If he
allows himself to be guided by the commissaries, he will never stir,
and all his expeditions will fail." An example of his common sense is
what he says of the passage of the Alps in winter, which all writers,
one repeating after the other, had described as impracticable. "The
winter," says Napoleon, "is not the most unfavorable season for the
passage of lofty mountains. The snow is then firm, the weather settled,
and there is nothing to fear from avalanches, the real and only danger
to be apprehended in the Alps. On those high mountains, there are often
very fine days in December, of a dry cold, with extreme calmness in
the air." Read his account, too, of the way in which battles are gained.
"In all battles, a moment occurs, when the bravest troops, after having
made the greatest efforts, feel inclined to run. That terror proceeds
from a want of confidence in their own courage; and it only requires
a slight opportunity, a pretense, to restore confidence to them. The
art is to give rise to the opportunity, and to invent the pretense.
At Arcola, I won the battle with twenty-five horsemen.
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