George: Napoleon s Invasion of Russia 137 under his colors. When we consider the small army that a one-track railroad, apart from other means, is thought to be able to supply over a distance of fifty miles, the task in trackless Russia may be partly gauged. Charles XII. 's failure could not deter such a man as Napoleon ; nor was the campaign too bold for him at his best. It had in fact to be under- taken if he would not lose his prestige. The Emperor's original idea was to make two campaigns unless peace came sooner — the first year's to Smolensk, the next to Moscow and St. Petersburg. But he was insensibly led on to crowd more into 18 12 than could possibly be accomplished if luck should run counter to him. When he reached Smolensk, and there, by his own default, failed to beat the Russians in such a fashion as to throw them off their line of retreat and to cripple their army, the campaign was practically lost ; and to con- tinue the march to Moscow was unnecessarily to invite disaster. The diluted victory at Smolensk was the turning-point ; even the Napoleon of 1805 could not then have saved the campaign; it was the poker- player's instinct which carried him beyond. When Kutusov sustained at Borodino the bloodiest defeat of modern days. Napoleon was still worse off, for the French were losing their pre- ponderance with every league ; and when, in hopeless anticipation that the Czar would come to terms, Napoleon delayed a month longer in Moscow than was safe, it was his lost ability to gauge facts, his disbelief in failure, bred of the stupendous successes of the past, which lay at the root of his indecisiveness. With the same old mental grasp, he was in character no longer the same man. All this Mr. George sets down so clearly as to give us a crisp view of the advance, the battles and the horrible retreat. His style is easy and the maps suffice for the general reader. But he is distinctly hyper- critical. To the true Briton Napoleon remains a real evil, not a mere historical character, to be calmly weighed in the balance, and he likes not to allow him overmuch credit. As a matter of fact. Napoleon was the most useful man of the century just closing. Had it not been that, in hostility to his arch-opponents, the monarchs of Europe, Napoleon spread abroad some measure of freedom, it is doubtful whether there would be any instinct of liberty on the Continent to-day. Someone had to mold into form the chaotic ideas of the new departure made by the French Revolution, and it may be doubted whether anyone could have done so better than Napoleon. The Russian Campaign, in conception, was far from being as wild a scheme as Mr. George considers it. Should an Oriental, unfamiliar with the momentous twenty years from 1796 to 18 15, read this book, he might almost draw the conclusion that Napoleon was a man of less than common power, sense and judgment, instead of being in our days what Cresar was to antiquity. In this the work lacks a strength it would oth- erwise possess ; but in all else it can be commended. Theodore Avrault Dodge.
