PREFACE.

In the following pages I have endeavoured to render the study of the rules, which have been framed on the campaigns of the great masters of the art of war, easy and interesting not only to the young soldier, but also to the general reader.

A perfect knowledge of the principles which it is the object of this book to explain, and of their correct application in theory, may easily be acquired by any person of average intellect. Their correct application in practice belongs to a great commander alone.

All instruction in the details of the different branches of the military art, should be based on those principles, and be subordinate to them; they afford a sure test by which to

judge of every military operation great and small, from the attack or defence of a house to the attack or defence of a fortress,-from the posting of an outpost to the placing of an army in position; and the details will be more interesting, and a knowledge of them will consequently be more easily acquired, when they can be referred intelligently to general rules, which have been previously fixed in the mind.

The branches of fortification and surveying, as taught in our military schools, are, it must be remembered, only the tools of the military art; and an officer may have an intimate acquaintance with these branches, without rising at all above the mechanical part of them, or learning intelligently how they should be applied.

To avoid constant references, I state here that the first four chapters are compiled from the writings of Napoleon, Frederick, the Archduke Charles, and Jomini, and from the only classical military history in our language,

Napier's "Peninsular War." In those chapters there can, obviously, be nothing new except the method of arrangement. That method was partly suggested by Yates's valuable "Treatise on Strategy."

The chapter on Manoeuvres is one which will, I trust, be found useful. Whether the subject has been well treated in that chapter or not, something of the sort is much wanted.

If I have been occasionally rather minute in explanation, it has been owing to the desire to smooth as much as possible the path of the learner; and the error, if one there be, is a fault on the right side.

R. M. C., Sandhurst,

Aug. 31, 1856.

Since the above was written, the new system of depôt battalions has been organised and promulgated. That system appears to be admirably calculated, if properly adminis