The vexed question of the relative part played by the Prussians and ourselves will never be settled to the satisfaction of all. One point in regard to this question has, in my humble opinion, never been sufficiently brought out. The Prussian army was virtually an army of mercenaries, kept in the field by the large subsidies so generously voted by the English Parliament. It is true that we might have held our own without the arrival of the Prussians, but it is quite certain that we should never have inflicted the crushing defeat had not Blücher arrived--not so opportunely, as some writers assert, but according to his promise. Then, we know that the battle was a part of the prearranged plan between the Duke of Wellington and Prince Blücher. This, however, is beyond all doubt--that had it not been for the generous subsidies voted to Prussia by the English Parliament, amounting to 3,000,000 sterling, in the years 1814-15, there would have been no Prussian army to assist us. Throughout the wars with Napoleon, Austria, Prussia, and Russia received large sums to enable them to keep their armies in the field. It was not only the King's German Legion which was paid with English gold, but the Prussian army also; and when the Germans taunt the British army with being an army of mercenaries, it would be well for them to study the financial conditions under which they fought in the wars with France in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The following figures, showing the pecuniary assistance afforded by England to her allies, are of passing interest:
+------+--------------+--------------+--------------+ | | AUSTRIA. | PRUSSIA. | RUSSIA. | +------+--------------+--------------+--------------+ |1814 | £545,612 | £1,757,669 | £1,758,436 | |1815 | £1,475,632 | £2,555,473 | £1,330,171 | |1816 | £1,796,229 | £2,382,823 | £3,241,919 | +------+--------------+--------------+--------------+