e patriots
must have been defeated. It is not so easy to discover a fund of
military glory in the War of 1812.

That was a great war year. Within a few days of the declaration of war
by the United States against Great Britain, Napoleon's Grand Army of
over 400,000 men crossed the Niemen into Russia. Six months later 4,000
of that host recrossed, pursued by the Russians; and probably not more
than 100,000 of the whole number ever saw their homes again. In 1813,
while the Americans were fighting on the ocean and on Lake Erie,
Napoleon was driven out of Germany. A few weeks before the Battle of
Lundy's Lane, Napoleon was compelled to abdicate. Soon after the news of
the Peace of Ghent with Great Britain was received in the United States,
in 1815, Napoleon broke loose from Elba; and a few months later he was
again a prisoner and sent to St. Helena.

[Entered at the Postoffice at New York, N.Y., as second-class matter.
Copyright, 1916, by The Mentor Association, Inc.]

To most of Europe the American War of 1812 seemed an unwarrantable flank
attack in the great running fight of the nations. Russia and
Prussia resented it that American statesmen should throw the weight of
their country on the side of the great military despot of his time. They
wanted none of the military and naval strength of Great Britain to be
diverted across the ocean. The suggestion was even made in Congress that
the United States ought to declare war at the same moment on both France
and England. That idea has been carried out by Captain Marryat in his
once popular novel "Midshipman Easy," where he describes a triangular
duel between three sailors; but nations could hardly engage in such a
game.

[Illustration: ANDREW JACKSON

From the painting by John Vanderlyn]

THE ELEPHANT AND THE WHALE

Nevertheless Congress found some difficulty in selecting the enemy to
fight; for the conditions were remarkably like those of the year 1915.
People used to talk then about the "war between the elephant and the
whale": the elephant being the land army of Napoleon, which apparently
nothing could withstand, and the whale being the navy of Great Britain,
which had command of the sea. That struggle reached a crisis in 1806,
when the two belligerents, not being able to reach and hammer each
other, did their best to hammer the neutral carrying trade, which was
carried on largely in American ships.

[Illustration: THE SURRENDER OF GENERAL HULL

General Hull surr