n
proved, and experience confirms it every day, that the difference is
immense between the speculator and the operator, and that the generals of
Cabinets are often indifferent captains when in the camp or in the field.

Preceded by a certain celebrity, Baron von Mack served, in 1793, under
the Prince of Coburg, as an adjutant-general, and was called to assist at
the Congress at Antwerp, where the operations of the campaign were
regulated. Everywhere he displayed activity and bravery; was wounded
twice in the month of May; but he left the army without having performed
anything that evinced the talents which fame had bestowed on him. In
February, 1794, the Emperor sent him to London to arrange, in concert
with your Government, the plans of the campaign then on the eve of being
opened; and when he returned to the Low Countries he was advanced to a
quartermaster-general of the army of Flanders, and terminated also this
unfortunate campaign without having done anything to justify the
reputation he had before acquired or usurped. His Sovereign continued,
nevertheless, to employ him in different armies; and in January, 1797, he
was appointed a Field-marshal lieutenant and a quartermaster-general of
the army of the Rhine. In February he conducted fifteen thousand of the
troops of this army to reinforce the army of Italy; but when Bonaparte in
April penetrated into Styria and Carinthia, he was ordered to Vienna as a
second in command of the levy 'en masse'.

Real military characters had already formed their opinion of this
officer, and saw a presumptuous charlatan where others had admired an
able warrior. His own conduct soon convinced them that they neither had
been rash nor mistaken. The King of Naples demanding, in 1798, from his
son-in-law, the Emperor of Germany, a general to organize and head his
troops, Baron von Mack was presented to him. After war had been declared
against France he obtained some success in partial engagements, but was
defeated in a general battle by an enemy inferior in number. In the
Kingdom of Naples, as well as in the Empire of Germany, the fury of
negotiation seized him when he should have fought, and when he should
have remembered that no compacts can ever be entered into with political
and military earthquakes, more than with physical ones. This imprudence,
particularly as he was a foreigner, excited suspicion among his troops,
whom, instead of leading to battle, he deserted, under the p