It is only the failure to see the connection between
warfare on land and naval warfare that prevents these land raids
being given the same significance and importance that is usually
given to those carried out across the sea.
In the year 1809, the year of Wagram, Napoleon's military influence
in Central Germany was, to say the least, not at its lowest.
Yet Colonel Schill, of the Prussian cavalry, with 1200 men,
subsequently increased to 2000 infantry and 12 squadrons, proceeded
to Wittenberg, thence to Magdeburg, and next to Stralsund, which
he occupied and where he met his death in opposing an assault
made by 6000 French troops. He had defied for a month all the
efforts of a large army to suppress him. In the same year the
Duke of Brunswick-Oels and Colonel Dornberg, notwithstanding the
smallness of the force under them, by their action positively
induced Napoleon, only a few weeks before Wagram, to detach the
whole corps of Kellerman, 30,000 strong, which otherwise would
have been called up to the support of the Grande Armee, to the
region in which these enterprising raiders were operating. The
mileage covered by Schill was nearly as great as that covered by
the part of Hoche's expedition which under Grouchy did reach an
Irish port, though it was not landed. Instances of cavalry raids
were frequent in the War of Secession in America. The Federal
Colonel B. H. Grierson, of the 6th Illinois Cavalry, with another
Illinois and an Iowa cavalry regiment, in April 1863 made a raid
which lasted sixteen days, and in which he covered 600 miles of
hostile country, finally reaching Baton Rouge, where a friendly
force was stationed.
Pages:
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186