The North British Review (Volume 50) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1869. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... THE NORTH BRITISH REVIEW. March lsfoinvsasiTY; Art. I.--1. The Royal Engineer. By Sir Francis B. Head. 8vo. London, 1869. 2. Professional Papers of the Royal Engineers. London. If the art of war has made no marked progress of late years among those of us who are soldiers by profession, it is certain that a considerable knowledge of military matters has recently been diffused through our community at large. Armies--their organization and their evolutions--are subjects which, little more than a dozen years ago, were surrounded with a halo of mystery penetrable by none but men bearing arms. Few but those who held Her Majesty's commission ventured to express an opinion on such matters. The only literature in which they were noticed consisted of one or two periodicals whose circulation was limited to mess-rooms and military clubs. But this state of things has disappeared. Along with the troops who undertook the invasion of the Crimea, there went a few Englishmen in no way trained in the avocations of fighting, but who not the less managed to furnish our newspapers with descriptions of every phase of that expedition; and this they did in terms so accurate and so graphic as to lead their readers to the conclusion that, after all, military affaire might prove capable of being understood by any man of ordinary education and intelligence. Even the technical phraseology of warfare came by degrees to be appreciated by men who hitherto had shrunk from approaching what seemed to them an insurmountable obstacle to researches in this field. Its terms were soon discovered to be neither numerous nor hard of comprehension. Long before Sebastopol had fallen most of us had mastered this little VOL. L.--NO. XCIX. A formidable vocabulary by no more difficult process than the perusal o...