Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/899

 Peti-e : N'apoleoii s Campaign i)i Poland 889 berg and Friedland in June. 1807, followed by the Treaty of Tilsit. At the end are three maps of the theatre of war. on two sheets, and seven battle-plans on a third sheet. The style is simple and direct, with abundant foot-notes, the matter in some of which might be incorporated in the text, to save interruption of the narration by the reader. The detail is considerable, but not too great for a work dealing with a single campaign. There is much comparison as to numbers engaged; no item in military history is so elusive as this, the archive records being often w'rong. The manoeuvres are intelligently described; but Napoleon's lapses from the skilful management he had shown in former campaigns might be more accent- uated. There is little to criticize in the Austerlitz and Jena campaigns ; there are many points of criticism in the Polish. Up to this date", for instance, Napoleon had made it a maxim to assemble his army out of reach of the enemy and then fall in mass upon him. In the Polish cam- paign he practically opened by a concentric operation, such as he had always superciliously criticized in his opponents, and one in which battle might be expected to occur before concentration; and as generally happens, the several bodies did not co-operate, and despite claims of victory, Avere practically beaten in detail. Had his opponent been of the first force. Napoleon might have been driven into an excentric re- treat, to his great loss. Again, in the last part of the campaign, the emperor moved by his left to cut Bennigsen off from Konigsberg, when the Napoleonic manoeuvre would have been to move by his right to cut him off from his Russian base, and force him back on the sea. Or again, after Friedland, it would have been easy, despite the losses and exhaustion, to seize Tapiau and thus control Bennigsen's real line of retreat, for Konigsberg was at best only a secondary base. These lapses are all mentioned by the author ; but to the ordinary student, a fuller comparison with other campaigns, or the discussion of strong or weak points would prove interesting. In Bennigsen, Nappleon had an enterprising and able antagonist; but like most of the others, one who vi'as afraid to push home when once started. His two attacks on the French were well timed and executed ; but when success was in his grasp he paused, and Napoleon, with his wonderful ability to divine what was doing and sense of the proper moment to strike, seized the initiative. When you weigh, against the almost perfect conduct of the Ulm- Austerlitz, or the Jena campaign, the false concentric operation on Golymin and Pultusk, the venturesome, useless and costly attack at Heilsberg, the wrong strategic manoeuvre on Friedland, one must con- clude that despite many truly Napoleonic features, this Polish campaign exhibits less skill than some of the others ; and that while of marked interest it is chiefly so for its astonishing trials of fortitude between the French and Russians, and as a proof that even this great captain was liable at times to be less than himself.