The close agglomeration of
legionary soldiers in the Roman centre, the tempest of stones which fell
on their ranks from the slings of the Balearic marksmen, and the laying
bare of the huge unwieldy mass by the defeat of the cavalry on their
flanks was precisely the counterpart of what occurred in the army of
Philippe of Valois in the first of these memorable fields, when the
French men-at-arms, thirty-two deep, were thrown into confusion by the
incessant discharges of the English archers, their flanks laid open by
the repulse of the vehement charge of their horse by Henry V., and their
dense columns slaughtered where they stood, unable alike to fight or to
fly, by the general advance of the English billmen. Still closer,
perhaps, is the resemblance to the defeat of the French centre under
Lannes, which penetrated in a solid column into the centre of the
Austrian army at Aspern. Its weight, and the gallantry of the leading
files, brought the huge mass even to the reserves of the Archduke; but
that gallant prince at length stopped their advance by six regiments of
Hungarian grenadiers; the German artillery and musketry tore their
flanks by an incessant discharge on either side; and at length the
formidable column was forced back like an immense wild beast bleeding at
every pore, but still combating and unsubdued, to the banks of the
Danube. The repulse of the formidable English column, fourteen thousand
strong, which defeated in succession every regiment in the French army
except the last reserve of two regiments of guards at Fontenoy, and the
still more momentous defeat of the last attack of the Imperial Guard at
Waterloo, also bear a striking and interesting resemblance to the rout
of the Roman centre after it had penetrated the Carthaginian line at the
battle of Cannae. In truth, the attack in column, formidable beyond
measure if not met by valour and combated with skill, is exposed to the
most serious dangers if the line in its front is strong and resolute
enough to withstand the impulse, till its flanks are overlapped and
enveloped by a cross fire from the enemies' lines, converging inwards,
as Colborne and Maitland did at Waterloo on the flank of the Old Guard;
and thence it is that the French attack in column, so often victorious
over the other troops in Europe, has never succeeded against the close
and destructive fire of the English infantry; guided by the admirable
dispositions with which Wellington first repelled