that of his companions in arms, Algerian experience, there can be little doubt, was not calculated to make adepts in war, on a great scale, in Europe. Sudden attacks made on half barbarian tribes by flying columns, without artillery, dashing cavalry charges at short distances, and campaigns which were merely raids, were not a preparation for scientific warfare, for strategy in the highest sense, for tactics against Continental armies, even for military knowledge of real value; and the methods of the great days of Napoleon, were gradually forgotten by the chiefs of the army, which knew only of African triumphs. The fact did not escape the deep thinking soldier who was studying, in those years, with intense earnestness, the combinations which led to Jena and Austerlitz, and was learning with patient reflection. how to adapt the movements of war to the conditions of a new era. Long before he had believed it possible that he would lead the hosts of Germany to the walls of Paris, Moltke had expressed the opinion that the guerre de chicane which had gained renown for French chiefs in Algeria, actually unfitted them for the grande guerre of Europe. With other of his comrades, Macmahon was to prove, by notable instances, that this judgment was just.

Macmahon was forty before he obtained a brigade, and was made a general of division by Napoleon III., after the coup d'état of the 2nd December. He remained, however, a Royalist at heart; and it is said that when the votes of the army were taken in favour of the newly risen Empire, he declared that he only followed in the wake of his comrades; an indication, perhaps, of the weakness of purpose which was a defect in his noble character. He was not in the army which made the descent on the Crimea, in the autumn of 1854; he had no part in the deeds of Alma and Inkerman, or in the first long stages of the Siege of Sebastopol. He did not join in the expedition until its end was at hand; and in the summer of 1855 he was placed under the command of Bosquet, the chief of the second French corps d'armeé, who, in Algeria, had been subordinate to him. By this time the great siege, protracted for months, through the want of due preparation at first, through the engineering skill of Todleben, and by the stubborn constancy of the Russian troops, was not far from its tremendous close, but Sebastopol, in its

agony, still defied its enemies. Slowly, and after intense efforts, the advanced works before the fortress had been subdued, the Mamelon and the Quarries had been captured, and the batteries of the besiegers searched with their fire along a semicircle ever drawing in the whole space covered by the beleagured city. The army of relief, too, had been stricken down, along the Tchernaia, in a great effort; no further reinforcements could reach the garrison, for the resources of the Empire could yield no more, and the sufferings of the besieged soldiery, ravaged by a continuous 'fire of hell,' and scarcely able to man their shattered ramparts, were as frightful as had ever been seen in war. Yet the great assault of the 18th of June had failed, the Malakoff still covered the approaches to the place, and along the whole front, from the Quarantine to the Flagstaff Bastions, and the Little Redan, the defences, ruined and defaced as they were, and menaced by foes gathering in on all sides, were still held by undaunted men, and opposed a barrier even to the boldest enemy. In these circumstances the allied commanders, and especially the fierce and tenacious Pélissier, who had doggedly fastened on his intended prey, resolved to make a great effort to bring the struggle to a close, for otherwise indeed, they could hardly prolong the siege. On the 5th of September, 1855, fire opened from all parts of the allied lines, along an arc of many miles in extent, from the Cemetery towards the west, to the Careening bay eastwards; and under a tempest of missiles, raging for three days and nights, the defences yet available were still further destroyed, and thousands of the brave garrison perished. The final assault, which was to embrace every assailable point in the Russian works, was arranged to take place on the 8th of September, and Macmahon was selected to attack the Malakoff, the main key of the entire position, as had been indicated by Burgoyne from the beginning of the war.

The great effort which caused the fall of Sebastopol was carried out on the appointed day. An incident was turned by the allies to account; it had been ascertained that the troops in the Russian works marched out of them before they were relieved by others; and noon, the moment when this occurred, was selected for the universal attack. From west to east dense

masses of armed men burst out from the trenches, and though assailed by shot and shell along the space between, endeavoured to storm the defences of the places; but from various reasons these assaults failed; and the Central and Flagstaff Bistions, the Main Redan and the Little Redan, with the Curtain between, were successfully held by their brave garrisons. It was otherwise at the Malakoff, the decisive point, on which the result of the struggle depended. On each side of this work the ground was more easy for siege operations than anywhere else; the trenches were only twenty-five yards from the fort, and the space to be traversed by the assaulting columns was thus considerably less than at other spots. Exactly at noon, the very nick of time, Macmahon launched his troops against the projecting salient; ways skilfully concealed made the approach easy, and the French soldiery rapidly passing the ditch, which had been already wellnigh effaced, had soon entered the head of the work, at this instant almost without defenders. This success, though promising, was not complete; rows of traverses presenting lines of resistance, had been constructed around the Malakoff, and these became the scene of a murderous conflict, as thousands of Russians emerged from the pits and caves in which they had been accustomed to hide in order to avoid the allied artillery. A regular battle raged for some hours; Macmahon's brigades were hardly pressed by soldiers, determined to do or die,' and he has recorded in an interesting letter that the conduct of the Russians was truly heroic.' At last, however, he was largely reinforced. Whether he let fall the historic words 'j'y suis j'y reste' has been lately questioned, but he gave proof of great personal courage and skill; he made the best use of every advantage he won; and he set an admirable example to his men and their officers. The victory of the French was assured by four in the afternoon, and it was favoured by the circumstance that, as the gorge of the Malakoff had been completely closed, fresh reserves of the enemy could not be brought up to attack. Even then Macmahon had to guard against mines, which it was believed had been laid to destroy his troops; he superintended this task with cooiness and daring, and by nightfall the key of Sebastopol

had been placed in the allies' hands. His was certainly the master stroke of this eventful day.

The capture of the Malakoff was a fine exploit that brought out Macmahon's best qualities in war, undaunted bravery, skill in handling troops, and presence of mind and prompt intelligence. It was, however, only a brilliant feat of arms that gave no proof of the higher faculties of a chief, and in fact it was just the kind of achievement to be expected from a gallant Algerian soldier. Macmahon, however, was justly rewarded; he was made a Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, and became a Senator of the Second French Empire, and he was in France for a short time after the return of the army from the Crimea. He was a loyal subject of Napoleon III., though still attached to the Faubourg St. Germains, and in the Senate he showed an independent spirit, not improbably in his master's real interests, by voting against one of those aggressive laws too common in all periods of French history, of which the attempt of Orsini against the life of the Emperor was made the convenient pretext. We find him next in Algeria again, under Marshal Randon, as Governor-General, and he distinguished himself greatly in 1856-7, in a difficult campaign against the Kabyles. We pass on to the first occasion in which he played a part in European war on a great scale in the open field. He was made commander of the 2nd Corps of the combined French and Sardinian armies, which liberated Italy in 1859, and the operations, in which he was a chief actor, gained him a place among bold and successful chiefs, though they have been made the subject of some adverse comment. Macmahon, a lieutenant only of Napoleon III., had nothing to do with the plan of the celebrated march—even still a controverted study of strategy-by which the Emperor turned the extreme Austrian right; and we need only refer to his movements, on the day of Magenta, in the first instance. On the 3rd of June, Macmahon was on the eastern bank of the Ticino, around the small town of Turbigo, at the head of some 27,000 men; the Emperor was on the western bank, not far from the passage at San Martino, with less than 10,000 men in hand, and about eight or nine miles from Macmahon. The Sardinians were not far from that general, in the rear, and the rest of the

French army was from a march to half a march distant. The surrounding country was so close and difficult that the positions and movements of the Austrians had not been ascertained in the camps of the French; and the general purpose of the Emperor, it would seem, was that the Sardinians, and his 1st, 3rd, and 4th Corps, in the rear, should cross the Ticino at Turbigo, and that his collected army should then unite, either to attack the enemy, or to advance on Milan. As he intended, however, to

cross at San Martino himself, he directed Macmahon to draw near him, calling up perhaps the Sardinian contingent, but his arrangements prove that he did not believe a great battle was close at hand.*

In the early forenoon of the 4th of June, the Emperor and his division had reached the Ticino. The passage at San Martino was effected easily, but the wide line of the great canal beyond, to be crossed only by two bridges, and crowned by a high-raised dyke, opposed a formidable barrier to an attack. Finding this position of vantage more strongly occupied by the enemy than he had thought possible, Napoleon suspended his movement forward, waiting until Macmahon should, from Turbigo, effect his junction with him, around Magenta, a little town just beyond the canal. Macmahon, leaving the Sardinians in the rear, had meanwhile set off from Turbigo, dividing his army into two masses apart; and there is no reason to doubt that, like his superior, he believed he could reach Magenta without much resistance. The Austrians, however, had two corps d'armée, unknown to the French, around the place, and two more at no great distance; and Macmahon, discovering that he was confronted by an enemy in considerable strength, arrested also his march onwards, after an insignificant and hurried skirmish, until he had all his forces collected. A gap, therefore, of several miles was left between the two parts of the French army; the Emperor, nevertheless, in the belief that his lieutenant, the sound of whose guns had been heard, was certain to reach him in a

* The reader who cares to study thoroughly the campaign of 1859, may consult Major Adam's Great Campaigns, General Hamley's Operations of War, editions 1889 and 1866, and the masterly sketch of Moltke.