Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 2.10.2

2.10.2

These immense armies frequently perform great feats; but when thrown into confusion it is impossible to restore them to discipline. They resemble an impetuous river which has burst its banks; and whose waters, unrestrained in their course, disperse over the surrounding country, while no means can be devised to arrest them in their career of desolation. I could never see these soldiers, destitute of order, and marching with the irregularity of a herd of animals, without reflecting upon the ease with which five-and-twenty thousand of our veterans from the army in Flanders, commanded by Prince Condé or Marshal Turenne, would overcome these armies, however numerous. I am no longer incredulous, or even astonished, when I read of the exploits of the ten thousand Greeks, or of the achievements of the fifty thousand Macedonians under Alexander, though opposed to six or seven hundred thousand men; if, indeed, it be true that the armies of Darius amounted to so many, and that the servants, and various other persons employed to procure provisions, were not comprehended in this number. By receiving the onset with their usual steadiness, the French troops would throw any Indian army into consternation; or they might, as Alexander did, direct their chief effort to a particular part of the line; and the success attending such a movement would fill the enemy with terror, and occasion an immediate and general dispersion.