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 Cambridge Modern History, IX. A^apoleon 137 for continental war so incomplete as to indicate the greater seriousness of the invasion plan. The almost overwhelming counter-evidence is no- where given. In 1802 Bonaparte declared his policy of keeping Great Britain "in constant dread "; he had already dropped the project of the Directory for invasion as a chimera; he declined propositions for the propulsion of his boats which would have made the plan feasible ; all the best observers of the time, diplomats and memoir-writers, knew the purpose was not serious: his preparations for continental war may have been poor, but they were clearly explained by the emperor to his council of state and regarded by him as admirable, while his march across Europe was unsurpassed as a strategic move, being brilliantly successful against the Third Coalition, alike from the military, the diplomatic, and the political points of view ; finally, what would have been the fate of any invading army, however large, thrown into the wasp's nest of a hostile population and cut off from its base, an event sure beyond per- adventure in the relative conditions of the French and British navies. Surely Bonaparte had not merely strategic genius but ordinary common sense. We had intended to discuss somewhat the idiosyncrasy which, in treating of military matters, emphasizes the checks in a great campaign triumphantly concluded, and says nothing of the unity in design which makes tactical defeats unimportant where a strategic combination must and does assure ultimate success. One example of this in the book under review is the weak and misleading treatment of the Marengo campaign by a Swiss professor; another, scarcely less reprehensible, is the account of the battles of the Marchfeld in 1809 by a retired German general. Had Bonaparte lost at Marengo, the campaign was nevertheless destined to success by reason of his larger combinations ; Aspern was a partial defeat, but the strategic conception behind it and the means at Napoleon's command could only lead to one result; Wagram produced the peace of Schonbrunn. On the other hand, Waterloo likewise was the close of a brilliant campaign, but the Napoleonic strategy, entirely justified until after Ligny, seems, in the light of our latest knowledge as conveyed by Lettow-Vorbeck's study, to have been completely thwarted when the Prussians, instead of retreating to Namur as a matter of course, and as they probably would have done under Bliicher's direction, drew ofif to Wavre, toward the French flank, under the direction of the stafif, by a decision made at night when the general-in-chief was disabled; and so were ready for the timely junction with Wellington made next day. This march decided the fortune of war, not being disturbed by Grouchy's tardy movements ; but the plan was not Bliicher's, as is reiterated in this volume, the march was begun before the old general recovered, when he accepted the inevitable. Most of the faulty points we have indicated are inherent in the co-operative writing of history. Even the best-considered and best- executed schemes, like those of the French publishers, which bear the