AND MILITARY ORGANIZATION: TOGETHER WITH AN ENQUIRY INTO THE POWER AND POSITION OF RUSSIA. BY LIEUT.-COLONEL J. MITCHELL, H. P. AUTHOR OF "THE LIFE OF WALLENSTEIN." Ἡγούμεθα γὰρ τό τε θεῖον δόξη, τὸ ἀνδρώπειόν τε σαφῶς διὰ THUCYDIDES, lib. v. LONDON: LONGMAN, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS. 1838. "Of the Gods, we think as others; and of men we believe that, by a law of nature or necessity, they will everywhere reign over those whom they are strong enough to subdue." THUCYDIDES, lib. v. (as Motto.) LONDON: PRINTED BY MANNING AND SMITHSON, ΤΟ THE SURVIVING OFFICERS WHO, DURING THE LATE WAR, SERVED WITH THE ROYAL REGIMENT, IN THE WEST-INDIES, WALCHREN, THE PENINSULA, FRANCE AND FLANDERS, THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED BY, THEIR FORMER COMRADE, THE AUTHOR. may PREFACE. THE opinions contained in the following pages, differ so widely from the military views of the day, that it be right, at once, to tell the reader not to expect any repetition of the laudatory strains so often put forward in support of the military institutions and practices of our time and country. The author leaves panegyric to abler hands: he believes that troops are dressed, armed and trained in a manner singularly at variance with the object for which they are raised ; that justice has never been done to the force of cavalry, and that the system of granting promotion according to wealth, patronage, or length of service, is as much opposed to the best dictates of humanity as to the best interests of the army: he believes, in fact, that our military institutions have shackled the noblest energies of our soldiers, and he endeavours to expose the evil, and to obtain the remedies so fully within our reach. That we have gained great victories is true: but we have sustained disasters which knowledge might have averted, and our triumphs were purchased at an expense of blood, toil and treasure, that, when the qualities of our men are consi |