
abuse of military history to read it as one reads an exciting novel, and 
leave the dry details altogether out of sight, it is equally an error to 
trust only or chiefly to a knowledge of them and to despise the less 
technical writings. 
A soldier ought to be so saturated with the spirit of military prin¬ 
ciples that he will act in a crisis almost intuitively. 
He ought to be so imbued with knowledge that it may be no effort 
of memory for him to consider what he ought to do. And I believe 
there is no better way of fixing knowledge in the mind than by means 
of apt illustrations from real life. It will make little impression 
perhaps if you tell a boy or a man not to bathe in a particular place, 
because there are dangerous currents or weeds there and he will very 
likely not heed you; but he will prick his ears if you tell him that 
Jack so and so was drowned in that very spot five years ago. 
It is the fashion to suppose that the officers of our army read very 
little or knew very little of the science of war at the commencement of 
the century. I doubt very much if this is really so much so as is 
generally supposed. I know that I have often been surprised at the 
number of military books I have found in the libraries of country 
houses collected perhaps by some father or uncle who was a Peninsular 
veteran. 
And the same thing has struck me when reading old letters, such 
as those recently published by Colonel Siborne. When fighting on a 
grand scale was constantly going on and our opponents were the 
greatest military nation of Europe, it would indeed be surprising if 
some of our officers, at any rate, did not give some thought to a science 
on which their lives depended. 
When the Union Brigade went tearing down the slope on D’Erlon’s 
corps and the third line was not held back in reserve, did not Lord 
Anglesey blame himself and that the more so because he admitted that 
he ought to have known better from previous personal experience in 
Spain ! And did not the officers know that it was all wrong, too, just 
as well as though they had passed for promotion ? Certainly they dido 
In one of the letters I have just referred to, there is a passage about 
this very incident which says ., (C Every cornet knew what would happen.” 
And yet Yon Bredow, in 1870, charged without supports and his 
brigade was cut up just as was ours at Waterloo and for exactly the 
same reason. If Waterloo had been kept in mind would not the 6th 
Cavalry Division have been sent to his support ? And will it not be 
of advantage to us if our future cavalry generals lay the lessons of 
