Part 6 (2/2)
A mathematician, an engineer, a man of science, a great accountant - these things he has been in all his enterprises. It was these qualities that enabled him to make that astounding railway which brought Cairo almost into touch with the Khalifa, who, with his predecessor, the Mahdi, and with his tragically potent ally, the hungry and all-devouring desert, had beaten back so many other attempts to reach and to beat him.
”This man, who has fought such tremendous and historic battles and confronted great odds, is yet a man who prefers a deal to a struggle; and, though he can be so stern, has yet a diplomatic tact that gets him and his country out of difficult hours. The nature, doubtless, is complex, and stern determination and tenacity are part of it; but there is also the other side, which is much forgotten - especially by that cla.s.s of writers who have to describe human character as rigidly symmetrical and unnaturally harmonious.
”That cold and penetrating eye of his makes it impossible to imagine anybody taking any liberties with Lord Kitchener; yet one of his greatest qualities, at once useful and charming, is his accessibility. Anybody who has anything to say to him can approach him; anybody who has anything to teach him will find a ready and grateful learner. This is one of the secrets of his extraordinary success and universal popularity in Egypt. Lord Cromer was a great Egyptian ruler, and his services are imperishable and gigantic; but Lord Cromer was the stern, solitary, and inaccessible bureaucrat who worked innumerable hours every day at his desk, never learned the Arabic language, and possibly never quite grasped the Arab nature. Lord Kitchener is the cadi under the tree. The mayor or the citizens of the little Arab village can come to him, and the old soldier, and even the fellah, alone; and they will find Lord Kitchener ready to listen and to talk to them in their own tongue, to enter with gusto into the pettiest details of their daily and squalid lives, and ready also to apply the remedy to such grievances as commend themselves to his judgment.
”As an ill.u.s.tration of his accessibility, let me repeat a delicious story which delighted all Egypt. An old peasant came out of the depths of the land all the way to Cairo to see the great Kitchener, with the complaint that his white mule had been stolen. The whole official machinery was interrupted for a while, and the old fellah went back with his white mule. You can fancy how that story was repeated in every fellah cabin in the land, and how the devotion to Kitchener and trust in his justice and in his sympathy went trumpet-tongued among this race, downtrodden and neglected almost from the beginning of time.”
Such is the man who, when chosen to head the British War Department, had his bed sent to the office, that he might be on duty day and night if needed; who insisted that no raw recruits should be sent to the front, but put them through a rigid system of drill and physical exercise to toughen their muscles and fit them for the work of a soldier; who said that there would be abundant time for fighting, as in his judgment there was a year or more of war in prospect.
Chapter VI. THE EARTHQUAKE OF NAPOLEONISM
Its Effect on National conditions Finally Led to the War of 1914
Conditions in France and Germany - The Campaign in Italy - The Victory at Marengo - Moreau at Hohenlinden - The Consul made Emperor - The Code Napoleon - Campaign of 1805 - Battle of Austerlitz - The Conquest of Prussia - The Invasion of Poland - Eylau and Friedland - Campaign of 1809 - Victory at Wagram - The Campaign in Spain - The Invasion of Russia - A Fatal Retreat - Dresden and Leipzig - The Hundred Days - The Congress of Vienna - The Holy Alliance
When, after a weary climb, we find ourselves on the summit of a lofty mountain, and look back from that commanding alt.i.tude over the ground we have traversed, what is it that we behold? The minor details of the scenery, many of which seemed large and important to us as we pa.s.sed, are now lost to view, and we see only the great and imposing features of the landscape, the high elevations, the town-studded valleys, the deep and winding streams, the broad forests. It is the same when, from the summit of an age, we gaze backward over the plain of time. The myriad of petty happenings are lost to sight, and we see only the striking events, the critical epochs, the mighty crises through which the world has pa.s.sed. These are the things that make true history, not the daily doings in the king's palace or the peasant's hut.
What we should seek to observe and store up in our memories are the turning points in human events, the great thoughts which have ripened into n.o.ble deeds, the hands of might which have pushed the world forward in its career; not the trifling occurrences which signify nothing, the pa.s.sing actions which have borne no fruit in human affairs. It is with such turning points, such critical periods in modern history, that we are here dealing; not to picture the pa.s.sing bubbles on the stream of time, but to point out the great s.h.i.+ps which have sailed up that stream laden with a n.o.ble freight. This is history in its deepest and best aspect, and we have set our camera to photograph only the men who have made and the events which const.i.tute history in the phase here outlined.
The first fifteen years of the nineteenth century in Europe yield us the history of a man rather than of a continent. France was the center of Europe; Napoleon, the Corsican, was the center of France. All the affairs of all the nations seemed to gather around this genius of war. He was respected, feared, hated; he had risen with the suddenness of a thunder-cloud on a clear horizon, and flashed the lightnings of victory in the dazzled eyes of the nations. All the events of the period were concentrated into one great event, and the name of that event was Napoleon. He seemed incarnate war, organized destruction; sword in hand, he dominated the nations, and victory sat on his banners with folded wings. He was, in a full sense, the man of destiny, and Europe was his prey.
Never has there been a more wonderful career. The earlier great conquerors began life at the top; Napoleon began his at the bottom. Alexander was a king; Caesar was an aristocrat of the Roman republic; Napoleon rose from the people, and was not even a native of the land which became the scene of his exploits. Pure force of military genius lifted him from the lowest to the highest place among mankind, and for long and terrible years Europe shuddered at his name and trembled beneath the tread of his marching legions. As for France, he brought it glory and left it ruin and dismay.
The career of Napoleon Bonaparte began in a very modest way. Born in Corsica and trained in a military school in France, his native ability as a man of action was first made evident in 1794, when, under the orders of the National Convention, he quelled the mob of Paris with loaded cannon and put a final end to the Reign of Terror that had long prevailed.
Placed at the head of the French army in Italy, Napoleon quickly astonished the world by a series of the most brilliant victories, defeating the Austrians and the Sardinians wherever he met them, seizing Venice, the city of the lagoon, and forcing almost all Italy to submit to his arms. A republic was established here and a new one in Switzerland, while Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine were held by France.
His wars here at an end, Napoleon's ambition led him to Egypt, inspired by great designs which he failed to realize. In his absence anarchy arose in France. The five Directors, then at the head of the government, had lost all authority, and Napoleon, who had unexpectedly returned, did not hesitate to overthrow them and the a.s.sembly which supported them. A new government, with three Consuls at its head, was formed, Napoleon, as First Consul, holding almost royal power. Thus France stood in 1800, at the end of the eighteenth century.
CONDITIONS IN FRANCE AND GERMANY
In the remainder of Europe there was nothing to compare with the momentous convulsion which had taken place in France. England had gone through its two revolutions more than a century before, and its people were the freest of any in Europe. Recently it had lost its colonies in America, but it still held in that continent the broad domain of Canada, and was building for itself a new empire in India, while founding colonies in twenty other lands. In commerce and manufactures it entered the nineteenth century as the greatest nation on the earth. The hammer and the loom resounded from end to end of the island, mighty centers of industry arose where cattle had grazed a century before, coal and iron were being torn in great quant.i.ties from the depths of the earth, and there seemed everywhere an endless bustle and whirr.
The s.h.i.+ps of England haunted all seas and visited the most remote ports, laden with the products of her workshops and bringing back raw material for her factories and looms. Wealth acc.u.mulated, London became the money market of the world, the riches and prosperity of the island kingdom were growing to be a parable among the nations of the earth.
On the continent of Europe, Prussia, destined in time to become great, had recently emerged from its medieval feebleness, mainly under the powerful hand of Frederick the Great, whose reign extended until 1786, and whose ambition, daring, and military genius made him a fitting predecessor of Napoleon the Great, who so soon succeeded him in the annals of war. Unscrupulous in his aims, this warrior king had torn Silesia from Austria, added to his kingdom a portion of unfortunate Poland, annexed the princ.i.p.ality of East Friesland, and lifted Prussia into a leading position among the European states.
Germany, now - with the exception of Austria - a compact empire, was then a series of disconnected states, variously known as kingdoms, princ.i.p.alities, margravates, electorates, and by other t.i.tles, the whole forming the so-called Holy Empire, though it was ”neither holy nor an empire.” It had drifted down in this fas.h.i.+on from the Middle Ages, and the work of consolidation had but just begun, in the conquests of Frederick the Great. A host of petty potentates ruled the land, whose states, aside from Prussia and Austria, were too weak to have a voice in the councils of Europe. Joseph II, the t.i.tular emperor of Germany, made an earnest and vigorous effort to combine its elements into a powerful unit; but he signally failed, and died in 1790, a disappointed and embittered man.
Austria, then far the most powerful of the German states, was from 1740 to 1780 under the reign of a woman, Maria Theresa, who struggled in vain against her ambitious neighbor, Frederick the Great, his kingdom being extended ruthlessly at the expense of her imperial dominions. Austria remained a great country, however, including Bohemia and Hungary among its domains. It was lord of Lombardy and Venice in Italy, but was destined to play an unfortunate part in the coming Napoleonic wars.
We have briefly epitomized Napoleon's early career, his doings in the Revolution, in Italy, and in Egypt, unto the time that France's wors.h.i.+p of his military genius raised him to the rank of First Consul, and gave him in effect the power of a king. No one dared question his word, the army was at his beck and call, the nation lay prostrate at his feet - not in fear but in admiration.
Such was the state of affairs in France in the closing year of the eighteenth century. The Revolution was at an end, the Republic existed only as a name; Napoleon was the autocrat of France and the terror of Europe. From this point we resume the story of his career.
The First Consul began his reign with two enemies in the field, England and Austria. Prussia was neutral, and he had won the friends.h.i.+p of Paul, the emperor of Russia, by a shrewd move.
While the other nations refused to exchange the Russian prisoners they held, Napoleon sent home 6,000 of these captives, newly clad and armed, under their own leaders, and without demanding ransom.
This was enough to win to his side the weak-minded Paul, whose delight in soldiers he well knew.
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