The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Man of Destiny, by George Bernard Shaw

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Title: The Man of Destiny

Author: George Bernard Shaw

Posting Date: June 4, 2009 [EBook #4024]
Release Date: May, 2003
First Posted: October 12, 2001

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE MAN OF DESTINY

BERNARD SHAW

1898

The twelfth of May, 1796, in north Italy, at Tavazzano, on the road
from Lodi to Milan. The afternoon sun is blazing serenely over the
plains of Lombardy, treating the Alps with respect and the anthills
with indulgence, not incommoded by the basking of the swine and oxen in
the villages nor hurt by its cool reception in the churches, but
fiercely disdainful of two hordes of mischievous insects which are the
French and Austrian armies. Two days before, at Lodi, the Austrians
tried to prevent the French from crossing the river by the narrow
bridge there; but the French, commanded by a general aged 27, Napoleon
Bonaparte, who does not understand the art of war, rushed the fireswept
bridge, supported by a tremendous cannonade in which the young general
assisted with his own hands. Cannonading is his technical specialty; he
has been trained in the artillery under the old regime, and made
perfect in the military arts of shirking his duties, swindling the
paymaster over travelling expenses, and dignifying war with the noise
and smoke of cannon, as depicted in all military portraits. He is,
however, an original observer, and has perceived, for the first time
since the invention of gunpowder, that a cannon ball, if it strikes a
man, will kill him. To a thorough grasp of this remarkable discovery,
he adds a highly evolved faculty for physical geography and for the
calculation of times and distances. He has prodigious powers of work,
and a clear, realistic knowledge of human nature in public affairs,
having seen it exhaustively tested in that department during the French
Revolution. He is imaginative without illusions, and creative without
religion, loyalty, patriotism or any of the common ideals. Not that he
is i