WARS and BATTLES
From Ancient Greece - to modern day.
"Was it in the power of language to describe the evil? Wars which had raged for more than twenty years throughout Europe, which had spread blood and desolation from Cadiz to Moscow and from Naples to Copenhagen; which had wasted the means of human enjoyment, and destroyed the instruments of social improvement; which threatened to diffuse among the European nations the dissolute and ferocious habits of a predatory soldiery— at length, by one of those vicissitudes which bid defiance to the foresight of man, had been brought to a close, upon the whole, happy, beyond all reasonable expectation, with no violent shock to national independence, with some tolerable compromise between the opinions of the age and the reverence due to ancient institutions; with no too signal or mortifying triumph over tha legitimate interests or avowable feelings of any numerous body of men, and, above all, without those retaliations against nations or parties which beget new convulsions, often as horrible as those which they close, and perpetuate revenge, and hatred, and blood from age to age. Europe seemed to breathe after her suffering. In the midst of this fair prospect and of these consolatory hopes, Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from Elba; three small vessels reached the coast of Provence; their hopes are instantly dispelled; toil and fortitude is undone; the blood of Europe the work of our is spilled in vain- ‘Ibi omnis effusus labor!' The exertions which the allied powers made at this crisis to grapple promptly with the French emperor have truly been termed gigantic, and never were Napoleon's genius and activity more signally displayed than in the celerity and skill by which ha brought forward all the military resources of France, which the reverses of the three preceding years, and the pacific policy of the Bourbons during the months of their first restoration, had greatly diminished and disorganized. He re-entered Paris on the 20th of March, and by the end of May, besides sending a force into La Vendee to put down the armed risings of the Royalists in that province, and besides providing troops under Massena and Suchet for the defense of the southern frontiers of France, Napoleon had an army assembled in the northeast for active operations under his own command, which amounted to between 120 and 130,000 men, with a superb park of artillery, and in the highest possible state of equipment, discipline, and efficiency. The approach of the many Russians, Austrians, Bavarians, and other foes of the French emperor to the Rhine was necessarily slow; but the two most active of the allied powers had occupied Belgium with their troops while Napoleon was organizing his forces. Marshal Blucher was there with 116,000 Prussians, and the Duke of Wellington was there also with about 106,000 troops, either British or in British pay. Napoleon determined to attack these enemies in Belgium. The disparity of numbers was indeed great, but delay was sure to increase the number of his enemies much faster than re-enforcements could join his own ranks. He considered also that "the enemy's troops were cantoned under the command of two generals, and
composed of nations differing both in interest and in feelings! His own army was under his own sole command. It was composed exclusively of
French soldiers, mostly of veterans, well acquainted with their officers and with each other, and full of enthusiastic confidence in their
commander.
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