after a defence in which three-fourths of their number had perished.[1] In short, even behind walls, and when they were largely mixed with regular troops, volunteers could not hold their own against military experience and discipline. Of the guerillas, Napier tells us that they could do nothing against even a house or church, of which the French had barricaded the entrance.[2] They were excellent for cutting off stragglers, intercepting communications, and generally giving annoyance, especially when they were backed by a regular army; but as a rule they were more formidable to their friends than to the enemy. The attempt to employ them has never again been made, except during the French occupation of Mexico, and then also it was a complete failure. Under generals of very ordinary talent, a small body of French troops kept the country down, as long as they were allowed to remain there.
The successes of the Boers in the Transvaal against British troops have revived in some quarters the belief that men who are good shots, and know the country, may be employed against well-disciplined troops, even in the open field. It must be borne in mind that one of the great sources of weakness in irregulars—their liability to get in one another's way—scarcely occurs when only handfuls of men are brought into action. The Boers had also seen service enough in Kaffir wars to be free from the liability to sudden panics. The force which Sir George Colley led to three separate defeats consisted altogether of less than 1100 men. They were
- ↑ Thiers estimates the troops actually before the walls at 18,000 (Consulat et Empire, livre 33); Alison at 16,500 (vol. vii. p. 243); while the troops inside Saragossa are put by Thiers at 40,000 to 45,000, and by Alison at 40,000. French troops, variously estimated at 17,000 to 26,000, were, however, employed in keeping open communications.
- ↑ Napier's Peninsular War, book xv. chap. i.
