History supplies many examples of mental activity of this kind.[2] Napoleon predicted the impetuous onset of the Russian left wing against his right at _Austerlitz_, Dec. 2, 1805, because he knew the temperament of the Tsar Alexander. At Austerlitz, the most brilliant of all his battles, Napoleon had 70,000 troops and was confronted by 80,000 Austrians and Russians drawn up on the Heights of Pratzen. His plan was to draw the weight of the Russian attack against his right--which was so disposed as to invite the headstrong and {10} self-confident Tsar "to administer a lesson in generalship to Napoleon"--and then to launch a superior attack against the Heights, which contained a village and a knoll, the key to the position; and finally to hurl his General Reserve in a decisive counter-attack on the Russians when they were involved in battle with his right wing. When the rattle of musketry and booming of the guns showed that his right was engaged, Napoleon launched Murat, Bernadotte, and Soult against the allied centre; when Soult was master of the village and the knoll, and as the broken remnants of the enemy's centre were streaming down the reverse slopes of the Pratzen Ridge, the French centre wheeled round to the right and threw itself upon the flank and rear of the Russians, who were still heavily engaged in their original attack. These operations were completely successful and over 40,000 of the opposing armies were accounted for. Wellington defeated Soult at Sauroren in the Pyrenees (July 28, 1813) by taking advantage of a minor incident. He had ridden forward to see the disposition of the French forces, and as his men cheered him all along the line, he turned to his staff and said, "Soult is a very cautious commander. He will delay his attack to find out what those cheers mean; that will give time for the Sixth Division to arrive and I shall beat him"--and the event turned out exactly as he had predicted. Generals R. E. Lee and T. J. Jackson frequently played upon the nervousness of President Lincoln for the safety of Washington, and by threatening to cross the Potomac induced him to withdraw troops that were advancing against Richmond. NATIONAL MORAL.--The moral fibre of the nation and of the troops must also be taken into consideration. "The common theory that, in order to win, an army must have superiority of rifles and cannon, better bases, more wisely chosen positions, is radically false. For it leaves out of account the most important part of the {11} problem, that which animates it and makes it live, man--with his moral, intellectual, and physical qualities" (Marshal Foch).