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 CHAPTER XVIII

THE RUSSIAN WAR OF LIBERATION A HUNDRED YEARS AGO, AND TOLSTOY'S "WAR AND PEACE"

I

T is now exactly a hundred years since Napoleon crossed the Niemen and declared war to his former friend and ally, Alexander I. Like the passing of the Rubicon by Cæsar, the crossing of the Niemen marks a turning-point in human history. Everything in the Russian campaign is stupendous, and staggers our imagination. The numbers engaged are on a scale hitherto unexampled in military annals. The most moderate computation exceeds half a million. Nor is the composition of the "Grand Army" less extraordinary than its numbers. It is too often forgotten that in the Russian campaign the French were in a minority. Half the nations of the Continent had sent their contingents to the Lord of the World. Danes, Spaniards, Austrians, Poles, had all