battle-field has been described in the preceding chapter, (Art. XIX.)

Having now explained the twelve orders of battle, it has occurred to me
that this would be a proper place to reply to several statements made in
the Memoirs of Napoleon published by General Montholon.

The great captain seems to consider the oblique order a modern
invention, a theorist's fancy,--an opinion I can by no means share; for
the oblique order is as old as Thebes and Sparta, and I have seen it
used with my own eyes. This assertion of Napoleon's seems the more
remarkable because Napoleon himself boasted of having used, at Marengo,
the very order of which he thus denies the existence.

If we understand that the oblique order is to be applied in the rigid
and precise manner inculcated by General Ruchel at the Berlin school.
Napoleon was certainly right in regarding it as an absurdity; but I
repeat that a line of battle never was a regular geometrical figure, and
when such figures are used in discussing the combinations of tactics it
can only be for the purpose of giving definite expression to an idea by
the use of a known symbol. It is nevertheless true that every line of
battle which is neither parallel nor perpendicular to the enemy's must
be oblique of necessity. If one army attacks the extremity of another
army, the attacking wing being reinforced by massing troops upon it
while the weakened wing is kept retired from attack, the direction of
the line must of necessity be a little oblique, since one end of it
will be nearer the enemy than the other. The oblique order is so far
from being a mere fancy that we see it used when the order is that by
echelons on one wing, (Fig. 14.)

As to the other orders of battle explained above, it cannot be denied
that at Essling and Fleurus the general arrangement of the Austrians was
a concave line, and that of the French a convex. In these orders
parallel lines may be used as in the case of straight lines, and they
would be classified as belonging to the parallel system when no part of
the line was more strongly occupied or drawn up nearer to the enemy than
another.

Laying aside for the present further consideration of these geometrical
figures, it is to be observed that, for the purpose of fighting battles
in a truly scientific manner, the following points must be attended
to:--

1. An offensive order of battle should have for its object to force
the enemy from his position by all reaso