The assumption was not entirely true. For although the Continent had never
before adopted the methods in question, our own country was no stranger to
them either on sea or land. As we shall see, our own Revolution in the
seventeenth century had produced strenuous methods of making war which were
closely related to those which Napoleon took over from the French
Revolutionary leaders. A more philosophic outlook might have suggested that
the phenomenon was not really exceptional, but rather the natural outcome
of popular energy inspired by a stirring political ideal. But the British
precedent was forgotten, and so profound was the disturbance caused by the
new French methods that its effects are with us still. We are in fact still
dominated by the idea that since the Napoleonic era war has been
essentially a different thing. Our teachers incline to insist that there is
now only one way of making war, and that is Napoleon's way. Ignoring the
fact that he failed in the end, they brand as heresy the bare suggestion
that there may be other ways, and not content with assuming that his system
will fit all land wars, however much their natures and objects may differ,
they would force naval warfare into the same uniform under the impression
apparently that they are thereby making it presentable and giving it some
new force.

Seeing how cramping the Napoleonic idea has become, it will be convenient
before going further to determine its special characteristics exactly, but
that is no easy matter. The moment we approach it in a critical spirit, it
begins to grow nebulous and very difficult to define. We can dimly make out
four distinct ideas mingled in the current notion. First, there is the idea
of making war not merely with a professional standing army, but with the
whole armed nation--a conception which of course was not really Napoleon's.
It was inherited by him from the Revolution, but was in fact far older. It
was but a revival of the universal practice which obtained in the barbaric