Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: MORAL EFFECT IN WAR. Writing to his brother Joseph in 1808, Napoleon said, " In war the moral forces are to the physical as three to one" Let us inquire here what are the moral forces which in war are to the physical as three to one? Whence their origin? Of what are they composed? And how are they developed, fostered, and maintained? The first of them all is undoubtedly that feeling of strength and superiority which springs from pride of race, from tradition and training, and from organization and discipline. This feeling, which includes individual courage and moral resolution, has always been characteristic of the British soldier. Courage is no doubt innate in him; and moral resolution has been developed by his training and by his surroundings; and the two together, under able leadership, have earned him in all parts of the world a reputation for " constancy in battle," second to none, and equalled by few. "For a battle," says von Muffling, "there is not perhaps an army equal to the British; that is to say, none whose tuition, discipline, and whole military tendency are so purely and exclusively calculated for giving battle. The British soldier is vigorous, well fed, by nature brave and intrepid, trained to the most rigorous discipline, and admirably well armed. The infantry resist the attacks of cavalry with great Napier, i. p. 452. confidence, and when taken in the flank or rear, British troops are less disconcerted than any other European army." This is high praise, and another foreign critic, General Foy, has said of the English soldier that " he possesses the quality most precious in war—calmness in anger." At Isandhlwana, in 1879, when the Zulus were closing in and the remnants of the 24th regiment were holding together in groups, in this moment of supr...