when the British army occupied that part of the Mediterranean countries, and would have been lost but for the activity and spirit of a medical officer; who, when the army was dispersed, undertook its removal to Genoa, and subsequently to Corfu. It is not only as extensive as that at Malta, but contains several more useful books, particularly translations of the classics, and has an ample share of works on Greece.

At Halifax, in Nova Scotia, Lord Dalhousie, soon after his arrival there, gave 100l. towards the commencement of a garrison-library; and both at that place and at Quebec these establishments are rapidly advancing.

The library of the Royal Artillery at Woolwich is perhaps, next to that of Gibraltar, the finest collection of the kind; and a meritorious young officer of engineers has exerted himself very much in the formation of the garrison-library at Chatham, which is already highly respectable, has a good revenue, and promises exceedingly well. Most of the garrisontowns in England and the colonies are creating similar institutions, and will in time render useless the system of small regimental libraries, which are generally an incumbrance; except those now forming at all the places where the corps of engineers are stationed; which being confined solely to mathematics, strategy, tactics, fortification, and the arts and sciences, are indispensably required for the young officers of that corps.

In India, also, the spirit of acquirement has spred very widely, and establishments are perfecting in the army-stations; that well-informed officer, Sir John Malcolm, having used his extensive influence very successfully with the officers of the East India Company's service, to promote such undertakings. Next to the military libraries, the encouragement so liberally allowed by government for the establishment of lithographic presses has had a great share in altering the old system; and every facility is afforded to those officers who may wish to avail themselves of their assistance to promulgate their ideas, or to circulate their drawings and plans. The first press of this kind used in the British army (or, indeed, in England,) was set up in the Quartermaster-General's office many years ago: but it has been replaced by several of better quality; and we understand that five or six are now constantly at work in that office, printing its official documents, and those of the HorseGuards, War-Office, and Home-Department, while the Ordnance has others. The saving thus created must have been very great. In Dublin, the Deputy-Quartermaster-General and the Ordnance-Board carry on their public business by the same means, and the Royal Staff-Corps have improved so

much on this invention, as to have fitted up at Hythe a travelling covered waggon, with all the necessary machinery and instruments, so as to be able to circulate orders with the greatest rapidity, by the transfer-method, when the army is in the field. At the establishment for the field-instruction of the Royal Sappers and Miners at Chatham, lithography has been combined with letter-press printing, in a manner which will, in a great measure, supersede the use of wood-cuts in military or other works. To conclude; a great number of these presses have been sent to foreign stations by government, and also to India by the Company; the Directors being so sensible of the value of this acquisition to the arts, that their young officers at the College of Addiscombe are obliged to make themselves acquainted with its principle and practice.

We are sure that our readers will not regret the space which we have thus occupied, in the statement of facts relating to the progress of knowlege in our army; and we hope that, in criticizing the Memoir by the British officer which we have placed at the head of this article, no occasion will arise to create any wish that military men had not become authors.

This Memoir of the Operations of the Allied Armies in 1813 and 1814' was written, we believe, by an officer who served with much credit on the Duke of Wellington's staff; and, connected as it necessarily is with the events discussed by Napoleon in his Memoirs, it will be viewed with considerable interest for the reasons which we have already given. These Reports were published, it is true, before Napoleon's papers, but they are therefore the more valuable, because they are uninfluenced by any desire either to support or contradict his statements. We shall not, however, at present enter into much detail in our notice of this work, as we may have frequent occasion to refer to it hereafter; and because we should only recapitulate, in many instances, the selections which we have made, or must yet unavoidably make, from the most interesting portions of Gourgaud's and Montholon's voluminous publications.

In our first hasty glances through the pages of this British officer's Memoir, we admired the absence of any attempt to impress his readers with a notion of his superior information. It is not introduced by any inflated preface, or pompeus table of contents; nor by any occupation of the commencing division beyond a mere statement of half-a-dozen words, employed by the author to give a modest intimation that he was

* See Review for December last, Art. I.

a witness of the events which he undertakes to describe. The narrative itself is divided into eleven portions, and the principal occurrences related are comprized in the period from Bonaparte's advance into Germany, and the battle of Lutzen, to his abdication at Fontainebleau: followed by a few pages of appendix, containing statements of the forces opposed to each other in these campaigns; an account of the revenues of the states of the Rhine; the letters which passed between Gouvion de St. Cyr and Prince Schwarzenberg, on the capitulation of Dresden; an intercepted letter from Napoleon to his consort, whom he styles mon amie; and an extract from the New French Constitution of April 6th, 1814. Two maps of the theatre of war in the northern and the southern provinces of France; a plan of the battle of Lyons; a sketch of Bergen-op-zoom, taken from Sir James Carmichael Smyth's work; plans of the battle near Paris, of the action at Fere Champenoise, of the battle of Arcis-sur-Aube, of the battle of Laon, of that of Craone, and a sketch for the three actions of Brienne, La Rothiere, and Bar-sur-Aube; a plan of the combat of Hanau, and a large sketch of the actions at Leipsic; are all comprized in this moderate octavo. Some of them are well executed, and do much credit to the artists who lithographed them, particularly in the pains taken with the very complicated writing in the map of the north of France; while they shew very clearly the great advantages which this new art affords to those officers, who are anxious to place their observations on late events before the public. We cannot, however, give that degree of praise to the persons engaged in the production of these maps and plans, which we have allotted to the artist who lithographed those in the work of the Archduke Charles on the Principles of Strategy: the manner is not so clear or free; and, as no excuse, similar to those pleas that are offered for inferior engravings, can be allowed for lithographic drawing, we hope that, when this book goes to another edition, more pains will be taken with them; the transfer-method, as now practised, affording much better specimens, with less labor.

We shall pass over the able exposition of the resources of the allies and of the French, given in the first part, (or rather, as it should have been, conformably to custom, the first chapter,) and hasten to observe what are the opinions of the British General on the battle of Leipsic, in which a few English soldiers bore a conspicuous share. Here, however, to our great surprize, although the writer is an English officer of rank, and declares that he was an actor in the scenes which he details, we cannot trace any account of the part which the British performed in this memorable event, except a line

--

or two on the death of Captain Bogue of our artillery. Perhaps the author did not deem so small a detachment worth notice in an account of great events; and his feeling on this head, from the necessity of condensing his materials, may be right: but we should have been glad to hear an English General's opinion of the utility of the rocket-service in battles on so large a scale.

Bernadotte's wavering conduct, which, though it ultimately secured to him the throne of Sweden, might have been of very serious consequence to the cause of the allies at Leipsic, and afterward in Holland, is slightly noticed in page 29. ; and, in the following pages, a very capital picture is drawn of the composition and physical as well as moral means of the allied troops and of the French, which is bold, correct, and extremely novel.

"On the side of the French, as on that of the allies, the basis of all their calculations, the leading pivot as it were upon which all the operations turned, seems to have been the formerly established reputation and fortune of Buonaparte. Trusting to that ground-work, he directed the movements of the French armies, while in perfect confidence they obeyed and vigorously seconded his views. On the part of the allies, the same conviction of the superiority of his fortune and talents may be traced as the cause of the irresolution and hesitation which, notwithstanding a vast superiority of numbers, characterized their operations.

The composition of the opposing armies combined to fortify the feelings these circumstances were calculated to produce. The French Generals were men brought up in fields of triumph; humble as the dust in obedience to Buonaparte, they confided implicitly in his talents, and were to enthusiasm attached to his cause; vigorous from character, impetuous in the attacks they led on against troops and officers they had been accustomed from success to look upon as their inferiors, they were the best instruments any commander was ever possessed of for the execution of his objects. The same feeling which actuated the superior officers, descended through every rank to the private soldiers, who, enthusiastic for their chief, with confidence foretold success whenever they were under his command.

A different sentiment was to be looked for in the allied army. The Austrians had, within a very few months, created the force with which they were now embarked in this mighty contest. Their troops had been so reduced in numbers after the misfortunes of the preceding wars, that the corps which Prince Schwarzenberg: commanded in Poland, in alliance with the French, was the chief ground-work upon which their present army had been formed. Their superior officers were impressed with recollections of the sad disasters they had experienced, and of the unavailing bravery and devotion with which they had struggled against the fortunes of Buonaparte. The soldiers, mostly recruits, and, in many cases,

led

led on by regimental officers almost as lately appointed to the army as themselves, notwithstanding the high military character of the nations from which they were collected, could hardly be expected to be in a state of military organization fitted at once to oppose, upon equal terms, the hitherto victorious legions of France.

The Russian army was composed of older soldiers than the Austrians, although a considerable number of recruits were in its ranks; it was magnificent in its appearance, yet its officers were, less accustomed to war; and it was generally less active, less vigorous in its movements, than the one it was opposed to.

The Prussians formed a most efficient portion of the allied army; their troops, though lately brought together, had secretly been trained for a considerable time; they had more hatred against the French, who had humbled their high character as a military nation; their officers were better instructed; and their army displayed, perhaps, more nerve and energy, adventured more, and reaped greater triumphs, than any other engaged in the. same cause. The spirit of its great commander, Marshal Blucher, pervaded the whole; he was ever foremost in attack, decisive and1 resolute in his determinations; wherever in the course of the war offensive movements are to be traced, wherever the enemy is attacked and pursued, Marshal Blucher will almost always be found to have directed them. He was fortunate in the general officers who commanded under him: besides the Prussian Generals, Yorck, Kleist, and Bulow, the Russian Generals, Baron Sacken, Count Langeron, and Count Woronzoff, were all of them distinguished officers, and General Gneisnau, the chief of his staff, was of the greatest value.

Prince Schwarzenberg, who had a task imposed upon him far different from that which fell to the lot of Marshal Blucher, had fortunately the superior talents which could alone, perhaps, have conducted to so favorable an issue the great cause intrusted to his discretion. Directing in chief the movements of an army composed of troops which had all but lately been in hostility to each other; uniting in his head-quarters not only the respective sovereigns, but frequently the cabinets which had been engaged in the most violent opposition to each other, and still fostered jealousies, such as even general success was only calculated to increase; besieged by the contending interests of persons who, from deference to him alone, yielded submission to Austrian guidance and direction; nothing but the unimpeachable rectitude of Prince Schwarzenberg's character, the clearness and perspicuity of his talents, his bravery in the field, his amiability in his general converse with all, could have enabled him to keep together, and direct successfully to one great object, the heterogeneous mass submitted to his guidance.

The disadvantages which Prince Schwarzenberg had to overcome were indeed incredible; and, added to the extreme activity and surprizing resources of Napoleon's mind, they would have rendered the issue of the combination very doubt