LORD WOLSELEY ON MILITARY GENIUS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9202, 3 November 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

LORD WOLSELEY ON MILITARY GENIUS.

OUR ONLY GENERAL ON THE GREATEST GENERALS OF ALL TIME. To the Fortnightly Review for September | Lord Wolseley contributes a very interesting paper on " Military Genius," from which we make the following extracts of the more interesting passages:— VON MOLTKE. Field-Marshal von Moltke'a character is so simple and winning, and his military Senilis of such a high order, that it is most probable he would have become a great leader of men in the field had any such command over devolved upon him. At the same time it is quite possible that even Moltke docs not possess the qualities which made the " Tenth Legion" love Cavsar, and which made the Roman one of the few great leaders of armies whom the world lias ever known. Great coolness of head and sternness of nerve are required by the general whose exclusive rule in the iield is to keep several large armies in motion, each 011 its own line, but each and all moving, as the pieces 011 a chessboard, towards one common object. The sternness—l might say the j relentlessness—of disposition which enables , such a man to do his daily work unaffected : either by the all-absorbing joy of success or ; by the depressing influences of passing ; failures, is a rare gift. But. it is quite . possible that such a strategist, if carried ' from the safe posit ion of army headquarters, 1 and pushed into the midst of excitement i and of peril, and of all the emotions and j startling sensations which such a position occasions, might then be unable to exercise | the quickness of apprehension and the J soundness of judgment that can alone en- ■ able a man in that position to duly weigh j the circumstances, analyse the situation, j and at once come to the right conclusion. 1 WELLINGTON. I would instance Ca'sar, Hannibal, Marlborough, Napoleon, ami General Lee as men who possessed what I regard as the

highest development of military geniusmen who combined with the strategic grasp of Von Moltke and the calm wisdom and just reasoning power of Wellington all he power of Marshal Rugeaud and of Souwaroll' to inflame the imagination of their soldiers and impart to them some of the fiery spirit, of reckless daring which burned within their own breasts. The personal magnetism which such great, men possess so largely, and can without effort impart, to others, was, I think, wanting in our "Iron Duke." The marvellous magnetic power of the great generous leader (Napoleon) over his men was certainly undervalued by Wellington. He seems in his mind to have divided his army into gentlemen and common men, placing a great, unbridged gulf between the two classes. With one or two exceptions, he apparently had the very poorest opinion of the military capacity of his generals of division, whilst he believed with all his cold heart in the dash, courage, endurance, loyaltv, and patriotism of his regimental officers, the sons of English squires and younger sons of what, was then called our aristocracy. He seldom, if ever, spoke in appreciative terms of those brave soldiers who carried him in triumph from Lisbon to Toulouse, and if he had any affection for them he never showed it. He believed that when restrained by the most rigorously enforced discipline and led by English gentlemen, they were, under him, invincible. But he never hesitated to describe them as a collection of ruffians, the blackguards of every British parish, the scum of every English town. In fact he was a thorough aristocrat at heart, with all the best sentiments, but still with all the prejudices of that class. There was 110 genial sympathy between him and his soldiers ; they respected him, and during his later campaigns they had the most unbounded continence in his military genius, but beyond his own immediate military household, with whom he lived on terms of intimacv. 110 one loved him. It is for this reason

that 1 think he will never be classed in the same rank of military greatness—of real military genius — with the five great leaders of men 1 have named above. NAI'OLEON.

A- the highest type of military genius let me take Napoleon. If there be any one rule which may be said to sum up the science of strategy and the tactical art, it is that you should make your plans and carry them out so as to be always superior to your enemy at the point of contact. This rule, carried out with the utmost secrecy and celerity of movement, may be said to have been the great secret of Napoleon's success. The more one studies that

grand campaign of ISIS, the more is one unwillingly convinced tliab hail Napoleon then been physically the man he was at Rivoli. he would have defeated Wellington at Waterloo as he had just defeated Blucher at Ligny. Napoleon failed, because at that period of his life he lacked one of those qualities which are essential to military success. He was .suffering from such terrible physical ailments that the marvellous energy of the past was at times altogether lacking to him. c.i:sak. Now let me take L'a-sar. What few men not soldiers realise is that quality which t.';esar showed when defeated by no fault of his own at Dyrrhachiuni. or when, after almost all the world had deserted him

because of his apparent failure in Spain, he changed the history of the world by his calm facing of misfortune and his power of using his knowledge of men and his military skill undisturbed by the accidents of fate. It was probably this latter quality that I'ompey, himself no mean strategist, lacked, and his want of steadfastness lo.~t him the empire of the world. Unduly elated after Dyrrhaehium, he abandoned himself to despair after Pharsalia. MAKLnuKnri.n.

Let me now take Marlborough. No part of his life perhaps more perfectly brings out the varied qualities which went to make up the sum of Marlborough's genius than the campaign of Blenheim ami the diplomatic labours with the States-General which preceded it. The large and statesmanlike political grasp of the whole situation is easily appreciated by the careful reader of his life. But what Marlborough was on the field of Blenheim itself, how in the moments of apparent ill-success and failure his presence by its combined fire and calmness reanimated the wavering and assured the victory—this may be recorded, but here, as elsewhere, I believe hat not one man in a thousand who reads of it realises what it implies. (I K.N ERA L EE.

And, lastly, let me glance at General Lee. Lee's strategy when he fought in defence of the Southern capital, and threatened and finally struck at that of the United States, marks him as one of the greatest captains of this or any other age. No man has ever fought an uphill and a losing game with greater firmness, or ever displayed a higher order of true military genius than he did when in command of the Confederate army. The knowledge of his profession displayed by General MeClellan was considerable, and his strategic conceptions were admirable ; but he lacked one attribute of a general, without which no man can ever succeed in war—he was never able to estimate with any accuracy the numbers opposed to him. It was the presence in Lee of that intuitive genius for war which MeClellan lacked which again and again gave him victory, even when lie. was altogether outmatched in numbers. THE FUTURE OK ARM IKS.

Small and large armies have each had their day. The present age is one of largo masses of fairly trained soldiers, but it is by no means certain to me that the time may not yet come again when all nations will once more resort to small, standing armies of the most highly trained and disciplined soldiers. We may find that the soldier, to be at his best, or to be even thoroughly efficient, will require such long, and above all things, such constant training, that an army consisting of a people in arms will be impossible. In fact, we may find out by-and-by that a comparatively small standing army of carefully selected men, the flower of the nation, highly skilled in all manly exercises, in all military arts, and kept in a constant state of perfect training, is a more effective weapon for fighting purposes than the slow-moving and more or less unwieldy armies of the present day.