MARLBOROUGH AND HIS METHODS OF WARFARE. 125 
remember, apropos of that time, that Napoleon was a man who always had a card 
up his sleeve. I don’t think that during any of his many wars he ever embarked 
upon any campaign, or I may say on any battle, where he was not prepared for a’ 
complete volteface at any moment. If he found that he was stopped from carrying 
out his original intention he was always prepared to adopt an entirely different 
line of advance or operation on the spur of the moment. That was the case in 
1805. He knew there were difficulties and dangers and a great many chances 
that might prevent his invading England, and he had a great and very just horror 
—and I hope all nations may continue to have it—of the English navy. He 
magnified and almost exaggerated our power on the sea, and he felt that he might 
be thwarted by our navy in his great aim, the invasion of England and the capture’ 
of London. So the card that he then had up his sleeve was a great march across 
the centre of Europe from Boulogne to Ulm, where, as you know, he captured a 
large Austrian army under Mack. During the time he was engaged in drilling 
his troops and accustoming them to embark and disembark at Boulogne, he was 
reading very carefully all the information he could find regarding the march of an 
army across Europe similar to that which he then contemplated. It was but 
natural that he should turn to the great march made by Marlborough to almost 
the identical point of the Danube which he himself subsequently struck. He 
studied it most minutely, and we know that he got from the archives of Paris 
all the information that those archives supply—and they are most voluminous— 
regarding this march. Having done so, and being immediately struck, I presume 
(this is a thing I cannot tell you for certain) by the great ability, soldier-like 
skill and strategical talent of Marlborough, he gave orders for the writing and 
publication of the book to which the Lecturer has referred—a book which I 
recommend to all those who wish to learn anything about Marlborough’s wars. 
Those who read it will find there a good description of Marlborough’s celebrated 
march, and if you will compare that march with Napoleon’s march from Boulogne 
to the Danube, you cannot fail to be struck by the similarity of plan followed 
by those two generals in their two separate operations. Itisa curious coincidence. 
I will tell you another thing—it is merely a small point in connection with 
Napoleon and Marlborough. The careful reader of Napoleon’s conversations at 
St. Helena must be well aware of the high opinion he entertained of Marlborough’s 
abilities as a general and especially as a strategist. He spoke of him several 
times as ¢he great man and ¢he great general; but such was his hatred of 
England, such was his narrow-minded prejudice against England, that when 
he advised students of history to read the great campaigns of the greatest 
generals, he specified Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Cesar, Turenne and many 
others, but carefully left out the name of the great Englishman, perhaps I might 
say the greatest Englishman, certainly the greatest soldier, that England has 
ever possessed. He left out the name of Marlborough, although in his heart he 
believed him to be one of the greatest generals that ever existed. 
The study of Marlborough’s character, of Marlborough’s proceedings, and of 
Marlborough’s education, is most interesting, and is a subject to which I have 
naturally turned my attention at odd times for many years past. I intend at 
some time or other to write an account of his campaigns (applause). The more 
you read, the more you learn of the man himself as he is revealed to us in his letters 
to his wife, never intended for any eyes but her own, the more astonished you 
become at the difference between the man as he really was and as be is usually 
represented by English political writers. From these letters you are able to get hold 
of his inner mind. There are few contemporary histories that tell you much of 
the man himself, but from the enormous correspondence that he left behind him 
you can learn much about himself, his ideas, his aspirations, and his mode of 
carrying on war. I shall not attempt to recur to his early days further than to 
