Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846Various
History
Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
This extract gives an idea at once of the formidable nature of the
contest which awaited the Christians in their attempts to recover the
Holy Land, of the peculiar character of the attack and defence on both
sides, and of the talent for graphic and lucid description which M.
Michaud possesses. It is curious how identical the attack of the West
and defence of the East are the same in all ages. The description of the
manner in which the Crusading warriors were here drawn into a pursuit
of, and then enveloped by the Asiatic light horse, is precisely the same
as that in which the legions of Crassus were destroyed; and might pass
for a narrative of the way in which Napoleon's European cavalry were cut
to pieces by the Arab horse at the combat at Salahout, near the Red Sea;
or Lord Lake's horse worsted in the first part of the battle of Laswaree
in India, before the infantry came up, and, by storming the batteries,
restored the combat. On the other hand, the final overthrow of the
Saracens at Dorislaus was evidently owing to their imprudence in
_standing firm_, and awaiting in that position the attack of the
Christians. They did so, trusting to the strength of the rocky ridge on
which they were posted; but that advantage, great as it was, by no means
rendered them a match in close fight for the weighty arms and the
determined resolution of the Europeans, any more than the discharges of
their powerful batteries availed the Mahrattas in the latter part of the
battles of Assaye and Laswaree, or, more recently, the Sikhs in the
desperate conflict at Ferozepore in the Punjaub. The discovery of
fire-arms, and all the subsequent improvements in tactics and strategy,
though they have altered the weapons with which war is carried on, yet
have not materially changed the mode in which success is won, or
disaster averted, between ancient and modern times.
Our author's account of the storming of Jerusalem, the final object and
crowning glory of the Crusades, is animated and interesting in the
highest degree.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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