with the third of the army, (thirteen thousand men,) was to pass twelve miles beyond the right flank and get in rear of this army of sixty thousand men, which could not help being victorious over these divided fractions, and should certainly have captured the part in their rear. Saint-Cyr's escape was indeed little less than a miracle.
We may call to mind how this same General Weyrother, who had desired to surround Napoleon at Rivoli, attempted the same maneuver at Austerlitz, in spite of the severe lesson he had formerly received. The left wing of the allied army, wishing to outflank Napoleon's right, to cut him off from Vienna, (where he did not desire to return,) by a circular movement of nearly six miles, opened an interval of a mile and a half in their line. Napoleon took advantage of this mistake, fell upon the center, and surrounded their left, which was completely shut up between Lakes Tellnitz and Melnitz.
Wellington gained the battle of Salamanca by a maneuver very similar to Napoleon's, because Marmont, who wished to cut off his retreat to Portugal, left an opening of a mile and a half in his line,—seeing which, the English general entirely defeated his left wing, that had no support.
If Weyrother had been opposed to Jourdan at Rivoli or at Austerlitz, he might have destroyed the French army, instead of suffering in each case a total defeat; for the general who at Stockach attacked a mass of sixty thousand men with four small bodies of troops so much separated as to be unable to give mutual aid would not have known how to take proper advantage of a wide detour effected in his presence. In the same way, Marmont was unfortunate in having at Salamanca an adversary whose chief merit was a rapid and practiced tactical coup-d'oeil. With the Duke of York or Moore for an antagonist, Marmont would probably have been successful.
Among the turning maneuvers which have succeeded in our day, Waterloo and Hohenlinden had the most brilliant results. Of these the