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FORTY YEARS\
c^W^ AFTER Iga,"
S
THE STORY OF THE FRANCO-GERMAN
WAR, 1870 Wy
BY
H. C. BAILEY
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
VV. L. COURTNEY, LL.D.
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
MCMXIV
gt
290
/
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER
I
In the midst of a Franco-German conflict,
in which the whole mihtary resources of
Berlin, combined with those of Vienna,
are pitted against the members of the Triple
Entente, it is natural that many readers
should turn back to the records of the
similar conflict which was waged in 1870.
Only middle-aged men are able to recall
the incidents in the earlier campaign. To
the majority of us it remains as the mere
memory of some great and devastating
tornado, which laid waste the fields of
France, and tore away from her the pro-
vinces of Alsace and Lorraine.
It is curious, however, to note, despite
certain points of resemblance, how different
the two campaigns are, both in general and
in special features. In 1870 France and
Germany were the scie combatants. It is
true that Napoleon III. expected the as-
sistance, both of Austria and of Italy.
But that was one of the fatal mis-calcula-
tions of his policy, which in other respects
6 Forty Years After
also betrayed an absence of prevision and
thought. While the Prussians were fight-
ing Austria in 1866 Napoleon had a great
opportunity of intervening on the side
of the country which was ultimately
defeated. That he did not take this
opportunity proves that he had not clearly
foreseen the ultimate and inevitable conflict
between himself and the War Lords of
Berlin. Subsequently he made some^ten-
Tative efforts to retrieve this mistake, and
he seems to have thought that he had
secured for himself a definite chance of
assistance from lands imperilled by the
growing might of Prussia. Undoubtedly,
he thought that he had been betrayed in
this matter, but the details of the negotia-
tions are very obscure and the main fact
is that, at the outbreak of hostilities in the
beginning of August 1870, France stood
alone and the sympathies of Europe at
large were doubtful. It must be remem-
bered that France during the Third Em-
pire was constantly menacing the peace of
Europe, just as she had done during the
First Empire, and among the smaller
nationalities at all events there was little
or no affection towards Napoleon him-
self.
In the present war of 1914 the roles are
Introductory 7
reversed. France is not the aggressor,
but Germany, and the Emperor WiUiam
stands as the despot whom Europe fears.
Hence in the present gigantic campaign
we have Germany, with its ally Austria,
confronted by France on the west, Russia
on the east, with Great Britain co-operating
in aid of the Triple Entente both by land
and sea ; while Italy hesitates whether or
no to join the forces in which she is most
interested and help the French fleet to
clear the Adriatic of her Austrian rival.
Tlius the sympathies of the world are
clearly on the side of the Triple Entente,
for it is generally recognized that a Europe
dominated by the Kaiser w^ould be almost
uninhabitable. The chief feature, in fact,
of the present situation is the uprising of
free peoples against a dominion of brute
force and arrogant materialism.
Rapidity and Dilatoriness
The war has already lasted a little more
than six weeks, and at once a fresh point
of difference between it and the war of
1870 is apparent. Nothing was more
striking than the rapidity with which events
moved in the earlier campaign. A forward
movement took place about the 28th July
in 1870. On August ist occurred the
8 Forty Years After
somewhat theatrical affair at Saarbriicken,
when the young Prince Imperial received
his '* baptism of fire/* As a matter of fact
Napoleon III. was forced to make some
sort of move owing to the slow concentra-
tion of the French troops, and his desire to
attract the sympathy, and probably the
help, of the Austrians and Italians. Then
followed a series of engagements. On
August 4th a German victory at Weissen-
burg was closely followed on the 6th by
similar triumphs at Spicheren and Worth.
After an interval of a week there occurred,
on August 13th, the struggle at Colombey-
Bomy. Three days afterwards the news
arrived of a German victory at Vionville-
Mars-la-Tour, and two days after that of a
sanguinary engagement at Gravelotte-St.
Privat. On August 19th the investment
of Bazaine in Metz was begun. Less than
a fortnight afterwards, on September ist,
came the crowning disaster at Sedan, when
Napoleon III. surrendered to his German
conqueror. Thus the most significant in-
cidents were all crowded into a space of
.some five weeks. The forces engaged were
not so large as those which have met in the
shock of battle during the course of the
present war, but the German superiority
was everywhere visible, and the issue of
Introductory 9
the campaign, after the first few days,
was never really in doubt.
The Barrier of Liege
Compare this drama of five weeks with
the opening of the war of 1914, and the
contrast is vivid and striking. On August
2nd the Germans violated the neutrality
of Luxemburg and probably made a raid
over the frontier at Longwy or Cirey. On
August 3rd and 4th Belgium was invaded in
defiance of all the treaties. On the 5th and
6th commenced the struggle before Liege,
in which the Belgians obstinately, and
successfully, resisted the attacks of the
invading army. On the 7th, so greatly had
the Germans suffered in these engagements,
an armistice was asked for and refused.
On the same day, in another part of the
theatre of war, in Alsace, the French had
commenced offensive operations and cap-
tured Altkirch. On August 12th and 13th
took place the fights at Haelen and Eghezee,
followed on the 15th by a serious battle at
Dinant, in which the French prevented an
attempted crossing of the River Meuse
and recaptured Dinant itself which had
been taken by the enemy. The British
Expeditionary Force was safely landed on
the French coast and sent to join the
10 Forty Years After
French and Belgian army somewhere in
the neighbourhood of Brussels. An impor-
tant combat near Brussels, extending over
several miles, began on the 17th, and
the Belgian capital was evacuated.
Progress of the War
It is clear then that the military opera-
tions in the present war did not bring about,
during the early weeks, the big battles that
were expected. The reason is tolerably
plain. Evidently the Germans thought
that they could sweep with ease through
Belgium. The fact that for some days
they knocked their heads in vain against
the forts of Liege opened their eyes to the
magnitude of the task they had undertaken.
Perhaps the War Staff in BerUn trusted too
much to the effects of a sudden attack,
without completing their commissariat
arrangements ; and, indeed, without bring-
ing up those monstrous siege guns which
are the latest invention of Krupp's factory.
They learnt their lesson later. The pick
of the German army was poured through
Belgium during the last half of August, and
the whole panorama of war was changed.
It would seem that General J off re, for
some reason or other, did not anticipate
the main German attack so far towards
Introductory 11
the north. Probably, for purely patriotic
reasons he was anxious to show to France
that they were on their way to recover,
the lost provinces of Alsace and Lorraine.
At all events the Allies found themselves
in Belgium in no position to resist the
German advance. The battle of Charleroi
began on August 21st, and ended the next
day in a French defeat. Simultaneously, or
rather a day later, the British army was
engaged at Mons with greatly superior
forces and had to retire. The fall of Namur
was announced on August 24th. Lou vain
was destroyed by the Germans on August
25th, and the Allies from that date up to
the beginning of September were forced
to fall back, fighting rearguard actions
all the way, until they took up a position
on August 31st on the line—the Seine, the
Oise and the Upper Meuse. It looked for
the moment as if Paris was to undergo
another siege, and the Government with-
drew from the capital to Bordeaux. But
September 5th saw a dramatic change.
The German attack, under General von
Kluck, was diverted from Paris in an
easterly direction, probably owing to strong
reinforcements which had joined the French
army from the south, and the English army
from Havre and Dieppe. The tide of
12 Forty Years After
invasion began to turn, and the Allies
gradually forced the Germans back from
positions which were just east of Paris
to St. Quentin and the north of Rheims.
On September i6th, although here and
there the German retreat had become
disorderly, many guns and prisoners being
captured by the Allies, it was announced
that the Germans were making a stand,
and a further great battle, succeeding
the battle of the Mame on September
7th and onwards, seemed imminent. What
was clear throughout, however, was that
the English army was as vigorous for
attack as it had been in defence, that the
French artillery was on the whole superior to
the German, and that the French soldier was
a finer and more stalwart combatant than
he had proved himself forty years before.
II
French Troops in 1870
The supposed inferiority, however, of the
French troops as compared with the Ger-
mans in the war of 1870, is hardly borne out
by the facts. The real difference between
the two armies lay in leadership and organi-
zation. The German staff had long before
the outbreak of the war prepared a scheme
of operations in which two main objects
Introductory 13
were kept in view — the defeat of the French
armies in the field and the occupation of
Paris. Year by year these plans were
overhauled and brought up to date in
accordance with any fresh circumstances
that might arise, such as the co-operation
of minor German armies and the like. So
far as we know, no similar French plan was
in existence, though it is quite possible that
an outline scheme had been prepared in
view of Austrian and Italian assistance.
We must remember that in June, 1870,
General Le Brun had been sent by Napoleon
as a confidential agent to Vienna and that
rightly or wrongly the French Emperor had
made up his mind that if he concentrated
his troops in northern Bavaria he would be
joined by Austrians and Italians and that
the united army would then march by
Jena to Berlin. How or why the scheme
broke down we cannot say. Perhaps it was
betrayed to Moltke and the Prussians.
Opening Scenes
At any rate, when war was declared, the
French troops, despite the celebrated remark
that they were ready to the last button
of their gaiters, were as a matter of fact
without transport and supplies. If only
the five army corps had been in readiness
14 Forty Years After
and had been led by generals of vigour and
resource, they could have fallen on the
Germans' 2nd Army which had been pushed
forward by Moltke almost before it was
ready and was struggling in the defiles of
the Hardt, with a crushing superiority.
The French intelligence service was notori-
ously inefficient at this juncture, for it
failed to report the further fact that the
3rd German Army, owing to want of pre-
paration, was entirely unable to move so as
to keep the enemy's attention from Armies
I and 2. It is piteous to read how the
French soldiers were marched and counter-
marched along the frontiers during the
early days of the war, apparently with no
other object than to find some defensive
position wherein to use their new weapons,
the Chassepots and the mitrailleuse. And
as we know, the demonstration at Saar-
briicken on August ist was more of the
nature of a theatrical display than a real
military movement.
Weapons of War
It is curious to observe that as in the
present war the French had the better
weapons, for the Prussian needle-gun was
as manifestly inferior to the Chassepot as
it had proved itself superior to the Austrian
Introductory 16
arm in the campaign of 1866. Perhaps
the mitrailleuse did not do all that was
expected of it and of course the French
artillery was not half as good as the Creusot
guns of to-day. The remark, however,
may be hazarded that throughout the war
of 1870 the French were more often than
was necessary asked to fight in defensive
positions and behind fortifications — a mode
of fighting which does not suit the *' furia
Francese " as much as resolute charges
in the open. They were on the defensive
at Weissenburg, at Spicheren, above all at
Gravelotte — possibly because of the sup-
posed superiority of their weapons. In the
present war they have been allowed to charge
in the open field and the Germans have
already had cause to fear their bayonets.
In many of the engagements of 1870 the
French came within an ace of victory.
That was the case notably at the battle of
Spicheren, where Frossard — one of the few
generals who acted up to his reputation —
had practically won, and would have gained
a brilliant success if he had only had the
support he naturally expected from the
generals near him. The same thing can be
said of the engagement at Colombey-Borny,
which was clearly a drawn battle : while,
with a little more luck, the disasters at
16 Forty Years After
Weissenburg and Worth might have been
changed into successes.
Incompetent Generals
No, it was not the French soldier
who was wanting either in courage or
pertinacity. It was the incompetence of his
generals which ruined his cause. We have
already seen how feebly the directing chiefs
grasped the essential conditions at the very
beginning of the campaign and how use-
lessly the troops were marched forward
and backward along the frontier. After
Saarbriicken, where success was gained
thanks to an overwhelming force, the
victors did not even break down the bridges
in order to retard the advancing foe. The
French had no tactician in any sense equal to
Prince Ferdinand Charles, nor yet any cavalry
leader — except possibly Galliff et — equal
to von Alvensleben. Marshal MacMahon
allowed himself, over and over again, to be
controlled by political rather than by purely
military considerations. Bazaine was full
of indecision — even if the charge of treach-
ery against him ought to be withdrawn —
and never seemed to be able to make up his
mind when he ought to fight or when it
was wise to retreat. And as for Napoleon
himself, he was in the grasp of cruel anxiety
Introductory 17
about his capital and his own imperial
power ; and quite apart from the illness
which incapacitated him, was constantly
changing his purposes and interfering with
the strategy of his generals, according to
the pressure of events behind him. The
mad scheme of MacMahon's march to
relieve Metz and the consequent debacle
of Sedan were the direct results of subor-
dinating military interests to the necessities
of the Napoleonic regime.
Ill
Changes in German Character
Only at certain intervals and under the
pressure of great events do we discover the
extent of radical change in national charac-
teristics. The change may be amehoration,
reform, such as many observers have found
in the French nation since Sedan or among
the Swedes since they made their resolute
effgrt to suppress drunkenness. Or else it
may be a downward process, like that which
has converted the Germans before 1870 to
the Germans we see to-day. The fact of
the change can hardly be doubted. What
sort of barbarians are the men who ravage
and slay peaceful inhabitants in Belgium,
destroy their churches, kill the wounded,
and carry on a war even against defenceless
18 Forty Years After
women and children ? We should like to
disbelieve the stories which come from the
neighbourhood of Brussels and Liege ; but
they rest on the authority of responsible
officials, such as the Commission appointed
by the Belgian Government, and are testified
to by eye-witnesses like newspaper correspon-
dents of position and honesty. Who are the
men who describe a solemn treaty between
nations as ** a scrap of paper" to be torn asun-
der at the first favourable opportunity, and
declare their resolution " to hack their way
through '' all the constraining bonds of
legality and justice ? None other than
the German Chancellor, von Bethmann-
HoUweg himself. What else has General
von Bernhardi written on the Next War
except advice to his countrymen how best
to smash the enemy by all means, whether
fair or foul ? No wonder that they call
German troops les barbares in Belgium
for they have discovered only too well the
brutality of their handiwork. Let the old
men and priests and doctors and women
and children bear witness to the base
record of the German soldiers. When a
nation can insult foreign Ambassadors,
as was done in the case of M. Cambon and
others, when it can bully and injure harm-
less tourists only seeking to find at the
Introductory 19
outbreak of the war some means of returning
to their own country, when it can break
treaties and violate neutral territory and
offer " infamous proposals *' to self-respect-
ing and honourable governments, it may
call itself civilized, but it possesses a form of
civiHzation more appropriate to the denizens
of a Zoological Society than to the decent
and well-ordered communities of Europe.
From Idealism to Realism
Brutality — that is the just epithet to
appy to the German character as revealed
to us in all its enormity during recent days.
Or rather, for we have no desire to confound
the innocent with the guilty, brutality seems
to be the main characteristic of that military
party which, headed by the Kaiser himself,
rides rough-shod over all the graces and
amenities of life in Berlin. How has it all
come about, we ask in wonder — all this vain-
glorious parade, this offensive swagger, this
Potsdam megalomania — when we look back
to the Germany of Goethe and Schiller and
Lessing in the early years of the nineteenth
century? Germany was the home of
culture then, the home of scholarship and
philosophy, the home also of a wistful
idealism, sentimental, pathetic and pure.
Was not Kant the author of that tremendous
20 Forty Years After
ethical system which taught the inviolable
sanctity of the Categorical Imperative ? Did
not Hegel construct a body of metaphysical
thought embracing all the fields of Being
and Not-Being ? A change came with
Schopenhauer, a change from Optimism to
Pessimism, from the Will to live and do
great things, to the Will which negates
itself and seeks a Nirvana of passivity.
Then came von Hartmann, by no means so
good a philosopher as his predecessor and
exhibiting some of those instincts to solve
problems not by logic but by sheer master-
fulness which — ^in another field — we describe
as the jack-boot of a dragoon. And then
was evolved that marvellous portent,
Nietzsche, the prophet of the Over-man and
of the ''blond brute'' who rules by might
and not right, and terrorises the world by
sheer strength. The sensitive delicacy of a
cultured literature was by this time hope-
lessly left behind and we have entered the
domain of crass realism and brutality in the
hands of men like Sudermann and Wede-
kind. The " Hannele " and '' Sunken Bell "
of Hauptmann form a singular exception
which only serves to accentuate the prevail-
ing tendency towards far different ideals.
The Root of all Evil
It is not good for a nation to become
/
NAPOLEON III.
FORTY YEARS AFTER
CHAPTER I
A Berlin !
" Louis has just received his baptism of
fire. He was admirably cool and not at
all affected/' In the Paris papers of
August 3rd, 1870, you may read that tele-
gram from Napoleon HI. to his Empress
Eugenie. That '' baptism of fire '' for the
ill-starred Prince Imperial was also the
first cannonade of the Franco-German War.
A very small cannonade, to be sure, but
quite big enough for an emperor's bulletin.
*' We were in the first line, but the bullets
and cannon shot fell at our feet," that
proud father continues. " Louis intends
to keep a bullet which fell close to him.
Some of the soldiers wept at seeing him so
calm."
You expect a touch of bombast in the
bulletins of any Napoleon. Even for the
Napoleonic style this seems a trifle forced.
23
24 Forty Years After
The theatricality of it throws one ray of
light on the causes which brought about
the Franco-German War and the French
debacle. What were they fighting about
in 1870 ? We have only vague ideas
nowadays. You remember dimly some
quarrel between France and Prussia about
putting a prince of the house of Hohen-
zoUem on the Spanish throne. You have
read of the unscrupulous diplomacy by
which Bismarck bamboozled the French
ambassador and tricked France into putting
herself in the wrong. But in a book which
deals with war and not politics we need
not much concern ourselves about that
maze of manoeuvring. Great wars, said
the Greek, spring from small incidents,
but not from small quarrels.
The official German theory is that the
corrupt French Government was to blame.
Or at least that was the theory before the
noble doctrines that might is right and war
the chief end of man were openly preached
at Berlin. '' A weak Government at the
head of our neighbouring state,'' said
Moltke, " must be regarded in the light
of a standing menace to peace. A Napoleon
on the throne of France was bound to
establish his rights by political and military
successes. Only for a time did the victories
A Berlin ! 25
won by French arms in distant countries
give general satisfaction ; the triumphs of
the Prussian armies excited jealousy, they
were regarded as arrogant, as a challenge ;
and the French demanded revenge for
Sadowa. The liberal spirit of the epoch
was opposed to the autocratic Govern-
ment of the Emperor; he was forced to
make concessions, his civil authority was
weakened, and one fine day the nation
was informed by its representatives that
it desired war with Germany." In fine.
Napoleon le Petit rushed France into war
to save himself from revolution and pre-
serve the throne for his dynasty.
That Moltke's explanation contains some-
thing of the truth we shall not even now
deny. It was certainly the settled policy
of Napoleon III. to commend his empire
to the French people by continual doses
of military glory. His Government was
weak, and it was corrupt, though we stern
English moralists are apt to exaggerate
the corruption. We have been taught to ^
believe that no good thing could come out
of the France of the Second Empire, that
the great humiliation of 1871 was the just
and inevitable punishment of iniquity.
" The evil that men do Hves after them.
The good is oft interred with their bones/'
26 Forty Years After
So certainly it has been with Napoleon III.
We remember the treachery and bloodshed
of the coup d'etat by which he came to
the throne. We read book after book
about the iniquity of Paris under his
Empire. We forget his part in the deliver-
ance of Italy. His Paris, his Government
were doubtless corrupt. He had an un-
happy knack of surrounding himself with
riff-raff. If the art of being a great ruler
is in the power to choose ministers, there
never was a worse monarch than Napoleon
III. But if we are to go further and say
that Sedan and the surrender of Paris
were divine vengeance on national wicked-
ness, we seem to be usurping the functions
of divinity. Was the Paris of 1870 so
much worse than the Paris of 1854,
which triumphed over Russia ? If the
French were an effete race by 1870,
they had surely grown old very quickly
since 1859, when at Solferino they shattered
the power of Austria and made Italy
free.
The Government was bad. The national
spirit was enfeebled. But the theory of
Moltke that a wicked Government and a
neurotic nation made war on Germany is
at most only half the truth. There was
another cause more potent. We may call
A Berlin ! 27
it, if we choose, the national aspirations
of Germany. It seems more true to fact
to speak of the policy of the three men
who controlled King William of Prussia —
Roon, Moltke and Bismarck. To make
Prussia and the King of Prussia powerful
and still more powerful was to them a duty
and a passion. There seems no reason to
believe that they considered any other
motive to action of much importance.
Prussia above all, Prussia dominant in
the universe, was for them an object to
attain which everything might and ought
to be sacrificed.
They had at their command a force
which might have been turned to the
noblest ends. The spirit of nationality
which ever since the French Revolution
had been potent in Europe, which has given
us some of the noblest names and some of
the most inspiring deeds of modern history,
was vivifying Germany. From the Rhine to
the Vistula, through all the congeries of
petty states into which the Teutonic race
was divided, the desire for unity had
become quick and eager. We have no ^
reason to believe that for the spirit of
nationality Bismarck or Roon cared a
straw. Faith in that would be a contra-
diction of the principles of absolutism
28 Forty Years After
which in and sometimes out of season they
professed and for which they were always
ready to risk everything. But the only
way to make Prussia dominant was to
1/ make her the leader of a united Germany.
j. ' So Prussia, which from its origin, by its
\ very existence, defied the rights of nation-
ality, stood out the champion of German
national spirit. .
It was in an evil hour for the rights of
nationalities and the world. How evil we
are only now beginning to understand.
But the dangers of the unholy alliance
could be seen by those who had eyes to
see even in 1870. Garibaldi was not de-
ceived, for Bismarck, even while he used
the national impulse, degraded it, because
he did not beHeve in its nobility or
understand its power. Material force,
material strength were to him the only
laws of the world. So he said, in one of
his outbursts of cynical candour, that for
the union of Germany '* a grave struggle
was necessary, a struggle that could
only be carried through by blood and
iron." All Germany must be dragged
into war or Germany would never be
united. Never, that is, on Prussian prin-
ciples, never under a Prussian suprem-
acy. So war followed war, first with
A Berlin ! 29
Denmark, then with Austria, at last with
France.
We may allow that the Government of
Napoleon III. conducted its foreign policy,
with a mixture of levity and stupidity
which played into Bismarck's hands. But
when Napoleon III. quoted, in his own
justification, Montesquieu's dictum that
" the real author of war is not he by whom
it is declared, but he who renders it neces-
sary,'' he made an appeal which the court
of history will not dismiss. His antagonist,
King William of Prussia, declared in answer
that " the North German Confederation
has laboured to improve the national forces
not to imperil, but to afford a greater
protection to universal peace." Yet Moltke
has confided to us that year by year the
plans of the Prussian General Staff for a
war with France had been reviewed. " The
orders for marching and travelling by rail
or boat were worked out for each division
of the army, together with the most
minute directions as to their different
starting-points, the day and hour of
departure, the duration of the journey, the
refreshment stations and place of destina-
tion." In fine, '' when war was declared,
it needed only the Royal signature to
set the entire apparatus in motion with
30 Forty Years After
undisturbed precision." So the faith in
" universal peace " and hope and desire
for it worked together in Prussia for
good.
Till the very eve of the war there had
been signs in Germany of a stubborn
distrust of Prussia. Wiirtemberg was not
alone among the southern states in posses-
sing a strong party whose motto was
" rather French than Prussian." The un-
scrupulous ingenuity of Bismarck and the
sheer folly of the French Foreign Office
stamped out all such sentiments. France
was made to appear the aggressor. France
was made to declare war. The fight appeared
to be for the deliverance of Germany
from the intolerable pretensions of restless
French militarism. In such a cause all
Germany rose as one man. The Prussian
Government had long been sure that the
rulers of the southern states could be
\ relied upon. It was not only Govern-
ments, but the whole great nation between
Vistula and Rhine which the strategy of
Moltke marshalled for the assault.
In numbers the superiority of Germany
was marked. Her forces were marshalled
in three armies. The first, under Steinmetz,
concentrating behind Treves in the neigh-
bourhood of Wittlich, numbered some 85,000
A Berlin ! 31
men. This formed the right wing. The
second army with Prince Frederick Charles
in command was about 210,000 strong. It
was mustered around Homburg. The left
wing, the third army, under the Crown
Prince of Prussia, was formed on the
eastern bank of the Rhine, near Rastatt,
and its numbers were some 180,000. The
grand total of the three armies is therefore
475,000. It will be observed that the
points of concentration are for the two first
armies a considerable distance in the rear
of the German frontier. Inadequacy of
railway communication was one reason for
this caution. Moltke also appears to have
feit a superfluous apprehension of French
enterprise. During the night of July i6th,
orders for mobilization were given. A
fortnight later 300,000 German troops were
on the Rhine. Moltke, who was not much
given to boasting of his own achievements,
has left it on record that this fortnight of
mobilization gave him the most tranquil
days of his life.
What of the French ? Everyone re-
members how Marshal Leboeuf, Napoleon's
Minister of War, assured him that the army
was ready '' to the last gaiter button."
Modern military critics of eminence have
held that one of the cardinal faults of
32 Forty Years After
French generalship in the war was a
tendency to wait till everything was ready
and more than ready. After the declara-
tion of war, we are told, the French armies
should have struck without waiting for a
perfect provision of cooking pots. Moltke,
however, seems to have thought that the
French error lay rather in sending their
troops to the frontier before all prepara-
tions were complete than in failing to take
the offensive. " The condition of the men,"
he says dogmatically, " prohibited any
action." There was, according to French
authorities, a deficiency in money, in food,
in camp-kettles, cooking utensils, tents,
harness, medicine and stretchers. So much
for Marshal Lebceuf and his '' last gaiter
button."
In mere weight of numbers the French
were far inferior to the Germans. They
could only muster something less than
300,000 men. Of these about 128,000 were
posted under Bazaine, Failly and other
commanders between Metz and Saarbriick.
MacMahon, with 47,000, was in the eastern
Vosges. At Chalons, Canrobert com-
manded a corps of 35,000. Nominally,
the Emperor was himself commander-in-
chief. Whether he ever had any other
claim to military capacity than his bearing
A Berlin ! 33
the name of Napoleon, we need not discuss.
In 1870 he was physically and mentally a
broken man. Tortured by disease, he had
neither the ability to form plans nor the
strength of will to put them into execution.
This paralysis in the supreme command
was not compensated by any high ability
in the subordinate positions. The Chief of
Staff was to be Marshal Leboeuf, the War
Minister who '' had come in by a back stair
behind a petticoat.*' Of the generals of
the different armies, the best was probably
MacMahon, who could at least be called a
fair tactician. There were good divisional
officers, none who showed any aptitude
for independent command. It has been
held that the general officers of the Second
Empire had been spoilt by training in
colonial campaigns, which made them un-
able to grasp the conditions of European
warfare. We shall be on surer ground if
we suggest that the imstable Government
of the Second Empire, which inquired
rather whether an officer was a good
Bonapartist than whether he was fit for
command, is to blame for the pervading
inefficiency. The man whom Napoleon
trusted most and to whom he soon sur-
rendered the chief command was Bazaine.
Bazaine had come up from the ranks by
([
34 Forty Years After
honest merit. He possessed the quahty
of taking pains. He had always done what
had been thrust upon him, without gross
failure. Unfortunately he lacked enter-
prise and the resolute will without which
all other military qualities are useless to
a commander.
Thus the numerical weakness of the
French was doomed to be exaggerated by
their generalship. There is some truth in
the familiar sneer that France was defeated
not by Moltke, but by her own commanders.
On the German side there was above all
unity of purpose. Moltke reigned supreme.
In discreet language he tells us that the
King of Prussia was content to do what
he was told. Throughout the campaign
there was not one council of war. Day by
day Moltke laid his plans before the King,
and after a brief discussion pro forma his
Majesty was invariably pleased to approve.
What place is to be given Moltke among
great generals it is difficult to decide. He
always achieved with entire success what
he set out to do. The Franco-German
War is beyond question one of the most
completely successful campaigns in history.
But it must be remembered that Moltke
never had to deal with a general of high
ability or a stubbornly contested war. He
A Berlin ! 35
had at least in a high degree the quahties
which, according to his own estimate, are
all that can be expected of the leader of
an army, the capacity *' to get a clear
view of the circumstances and to decide
for the best for an unknown period '' and
the will to '' carry out his purpose un-
flinchingly/' Of his subordinates few gave
sign of any higher ability than that which
belongs to the " first-class fighting man."
They were at their best energetic and good
tacticians. The worst of them could
hammer away at the enemy till they had
not a man left. Under Moltke's direction
they were quite adequate to deal with the
French commanders, though more than
once during the campaign there were ^
signs that a strong man on the other I
side would have made queer work with 1
them. i
In armament the French had something
of the advantage. The Chassepot rifle,
which was the French weapon, had a range
of 1,200 paces. The German needle-gun -
at anything more than 400 was '* as useless
as a stick." The Chassepot, too, had a
better breach and was by far more handy.
To its efficiency was due the terrific losses
which the Germans had to sustain in some
of the critical battles of the war. In
«8
36 Forty Years After
artillery, on the other hand, the Germans
had the better of it. Their shells burst
on striking. The French missiles had a
time-fuse, which in practice frequently
caused an explosion long before it could
be effective. Much had been expected
by the French of their mitrailleuse, a
primitive machine-gun. But *' hope told
a flattering tale." The German artillery
destroyed the mitrailleuses by long-range
firing. The German infantry by rapid
movements captured them at no great
cost.
In the military quality of the common
soldier the superiority was with the
Germans. The French again and again
proved themselves capable of one gallant
effort in a battle, but too often that one
was their last. The Germans would come
on after repulse as stubbornly as at first.
We must, however, remember that the
indecision of the French commanders and
their fondness for seeking strong positions
and fighting purely defensive actions was
not likely to inspire their troops. In
marching power, which, as always, was to
be one of the decisive factors of the war,
the Germans were far superior. What
the first Napoleon and his men would have
thought of a French corps which could
A Berlin ! 37
only cover some five miles a day we can
hardly imagine. Yet five miles a day was
all that MacMahon's men did in the crisis
of the campaign.
When war broke out nobody dreamed
that the heart of the French was not in
the war. The ebullitions of Paris deceived
even experienced and impartial observers.
Yet it seems probable that until French
patriotism was roused by the disaster of
Sedan and the presence of the invader on
French soil, there was no general national
impulse behind the armies of France. The
suspicion that the war was merely a
device of the adventurer who called him-
self Emperor to consolidate his waning
power had corroded the energy of the
nation. We must not forget that on the
very eve of the war a large part of
the French people was weary of the Second
Empire. Not for the first time in the
history of France, Parisian demonstrations
were no true guide to the feelings of the
provinces.
But there is much excuse for those critical
observers in Paris who made sure that
the war was to be a national crusade.
On the eve of the German mobilization we
are told that the Parisian papers were
" positively snarling with rage at the
38 Forty Years After
prospect of a peaceful issue to the Franco-
Prussian difficulty." English people were
informed that the acquisition of the Rhenish
provinces of Germany would make Napo-
leon III. the most popular French monarch
since St. Louis. It had occurred to no one
in Paris that the end of the war would be
not the acquisition, but the loss of pro-
vinces. Crowds surged through the Paris
streets roaring, " A Berlin ! A Berlin ! **
Restaurants posted up menus in this style :
*' Potage Solferino, Jambon de Mayence,
Poulet a la Marengo, Vin du Rhin, Kirschen-
wasser de la Foret Noire.'' The soldiers
were entrained for the front with such
demonstrations that critics as much Prus-
sian in sympathy as French were moved
to prophesy; ''Men who go off singing like
that seldom lose battles." Paris, in fine,
went mad with bombast. You remember
how the expedition to Sicily which was
to ruin the Athenian empire set out
amid just such another ecstasy of arro-
gance.
Away on the eastern frontier General
Frossard, who had been the governor of
the Prince Imperial, announced his inten-
tion of ** making the debut of the cam-
paign." The very phrase illustrates the^
spirit in which the French commanders
/ 1
A Berlin ! 39
approached their work. It was to be a
spectacle, an affair of the theatre. Fros-
sard on the heights of the Spicherenberg
had some 60,000 men. Down at Saar-
briicken Colonel von Pestel had 800 infantry
and two squadrons of Uhlans. He had
been ordered of course to retire ; but
he was in no hurry. As he rode out on
August 1st he shouted to some English
war correspondents, " Hurrah, I go to
draw de shoots of de enemy ! Come
along I '' The position of the war cor-
respondent in military esteem has changed.
Pestel did '' draw de shoots of de enemy "
and shot back. It was on that ist August,
a fortnight after the German mobilization,
that the first shots were exchanged and the
Prince Imperial received his *' baptism of
fire.'' Pestel retreated calmly with a loss
of eight men and the advancing French
found his outposts held by stuffed dummies.
Down into German territory came the
advancing French. They took Saar-
briicken, they '' drank a brewery dry and
kissed all the girls in the Rheinische Hof."
It is recorded that a bold corporal even
kissed the landlady. But that was the
total of their achievements. From the
heights above the town the Emperor watched
their advance. The next time he saw
/
40 Forty Years After
German scenery he was a prisoner being
carried into safe custody. This trivial
raid into Saarbriicken was the only advance
of the French armies across the German
frontier. The rest of the war was fought
out in the fields of France.
CHAPTER II
The First Round
There is something strangely impressive
in the silent efficiency of the German
mobilization. The mere numbers, alto-
gether less than 500,000, would not alarm
a generation which has learnt to think of
armies in terms of millions. Even earlier
wars had seen the employment of masses
as great. But seldom before had railways
been at the disposal of a commander.
Never before it is certain had such an army
been brought into the field within the space
of a fortnight. Moltke himself seems to
have felt a quaint awe for the machine
which he had built. He speaks of it in
terms usually reserved for the acts of the
Almighty. The advance was " pre-or-
dained in every detail." " Pre-ordained ''
— you can watch the Chief of the Prussian
General Staff lookirq into the mirror of his
own imagination to see himself as the vicar
of God on earth.
Just what Moltke's scheme for the
41
42 Forty Years After
campaign was he has told us with his usual
terse lucidity. " In his plan of war, sub-
mitted by the Chief of the General Staff
and accepted by the King, that officer had
his eye fixed from the first upon the cap-
ture of the enemy's capital, the possession
of which is of more importance in France
than in other countries. On the way
thither the hostile forces were to be driven
as persistently as possible back from the
fertile southern states into the narrower
tract on the north. But above all the
plan of war was based on the resolve to
attack the enemy at once wherever found,
and keep the German forces so compact
that a superior force could always be
brought into the field.''
'* Nach Paris ! " then, was the watch-
word of the campaign. Moltke's studies
in history — and probably he was a better
historian than any man of his profession in
Europe — had not misled him. With a
government so highly centralized as that
of France the capture or even the peril of
Paris must always be a terrible blow to the
national vitality. He was right, we can-
not doubt, to aim at Paris " from the
first." If the siege did not paralyse France
as completely as he had counted upon,
that was because his principles and his
The First Round 43
temperament prevented him from under-
standing that even in material things
national spirit is a great force. There
is a comical irritation in his solemn style
when he has to tell of the refusal of
the provinces to know when France was
beaten.
If he had a plan, and a tolerably precise
plan of campaign, he did not delude him-
self with the fiction that that also was
'' pre-ordained.'' He knew well enough
that "it is a delusion to believe a plan oi
war may be laid for a prolonged period and
carried out in every point. The first col-
lision with the enemy changes the situation
entirely according to the result. Some
things decided upon will be impracticable ;
others, which originally seemed impossible,
become feasible.'' We shall see in the
sequel how far he was capable of acting on
these excellent principles, how nearly he
approached the supreme practical ability of
the great Greek who, whatever his blunders,
was always " the most capable of men to
meet the need of the hour."
In the French army we may fairly say
there was no plan at all. It was not iron-
bound adherence to out-of-date arrange-
ments which was the danger of the French
generals, but sheer inconsequence, lack
44 Forty Years After
of co-ordination, and incoherence. It is
supposed that there was some vague in-
tention to deHver a number of unforeseen
attacks. The fleet was to convoy an
expeditionary force to the coast of Prussia.
That army never started. The main French
advance was to be made across the Rhine
at and below Strassburg. That advance
was never begun. Yet such was the touch-
ing confidence of the French Ministry of
War in their plans for invasion that troops
were left ill-supplied because they were to
live upon the resources of Germany, and
the officers had maps of Germany but none
of their own provinces because there could
be no fighting within the French frontier.
And after all, the only invasion was the
futile raid upon Saarbriicken which, if it
was meant for a reconnaissance, discovered
nothing, and if it was meant for the first
steps in a general advance was never fol-
lowed up.
After the capture of Saarbriicken, the
French generals seem to have had no idea
what to do next. They halted long be-
tween many contradictory opinions. On
the rumours of one day troops were moved
to be recalled by the rumours of the next.
The Guards actually received simultaneous
orders contradicting each other. The net
The First Round 45
result of all this was much futile marching
and counter marching which served to
weaken the not excessive confidence of the
men in their generals and leave the French
troops widely scattered while the Germans
were advancing in compact masses on the
Saar.
The blow was to be struck through Lor-
raine. We must revise our modem notions
of the French frontier in order to under-
stand the situation. Alsace and Lorraine
were still French. The Rhine between
Lauterburg and Basle was the boundary
between France and Germany. Strass-
burg was a French fortress. Therefore,
an invading army, if it tried to enter
France south of Lauterburg, would have to
fight for a bridge over the Rhine, and after
that for the passes of the Vosges. To at-
tempt the other extremity of the French
frontiers over against Belgium was an
expedient which did not in 1870 enter into
the Prussian imagination. They were cer-
tainly not Quixotes, Moltke and Bismarck,
but they had some capacity for seeing things
as they are. They knew that a violation
of Belgian neutrality would have lit a fire
in Europe in which Prussia might have
been consumed. But Prussian statecraft
has long since left Bismarck far behind*
46 Forty Years After
There remained therefore as the one ob-
vious path for the invader, Lorraine, the
northern frontier of Lorraine between
Lauterburg and Thionville. That line was
essentially an artificial boundary. It was
defended by no natural barrier whether of
mountain or river. It had not been strength-
ened by art. The only fortresses of im-
portance in the east of France were Strass-
burg and Belfort. It invited the German
armies. The country on the French side
of the border, though not such an ideal
fighting ground as the Belgian *' cockpit,"
allows of the operations of great armies.
Lorraine is a pleasant land of field and
vineyard and wooded hill, but neither
its hills nor its valleys are of great size.
So it was to clear the road into Lorraine
that the first round of the war was
fought.
Close to the old Franco-German frontier
on the north bank of the Lauter, a stream
which runs down to the Rhine, stands the
little town of Weissenburg. On August
4th the army of the Crown Prince, some
130,000 strong, marched into France.
Before the walls of Weissenburg the
Bavarian troops, who were on the right
wing, found themselves in a hot fight.
They were, in fact, only opposed by one
The First Round 47
weak division and a cavalry brigade under
General Douay. The troops which should
have supported him were not upon the
scene. Nevertheless, Douay made a gallant
resistance, and it was not until Prussian
troops came to the aid of the Bavarians
and he was beset by overwhelming numbers
and in danger of being outflanked that he
gave orders to retire. After heavy loss
the Germans captured the town of Weis-
senburg. Their advance was delayed by
the Geisberg, a hill of some size crowned
by a fortress which in those days ranked
as formidable. It drove back infantry
again and again, and only after artillery
had been hauled up the hill would the
little garrison surrender.
The French escaped destruction, though
they lost their gallant commander Douay.
To him and his troops the battle of Weis-
senburg was altogether honourable. Vastly
outnumbered, they made the Germans pay
1,500 men for a victory which was of no
great importance. For after the battle the
Germans lost touch with them altogether,
and were left wondering from which direc-
tion a French attack was to be expected.
The German cavalry, owing to bad staff
work, never reached the field till all was
over.
48 Forty Years After
Meanwhile MacMahon was doing bis
best to collect all the troops under Ms
command, hoping to check the German
advance by a counter-attack. But he
could only muster 45,000 against the
130,000 Germans, and he took his stand in
a strong position behind the little river
Sauer close to Worth. The town he left
unoccupied and he broke down the bridge.
The scene of the battle of Worth is a land-
scape of broad meadows within range of
commanding hills. On either side the
stream vineyards and hop gardens offered
cover. The hills were held by MacMahon
and the Chassepot rifles of his troops swept
the meadows in the valley. Neither Mac-
Mahon nor the Crown Prince meant to
fight on August 6th. Both wanted more
time to concentrate their forces. But
affairs of outposts drifted swiftly into a
general engagement. Even after his divi'^i-
onal commanders had committed them-
selves, after 100 German guns had opened
fire, the Crown Prince sent orders that
nothing was to be done which would bring
on a battle that day. The only result
was to cause some confusion. General
von Kirchbach determined to continue
the frontal attack on his own responsi-
bility. The Bavarians on MacMahon's flank
The First Round 49
obeyed orders and retired. There fol-
lowed a succession of attacks on either
side which were invariably repulsed. The
Germans suffered heavily, but the issue
could only be a question of time. Their
overwhelming numbers bore more and
more heavily upon the French as the fight
went on. Twice the French cavalry made
gallant attempts to shatter the masses en-
veloping them. The nature of the ground
was against them. Through the vine-
yards and the hops they could hardly
charge home, and the fire of the German
infantry was deadly. It was growing to-
wards five o'clock before the French army
broke, but then retreat soon became a
rout. The Prussians were like soldiers, the
French like a mob, said one hasty critic,
forgetting that those same French, out-
numbered three to one, had sustained the
fight all day. Nevertheless, it is true that
MacMahon's army was utterly broken,
and it never rallied till it reached Chalons
many a mile away. Once again the de-
feated French had cause to be grateful to
the cavalry of the Crown Prince. Once
again that unfortunate cavalry did not
come upon the scene till some time after
everything was over. *' As the general
in command," says Moltke drily, *' had
50 Forty Years After
not foreseen a battle on August 6th the
4th Division of cavalry had not left its
quarters in the rear and was therefore
unable to follow in pursuit." But for
that lack of foresight MacMahon would
probably have been captured. Neverthe-
less, the victory was crushing. The French
troops were demoralized ; 7,000 of them
were left prisoners. But the Germans paid
dearly enough for the victory. More than
10,000 fell among the meadows and the
vineyards of Worth. More important than
the material were the moral results of the
battle. " Wonderful luck, this new great
victory won by Fritz," the King of Prussia
telegraphed to his queen, and the exulta-
tion of Germany was balanced by dismay
at Paris. A week before ''A Berlin" was
the cry of the boulevards. After Worth
Paris began to talk of its own defence. A
week before the Emperor was going to
be a new St. Louis. After Worth his
throne was tottering. So ended the first
round.
CHAPTER III
The Retreat on Metz
By its victory at Worth the 3rd Army had
won for Germany the command of lower
Alsace. The Crown Prince pressed on his
advance through the hills. The chain of
the Vosges in this northern district is an
insignificant obstacle compared with the
Grandes Vosges to the south. Neverthe-
less, a determined defence might have made
the advance expensive, and so the Germans
moved with great caution. They did not
know that MacMahon's men, having
" fought like lions, had run like hares.''
They could not guess what we now see
clearly enough that the course of events
at Worth offered prophetic information of
the character of the war. MacMahon had
called to his assistance generals who either
disobeyed or obeyed at a sluggish speed.
This lack of hearty co-operation was to be
the mark of French generalship throughout
the campaign. The French troops, though
they had been gallant in action, became
01
52 Forty Years After
demoralized when the day was lost. That
too was again and again to be the issue
of battles.
We may now leave the Crown Prince
struggling with a superfluous caution
through the hills while the sauve qui pent
of MacMahon's men brings them as a
disheartened, discredited rabble into
Chalons. Simultaneously with the fight at
Worth another battle was being decided
to the north-west on the other flank of
the German advance. When the Germans
began to move, the arrangements had
ceased to work with the smoothness of
*' pre-ordination.'* The general of the ist
Army, Steinmetz, fell to quarreling with
the general of the 2nd Army, Prince
Frederick Charles, and as a consequence
had a skirmish with Moltke himself, which
does not seem to have increased either
party's respect for the other. Steinmetz,
moving southward on a more extended front
than Moltke designed, used somje of the
eastern roads which had been reserved
for the troops of Prince Frederick Charles.
The Red Prince curtly ordered him off.
Steinmetz chose to telegraph an appeal
direct to the King over Moltke's head.
His reward was a reply from Moltke in
terms which displeased him. The practical
The Retreat on Metz 53
consequences were a tangle, which in face
of the feeble French opposition was of no
particular importance, and in the more
remote future a pronounced disinclination
on the part of Steinmetz to agree with
headquarters or any one else. He was a
difficult man to manage. So was Prince
Frederick Charles, and we may sympathize
with Moltke's difficulties in driving such
a team.
The line of march of the ist and 2nd
German armies, then, crossed at Saar-
briicken, scene of the baptism of fire, and
the French doubtless believed that the
masses which reached that town on August
6th were brought by design instead of a
muddle. At all events. General Frossard,
hero of " the debut of the campaign,*'
considered his position dangerous, and
abandoned the place without waiting for
permission to retreat. It is fair to say
that the French Emperor left him to him-
self not only in the matter of orders, but
also as to reinforcements. Three divisions
were, indeed, sent to support him. Only
two reached him, and those not till the
battle was lost and won.
Frossard took up his position on the
heights of the Spicherenberg, from which
Napoleon III. and the Prince Imperial had
54 Forty Years After
watched the first cannonade of the war.
The centre was protected by a lofty,
almost precipitous cliff, called the Rothe-
berg, the Red Mountain. The slopes on
either side were steep and densely wooded.
On the left a cluster of houses, the iron-
works of Stiering-Wendel, offered further
advantages to the defence. As at Worth,
a battle was never intended by the German
higher command. It has been held that
the whole affair was from the German
point of view a mistake. But Moltke,
though he admitted that the fight formed
no part of his plans, maintained that as
the result was a victory it suited him well
enough.
The battle was brought on by the impetu-
osity of the German divisional commanders
who thought that the French fire came
from nothing stronger than a rear guard and
pressed on to overwhelm it. As the first
firing was heard, other German troops
marched upon the sound and engaged with-
out orders. So in the early stages of the
affair the French were in superior strength
and dehvered violent counter attacks. The
Germans plunging pell mell into the fight
were involved in a confusion ''which increased
with every repulse and made the control of
the battle a matter of the greatest difficulty.'*
The Retreat on Metz 55
That " control '' unfortunately for the
Germans passed from hand to hand. Dur-
ing the morning three generals one after
another hustled on to the battlefield and
one after another took over the command.
But as the day wore on, increasing numbers
and hard fighting began to smooth out the
muddle. A battalion of fusiliers under
cover of the fire of the Prussian artillery
contrived to establish themselves at the
foot of the scarp of the Rotheberg. They
tried to storm it but could only hold a
narrow spur of the hill. Reinforcements
came at length and the French were swept
out of their trenches. While the Germans
thus made good their attack in the centre,
their right wing had fought its way to Alt-
Stiering, near the French line of retreat.
Frossard saw the danger, strengthened his
left and beat off the German threat. It was
already after 5 o'clock and the French
position was not shaken. Owing to the
hurry scurry in which the battle had begun
and the lack of any connection between the
fighting and the German higher command,
reinforcements which might have come up
never knew that anything of importance
was happening and placidly went into camp
in the neighbourhood. Fresh cavalry did
come upon the scene, until the Germans
56 Forty Years After
had twenty-nine squadrons, but owing to
the nature of the ground they were of Uttle
use. The Hussars who attempted to ride
up the Rotheberg deserve all the honours of
courage, but it was not, however magnifi-
cent, a valuable enterprise. At last strenu-
ous efforts brought some German guns to
the summit, but the French tirailleurs
promptly shot down the gunners. The
decisive stroke fell elsewhere. General-^on
Goeben — he was to prove himself among
the best of the German commanders — saw
that the fortune of the day could be turned
by the old attack on the French left at
Stiering. He led thither every battalion
he could muster. The French wing was
beaten and crippled. By nightfall the
whole army was in full retreat. It was
not pursued. The Germans had lost even
more heavily than the French, 4,800 men
to 4,078. It was not for either side a very
glorious battle, though the Germans as they
drove back the superior numbers of the
enemy could claim some substantial success.
The hurried retirement of Frossard on Metz
left eastern Lorraine in German hands.
There remained confronting the massed
German advance the fortifications of Metz
and the troops of Marshal Bazaine.
At Metz was the Emperor. When first
The Retreat on Metz 57
the news of the two defeats of August 6th
reached him, he thought, or his mihtary
advisers thought for him, of retreating on
Chalons. One corps of Bazaine's army
was indeed aheady marching westward
before that plan was given up. Not mili-
tary but political reasons were the cause of
the change. If he abandoned his eastern
provinces in the first few days of the war
Napoleon le Petit could not count upon the
safety of his throne. Already there were
ominous rumblings and mutterings in Paris,
and when the news of Worth and Spicheren
reached the capital the ministry was over-
thrown by a vote which declared it incap-
able of organizing the defence of the country.
From that to the dismissal of the Emperor
himself on the same charge was the shortest
of steps. For the moment the Republicans
though hourly growing in strength could not
press their policy further. They had to
see a new ministry formed under the old
regime. But the Emperor in Metz was left
uncertain what revolution a day or an hour
might bring forth.
What could he do but try his fortune at
Metz ? In fact there was sufficient military
justification for him to hold his ground.
He could still command 200,000 troops
with a fortress to support them which in all
58 Forty Years After
the history of war had never been taken.
The Germans must outnumber him, but not
so vastly that he could not hope for a happy
issue out of his afflictions. He stood fast
therefore in Metz.
The Germans advancing were puzzled
by the absence of opposition. Both Mac-
Mahon's army and Frossard's had vanished
into the unknown. The Crown Prince, as
we know, expected to find MacMahon some-
where near the Vosges and took his time.
When he emerged from the hills, having
seen no French troops but a few scattered
parties on the sky line, Moltke determined
that the time had come to bring the three
sections of the German forces into closer
connection and upon the same front. But
the Crown Prince's army was so leisurely
that the ist and 2nd Armies had to wait
for it. A general advance began on August
I2th.
The valley of the Saar, from which the
movements started, is not a haunt of travel-
lers. It now abounds in collieries, blast
furnaces and odorous chemical factories.
At Saarlouis, some 15 miles inside the old
frontier, the ist Army began its march
moving by Les Etangs directly upon Metz.
The 2nd Army starting from St. Avoid, a
small town about 30 miles east of Metz, was
The Retreat on Metz 59
to proceed by Nomeny, which is almost
due south of Metz on the Seille. The 3rd
Army starting from the valley of the Saar
at Saarunion was to march east to Dieuze
and thence turn southward also. The
cavalry reported the French as in full retreat
all along the line. It was inferred that '' a
large army was encamped beyond Metz.''
Whether he was to expect a further retreat or
a sudden attack with the whole weight of
the French on his right wing Moltke could
not be sure. For the first time, as he says,
he " deemed it necessary to regulate the
movements of each separate corps by direct
orders.*' So the headquarters of King
William were brought to the front between
the 1st and 2nd Armies.
The French remained inactive. Moltke,
though even after the event he did not pro-
fess to understand the mental processes of
Bazaine, had began to guess what in any
given circumstances might be expected of
the man — videlicet, nothing decisive. It
seemed to Moltke rather more than possible
that Bazaine would if he could avoid a fight.
Still arrangements were made to meet the
chance of the French army showing some
generalship, the chance of an assault in force
upon one of the German flanks.
What actually happened was neither of
60 Forty Years After
these two things. Bazame did put up a
fight, but it was nolens volens. He would,
if he could, have retreated. When he was
forced to fight he fought with a bewildering
caution. There is even now, with all the
tale of his queer blunders before us in detail,
no reason to doubt either his courage or his
general fidelity to France. He was a sturdy
soldier, and if he had never been more than
brigadier would have left an honourable
name. Under fire he knew no fear. Of
moral courage he had little. He was quite
incapable of the resolution to stake all his
army on one desperate attack. He was
forced to fight and he fought. But he would
never dare more than he must.
CHAPTER IV
The Three Acts of Metz
The operations round Metz fall naturally
into three acts. The first was the battle
of August 14th, best known in England as
the Battle of Borny from the village in which
Bazaine had his headquarters. August i6th
saw the second, the Battle of Vionville —
Mars-la-Tour. The third and last, the
Battle of Gravelotte — St. Privat, which
decided the fate of the French Army and the
fortress of Metz, was fought on August i8th.
All these battlefields lie within a few miles
of the town. Borny was fought on the
east, Mars-la-Tour to the south-west, Grave-
lotte on a widely-extended front to the west
and north-west of the town. The general
character of the country is easily under-
stood. Metz stands at the confluence
of the Moselle and Seille, at the bottom as
it were of a saucer, the rising sides of which
are wooded hills. The woods are denser and
the hills are steeper to the west of the town.
The corps of the ist Army commanded
62 Forty Years After
by General von der Goltz had almost reached
Metz on the night of August 13th. At
four o'clock in the afternoon of the 14th
he discovered that the French were in
retreat. Bazaine and the Emperor had
come at last to a half-hearted decision that
strategy was more important than politics,
and that the right strategy was to retreat
upon Verdun. That, at least, is supposed
to have been the intention, but exactly
what Bazaine had in his mind at any given
moment no one, perhaps not Bazaine
himself, has ever been sure. The Em-
peror resigned to him the command-in-
chief — an act of no great importance — and
it is believed by many that even as early
as this Bazaine had some vague plan of
keeping his army intact at all costs that it
might serve to defend the Emperor not
against Germany, but against the growing
strength of the Republican party. It is
possible. Moltke, who on such a question is
an impartial and beyond dispute a com-
petent judge, thought this the most prob-
able explanation of Bazaine's odd tactics.
Perhaps history will incline to the opinion
that Bazaine, though he certainly had a
turn for the mysterious playing of his
own hand, was essentially quite honest,
and that what $eems like political cunning
The Three Acts of Metz 63
was mere weakness of resolution, consti-
tutional inability to will anything ve-
hemently. But the facts must speak for
them_selves.
When Von der Goltz heard of the retreat
he iiung his front columns across the
French line of march and seized Colombey
on the flank. This " cleared up the situa-
tion.'* The French at once attacked
vigorously. Other troops of the German
1st Army hurried to the field, and the fight
raged fiercely through the woods and on
the slopes of the higher ground. One
famous copse of firs was taken by storm,
lost again and again captured. A division
of the 2nd German Army came up and
fell upon the left flank of the French. It
was a confused battle, fought as a series
of separate combats, and the German
divisional generals, though they stood by
each other loyally, did not bring into
action all the available troops. Drolly
enough, the higher commands on each
side were alike angry at the battle being
fought at all. Both Steinmetz and Bazaine
when they heard the firing sent peremptory
orders that it should cease. Steinmetz,
finding his orders disregarded, galloped to
the field and stormed at Mauteuffel. In
the midst of which edifying scene bands
64 Forty Years After
struck up '' Heil dir im Siegeskranz/'
Next morning Steinmetz reported Von der
Goltz and Mauteuffel for disobedience to
the King. The King pubhcly thanked
them.
For Moltke had been *' very well satisfied
with the results obtained. '* The French
had been driven back and retired under
cover of heavy fire from the Metz forts.
The retreat, that is, had been checked and
time gained for the 2nd and 3rd German
Armies to march round to the west of
Metz. The end of the first act saw Bazaine
already in danger of envelopment.
Early on the morning of the i6th the
Emperor fled from the town, taking with
him two brigades of cavalry as escort. He
was only just in time. By nine o'clock
German cavalry and artillery sent a regi-
ment of French dragoons helter-skelter
through a camp of their own infantry.
So began the battle of Vionville — Mars-la-
Tour, At first the French had the advan-
tage. In the woods about Flavigny a
German battalion *' lost every one of its
officers, the colours passing from hand to
hand as their bearers were successively
shot down.'' A German division, which
had been sent forward to block if possible
the road to Verdun by which the Emperor
The Three Acts of Metz 65
had fled, as soon as its commander saw
how the fight was going wheeled round
upon Flavigny and Vionville. *' The
different divisions were now/' naturally,
** much mixed, but by taking advantage
of every rise in the ground for cover the
officers got their men steadily forward in
spite of heavy fire from the French infantry
and guns,'' and Flavigny, now in flames,
was captured.
On a front of a mile the German forces
faced east upon Metz. Bazaine had to
*' hack his way through " if he was to save
his army or preserve his communications.
It seems that the imperative duty for him
was to fling every man he had into the
fight. Why did he not ? He must have
known that only a part of the German
armies could yet be in that battle line
to the east of him. As a matter of fact,
he had for the time the superiority in
numbers. But he acted as if his one desire
was to cling stolidly to Metz and to keep his
forces together under his own independent
command remote from whatever might be
happening in France. He massed his troops
so that his strength was concentrated on
the left to secure his communications with
Metz, on which no attack was to be feared
and none was made.
66 Forty Years After
Some gallant cavalry attacks were
made on both sides. The French cuiras-
siers, trying to beat back the German
advance to northward, charged through
one desperate volley and rushed on into
more infantry fire, to leave 250 horses on
the field. A French battery which Bazaine
himself had placed in position was sur-
rounded by German hussars before it had
discharged half a dozen shots, and in the
melee Bazaine was all but captured.
Nevertheless, the German position grew
dangerous. The long line was very thin
and each moment weaker. General von
Alvensleben had for some hours deceived
the French as to his deficiency in numbers
by continual attacks. But his battalions
were much battered, tired by four hours'
hard fighting and in want of ammunition.
The Germans had not one battalion or
one battery in reserve. Canrobert, who
commanded the French centre, saw that
the time had come to launch all his forces
in an attack on Vionville. There were only
two regiments of cavalry to check him,
the Madgeburg Cuirassiers and the Altmar-
kische Lancers, and they mustered but 800
sabres. Their charge has been celebrated
in Freiligrath's well-known '' Todesritt,''
and it deserves that grim name.
The Three Acts of Metz 67
General von Bredow led them. He was
received with heavy fire from infantry and
artillery. He broke through the first line
and even the second, rode down two
regiments of infantry and captured four
batteries. But the charge was pressed
too far. The French cavalry came down
from all sides, and the broken brigade
had to cut its way back through the French
infantry, whose volleys tore them asunder.
Of the 800 only half came back alive, but
the French advance was checked.
At last Von Alvensleben's men, who
had been fighting for seven hours, received
efficient assistance. General von Voights-
Rhetz brought the loth Corps into action
on the German left, and a new and murder-
ous battle began in the afternoon about
Trouville and Mars-la-Tour.
Two Westphalian infantry regiments
were advancing steadily through the fire
of the French mitrailleuses when they
found themselves unexpectedly on the edge
of a deep combe. They struggled up th«
opposite bank to be received by point-
blank volleys from superior forces of in-
fantry. Almost every one of the officers
was killed, and more than half the men
fell on the slopes of that combe to the
depths of which the shattered ranks fled
68 Forty Years After
for refuge. When they rallied again at
Trouville it was found that 72 officers
out of 95 and 2,542 men out of 4,546 were
missing. The colours were saved by
Colonel von Cranach, '' the only officer
who still had a horse under him.'*
It was now nearly seven o'clock. In
a last attempt to change the fortune of
the day, six regiments of French cavalry
were brought into action on the right.
They met twenty-one German squadrons
in *' the greatest cavalry combat of the
war.'' About 5,000 horsemen were en-
gaged in this hand-to-hand encounter. It
was fought in a series of regimental charges,
and under the great cloud of dust which
hid the combatants the advantage was
now to one side, now to the other. At
last the Germans had the better of it, and
the French drew off.
The battle was won. The Germans
occupied the positions which the French
had held in the morning ; 67,000 men had
beaten off the attack of 138,000. The
French had found no way of retreat, and
were flung back upon Metz. The honours
of the day went to Von Alvensleben and
his corps, and the gallant fashion in which
they held up the French masses all the
morning through is pronounced by Moltke
The Three Acts of Metz 69
" one of the most brilliant achievements
of the war."
By dusk, though the French had fallen
back, all the German troops were worn
out and short of ammunition. The horses
had been saddled fifteen hours and without
fodder. Most of the batteries could not
move at more than a snail's pace. The
nearest reinforcements were a day's march
away. Yet Moltke ordered a fresh attack.
It is hard to guess why. He can hardly
have hoped that his exhausted army would
gain any further success. It was at least
possible that what had been already won
might be lost. The actual issue was heavy
loss to the German troops, who " hardly
able to see what they were doing," gained
not an inch of ground.
Yet the fruits of the victory remained to
Moltke. Bazaine's retreat had been again
cut off and again he had been hurled back
on Metz. So ended the second act.
Bazaine thought no more of breaking
out. He chose to take up a position which
was to be impregnable, if the fortune of
the battle behaved reasonably. He had
180,000 men drawn up along a line of hills
running north and south above the valley
of the Mance. The westward front facing
the French " sloped away like a glacis.
70 Forty Years After
while the short and steep decline behind
offered protection for the reserves.*' This
glacis-like front offered great advantages to
the French with their long-range Chassepots.
They could and did inflict heavy losses on
the Germans before the needle-guns were
near enough to do any damage. The first
effects of this were seen on the French right.
There were a good many tactical blunders
at Gravelotte. The battle is more honour-
able to the German soldier than the German
general. Moltke himself was not proud of
it, and his subordinates had even less reason
to congratulate themselves. If the French
had been under the command of a general
with more enterprise than the comatose
Bazaine it is probable that the day would
have ended in a German disaster. In fact,
only the remarkable marching and fighting
power of the Saxon and Pomeranian in-
fantry and sheer weight of numbers saved
Moltke from a repulse ; 230,000 Germans
just contrived to defeat 180,000 French.
The blunders began on the German left.
General von Manstein failing to see the
strong position and the masses of troops at
St. Privat, acted as if it did not exist. He
assumed that the French line ended to the
south of St. Privat, and, advancing to the
attack, found his troops exposed in flank
The Three Acts of Metz 71
and rear to artillery and infantry fire.
Then it became clear to him that the heights
of St. Privat were held, but his infantry
were shattered and his artillery almost out
of action. Away on the other flank the
German attack fared little better. From
the highway running through Gravelotte
German batteries opened fire on the French
left. The French guns seemed to be
silenced, the French advanced troops were
driven in. " Viewing the situation from
Gravelotte," says Moltke, " there remained
nothing but pursuit.'' The truth is that
the situation had not been sufficiently
explored, the attack had not been suffi-
ciently prepared, and when Steinmetz sent
Generals von Goeben and von Zastrow to
press this " pursuit," it was found that the
French did the pursuing. The French
batteries were by no means silenced, the
French infantry was by no means in retreat.
The advancing German columns were shat-
tered. The French tirailleurs rushed out
and swept them back and the fire of the
Chassepots did damage even on the hill
from which Steinmetz was watching the
battle.
About the same time, five o'clock in the
afternoon, another attack on the French
right had ended in disaster. Von Manstein
72 Forty Years After
had discovered that St. Privat was in
existence, and he sent a division of Guards
which had been placed at his orders to the
assault. The position was strong and had
not been under the fire of artillery. Behind
the hedges and fences of a steep slope
French riflemen were posted. On the sum-
mit of the hill the lofty and massive chateau
of St. Privat was crowded with soldiers.
No wonder that the slaughter among
the Guards was tremendous. Within half
an hour five battalions lost all or nearly all
their ofiicers. Thousands of bodies covered
the slope. Still the ranks closed up and
pressed on till they came within some 800
paces of St. Privat. They could do no
more. They had shot their bolt. The
remnant sought protection under the steeper
part of the slope and in the shallow trenches
hurriedly made by the French riflemen.
As a division they had been annihilated.
So on either wing the Germans had
suffered disastrous loss. In the centre
they had gained no success of importance.
If Bazaine had taken the initiative with
energy the result of the battle, perhaps of
the campaign, might have been different.
He did nothing but sit still. Even so the
German advance was checked along the
whole line. It is said that Moltke, as
The Three Acts of Metz 73
he watched his baffled troops, muttered
gloomily, ** Once more I have learnt that one
cannot be too strong on the field of battle/'
Fresh strength indeed was at hand. In
this moment when we all watch anxiously
the desperate efforts of Germany fighting
on both frontiers we may well remember
that in the darkest hour of Gravelotte
it was a corps brought from East Prussia
which gave the Germans fresh strength.
Bismarck had been wise enough to make
sure of the neutrality of Russia before he
ventured against France. The eastern
frontiers could be safely stripped of troops.
Fransecky's corps which marched on to
the field in the twilight was made up of
Pomeranians, and its station in peace was
Konigsberg. There are no reinforcements
to come from Konigsberg in 1914.
The Pomeranians had never been in
action. Naturally the last corps to reach
the rail head, they had been toiling after
the other armies by forced marches, eager
to get into the fighting line. When they
reached Gravelotte they had been tramping
steadily for eighteen hours. On the orders,
it is said, of the King himself they were at
once put under the command of Steinmetz
and hurled at the French left. This was
the la3t of the many blunders at Gravelotte.
74 Forty Years After
Moltke himself acknowledges its gravity.
" It would have been better," he writes,
" if the Chief of the Staff who was person-
ally on the field at the time had not allowed
this movement at so late an hour. A body
of troops still completely intact might
have been of great value the next day : it
was not likely this evening to affect the
issue/' He might have added that no
force which he could command was likely
to effect anything by attacking the French
left which held a position " made almost
impregnable by nature and art/' not to be
shaken " even by the most devoted bravery
and the greatest sacrifices." The discovery
might have been made before the battle was
over. The Pomeranians were launched into
the fight, confused in the medley of the
troops already under fire, could gain no
ground and so were left till darkness came
to their relief.
But meanwhile the issue had been decided
ten miles away. After the Guards division
had been annihilated on the slope of St.
Privat, two brigades of Saxon infantry,
whidh had marched along the entire extent
of the battle line, arrived on the French
right. Bazaine was aware of the^^move-
ment and sent a division to support Can-
robert, But by somebody's blunder the
The Three Acts of Metz 75
reinforcement did not arrive in time and
before the Saxon advance Canrobert had to
retire. He well understood that the issue
of the day was to be decided by this attempt
to crush him and he offered a stubborn
resistance. The Saxons though they suf-
fered heavy losses were not to be denied.
By sundown they were close upon St.
Privat at last. The French maintained
themselves desperately among the burning
houses and not till they found themselves
completely surrounded would they sur-
render. Two thousand prisoners were taken.
It was only right to record what does honour
to victors and vanquished that the wounded
were rescued from the burning village.
After the loss of St. Privat, it was in-
evitable that the French should fall back.
All night the retreat went on amid per-
petual skirmishing. The casualties on both
sides were very heavy. The French ad-
mitted a loss of 13,000. The Germans lost
20,584 of whom as many as 900 were
officers. Marvellously successful though
the fortnight's campaign had been, it had
cost the Germans 50,000 men. To replace
that loss was indeed only a question of time,
but the heavy slaughter among the officers
was irreparable. It is probable that
throughout the remainder of the war the
76 Forty Years After
efficiency of the army suffered from the lack
of capable and trusted officers. Neverthe-
less Moltke had cause enough for satisfac-
tion. Precisely a fortnight had gone by
since the German armies crossed the frontier.
The best of the French troops had been
defeated again and again. More than
150,000 of them shattered and disheartened
were completely enveloped. For that was
the issue of the third act at Metz. Bazaine
was caught in a trap with the main military
strength of France.
But that night Moltke did not allow
himself rest. In the little village of Rezon-
ville you may still see houses marked by
tablets to commemorate the fact that in
them King William, Bismarck and Moltke
spent the night after Gravelotte. The
village was full of wounded, and it was hard
to find any quarters even for the victorious
king. At last he got himself into a little
garret, and the staff crowded into another
cottage. All through the darkness they
were at work upon the demands of the
new situation. On the morning of the 19th
a w^hole complex scheme was ready in every
detail for the king's approval. If the
German soldier knew how to fight, the
German staff officer knew how to work.
Vast changes had to be made in the
The Three Acts of Metz 77
original plan of campaign, and conse-
quently in the organization of the army.
Moltke had never thought of investing
Metz. His intention was " to station a
corps of observation in the vicinity of the
fortress '' and march immediately on Paris.
It had not occurred to him that an army
of more than 150,000 men would let them-
selves be enveloped and shut up inside
Metz. The division of reserves which he
had provided for masking the place was
at hand, but was of course quite inadequate
for the new task. The army, therefore,
was reorganized, and advantage was taken
of the occasion to get rid of Steinmetz.
He had quarrelled with everybody, from
the king to his own divisional officers,
and he had not distinguished himself by
his tactics at Gravelotte, though as to
that matter none of his superiors could
with much decency be severe. However,
he was an intractable man and restive
under Moltke's orders, so he went into
honourable obscurity as Governor-General
of Posen and Silesia, while his army was
given to Prince Frederick Charles, who,
retaining with it more than half his own
command — 150,000 in all — was to invest
Bazaine and Metz. A new command, th«
Army of the Meuse, was formed and given
t8 Forty Years After
to the Crown Prince of Saxony. He was
to join the 3rd Army under the Prussian
Crown Prince, and their united strength
of 223,000 men would then be directed
against the camp at Chalons, where the
French were rallying. It will be seen that
the army designed to invest Bazaine was
rather smaller than Bazaine's own force.
Moltke expected that fresh attempts would
be made to break out on the west, and
therefore ordered the investing force to
remain on the left bank of the Moselle.
With quiet pride he recoKis that *' all
these orders were signed by the king
and dispatched to the officers in command
by eleven o'clock.'' And that on the
morning after such a day as Gravelotte !
CHAPTER V
The Doom of MacMahon
** A SECOND French army has arisen Hke
a Phcenix in the camp at Chalons/' So
a contemporary correspondent in Paris re-
ported to London. Most people in Paris
and a good many in London were able
to believe that the forces which MacMahon
was mustering at Chalons about the relics
of his first army would yet retrieve the
war for France. Ardent Republicans in
Paris were not sure that they liked the
prospect. After the disasters of the first
fortnight of the war " I'Empereur est
mort/' they said with satisfaction, to correct
themselves when they remembered Mac-
Mahon with the chastening afterthought,
" Mais il n'est pas deja enterre.'* One
candid member of the party confessed
that " the principal cloud which now
darkens our political horizon is fear lest
a great victory gained by MacMahon and
79
80 Forty Years After
Bazaine may again make it possible for
Napoleon III. to enter the Tuileries/'
At Chalons MacMahon had collected
about 120,000 men. To the remnants
of the army of Worth was added the divi-
sion which had been on the Spanish frontier
and four regiments of marine infantry. In
numbers the army was considerable, but
the quality of the troops was not high.
The best of them were shaken by defeat.
Even after General Trochu, the Governor
of Paris, had relieved MacMahon of the
worst of them, some battalions of Gardes
Mobiles, whose fighting spirit was expended
on the wrong side, the morale was bad.
The Emperor reached Chalons with the
news that Bazaine was retreating from
Metz. Geography offered no great obstacle
to the union of the two armies. Bazaine
might easily retreat on Verdun, and Verdun
was only a few marches from Chalons.
Once united, the armies might reasonably
hope to check the advance of the Germans.
But MacMahon did not know in what
direction Bazaine was retreating or even
whether he had been able to continue his
retreat. A junction with Bazaine was not
the only duty he had before him. If
Bazaine were out of action, MacMahon's
was the only army in being, that is, the
The Doom of MacMahon 81
only field army on which Paris could rely
for her defence. Already Paris was threat-
ened by the advance of the Crown Prince
Frederick's army to the Meuse. Before
MacMahon could decide whether to advance
towards Bazaine or retreat upon Paris, it
was necessary that he should know what
Bazaine was really doing.
On the day of Gravelotte, Bazaine sent
a mysterious message to Chalons. He had
maintained his position, he said, but the
troops, before marching further, must have
food and ammunition. Whether he really
believed this to represent the results of
Gravelotte or whether it was a move in
some incomprehensible scheme for his own
hand we wonder in vain. MacMahon seems
to have thought it suspicious, and he re-
solved to fall back to the north on Rheims.
That should be safe, and yet did not
commit him to the abandonment of Bazaine.
The approach of Prince Frederick's cavalry
then inclined him to fall back on Paris.
It is commonly said that he was only in-
duced to make an attempt to join hands
with Bazaine by direct orders from the
Ministry. We may well believe that he
considered an advance towards wherever
Bazaine might be a mistake, or a choice
of the worse of two evils. Nobody
82 Forty Years After /
supposes that he was anxious to make the
attempt. But the truth seems to be that
he was not ruled by Emperor or Empress
or Ministry. What sent him forward to
meet or reheve Bazaine was a soldierly
resolution not to leave his comrades in
the lurch if he could help them.
Bazaine did not encourage such loyalty.
Bazaine was as mysterious as ever. You
can hardly recognize the events of Grave-
lotte in the reports which reached Mac-
Mahon. Bazaine had " held his ground/'
though, to be sure, '' the right wing had
changed front.'' It had indeed. " The
troops required two or three days' rest."
Rest was the one thing which Bazaine's
troops could be sure of winning. He " was
still determined to press forward in a
northerly direction " and make for Chalons
by Montmedy — ^unless the Germans got
in the way. If they did he would march
on Sedan. Ominous name.
MacMahon would keep tryst if he could.
On August 23rd he began his march,
making for Montmedy by way of Stenay.
Lest he should miss by delay a chance of
joining Bazaine he went off in such a hurry
that no adequate provision was made for
the march. On the evening of the first
day, which ended in heavy rain, the army
The Doom of MacMahon 83
found itself without everything which it
needed. Even food was hard to come by.
Such experiences were not hkely to increase
either the fighting or the marching power
of a disheartened army. To victual his
troops MacMahon had to move on Rethel,
that is, to make a considerable detour to
the northward. At the end of three days'
marching he was not much nearer to
Bazaine than when he started.
Moltke had thought it probable that
MacMahon would choose to retreat on
Paris. The German dispositions were there-
fore designed to drive him off that line to
the northward. The armies of the two
Crown Princes, some twelve miles apart,
marched nearly due westward on con-
verging lines. We may note that a rather
happy-go-lucky attempt to take Verdun
and Toul by the way was ineffective. The
two fortresses however were of no par-
ticular use to the French. It is to be re-
membered that in 1870 their defences
w^ere of a much feebler character than
to-day.
The day after MacMahon had marched
northward, advanced parties of the Ger-
man cavalry tumbled into his deserted
camp at Chalons. They had a pleasant
time of it, these Rhenish dragoons, for.
84 Forty Years After
though the abandoned stores had been
burnt, they '' found plenty of loot/' What
was more to the purpose they found some
suggestive information. A letter from a
French officer which fell into their hands
implied that MacMahon meant to relieve
Metz. Another communication stated that
he had entrenched himself with 150,000
men at Rheims. This last piece of news,
fallacious as we have seen, was confirmed
by the Paris newspapers. Though it was
not actually true, it did not confuse the
situation when interpreted in the light of
the first letter about the intention to relieve
Metz. For a position at Rheims, though
not necessarily, might quite naturally be
the first move of a plan to join Bazaine.
There is no doubt that Moltke was in some x^
perplexity. He had not expected such a
move. He had laid his plans for some-
thing quite different, and though in theory
he admitted the necessity of constant
change of decisions in war, he much pre-
ferred that everything should go on with
the smoothness of '' pre-ordination." He
complains rather naively that " it is always
a serious matter to abandon without the
most pressing necessity a once-settled and
well-devised plan for a new and unprepared
scheme."
The Doom of MacMahon 85
Just at this moment too were heard the
first rumbUngs and mutterings of a storm
which the General Staff had not expected,
which therefore annoyed them excessively
— another attempt to interfere with the
decrees of Prussian providence and pre-
ordination— and which, if it embittered the
war and postponed without affecting the
ultimate result was to give Moltke many
an anxious moment. This new factor may
be simply stated. It was the sudden out-
break of a national resistance.
The^ Prussian theory of the war was
that they were fighting the Emperor and
not the people. The distinction was not
in practice closely observed. The peasants
in the districts traversed by German troops
and particularly in the departments of the
Meuse and the forest of the Argonnes began
to discover that the invading forces were
ruthless in their exactions and of a ferocious
arrogance. It is not every general who will
or can keep victorious troops under the
iron restraint which Wellington enforced.
Even in 1870 the Prussian doctrine of the
rights of a conqueror was brutal enough.
A victorious army, said Bismarck, should
leave the inhabitants of the districts which
it conquers with " nothing but their eyes
to weep from.''
86 Forty Years After
Cet animal est tres mechant
Quand on Tattaque il se defend.
The French peasant was not superior to
this natural impulse. He was very wicked,
and when he was plundered he tried to
defend himself. '' The inhabitants/' as
Moltke pathetically complains, " became
troublesome.*' There is no reason to be-
lieve that at this stage in the war the
French Government had, to quote his
charge, " organized a general rising." The
Government had organized nothing. But
it is certain that as soon as the German
armies began to extend their operations
in French territory they were subject to
perpetual harassing attacks from skirmish-
ing parties of armed civilians. These were
the Francs-tireurs, the '' free-shooters.'' At
first they had no sort of military organ-
ization and the Germans declined to allow
them the rights of war. If they were cap-
tured they were shot. Later on, they
were formed into regular corps and duly
recognized as combatants, but with that
development we are not now concerned.
In these first months of the campaign they
carried on guerilla fighting much like that
which harassed Napoleon's armies in Spain.
They beset isolated detachments and cut
The Doom of MacMahon 87
off foraging parties. Allowing for its par-
tizan spirit Moltke's judgment on their
operations is not unfair. " Though not
affecting the operations on a large scale,"
he says, " they were a source of much an-
noyance to small expeditions ; and as it
naturally harassed the soldiers to feel that
they were not safe by day or night, the
character of the war became more em-
bittered and increased the sufferings of
the people.'' There is no doubt that in the
fighting of the Francs-tireurs, the brutali-
ties were not all on one side. Outrage was
repaid by outrage and led to fresh outrage.
Therefore impartial critics have argued
that this undisciplined, irregular, non-mili-
tary fighting did France more harm than
good. This may be true. But the maxim,
d la guerre comme d la guerre, always in
favour with militarism, has its application
to the guerilla warfare of the Francs-
tireurs. When once the brutal forces of
war have been let loose, it is impossible to
be sure that the most long-suffering of
civilian populations will remain quiet. The
operations of the Francs-tireurs may have
been unreasonable, and in the balance
disastrous to the people they sought to serve.
But unhappily reason is unheard in the
clash of arms. Moreover if we take a view
88 Forty Years After
of warfare which admits the existence of
other than material force we may doubt
whether the operations of the Francs-
tireurs were as useless as purely military
critics suppose. It is not to be denied
that their exploits and sufferings had a
share in rousing the spirit of France
to the marvellous efforts of la Difense
Nationale.
But that was still hidden in the mystery
of the future. Neither Moltke nor Mac-
Mahon could see through the urgent diffi-
culties of the hour any sign of the awaken-
ing of France. Moltke found it almost
impossible to believe that MacMahon meant
to do what the intercepted letters seemed
to suggest, and what in fact he was trying
to do. *' In war/' it was Moltke's maxim,
" probabilities alone have often to be
reckoned with ; and the probability as a
rule is that the enemy will do the right
thing. It could not be thought probable
that the French army would leave Paris
unprotected and march by the Belgian
frontier to Metz. Such a move seemed
strange and somewhat foolhardy : still it
was possible.''
So on August 25th Moltke changed his
plans. A scheme of marches was worked
out which would concentrate 150,000 men
The Doom of MacMahon 89
on the right bank of the Meuse to the
north of Verdun. He did it with much
anxiety. *' Endless difficulties might result
from such a course : the arrangements for
bringing up baggage and reserves would
have to be cancelled and the confidence
of the troops in their commanders was
liable to be shaken if they were called
upon to perform fruitless marches."
On the afternoon of the same day fresh
news came to hand which proved that the
marches were not to be fruitless. In 1870
the lesson that newspapers must be gagged
in time of war had not been learnt or even
dreamed of. The Prussian General Staff
well knew the value of the Paris press and
studied its emotions carefully. News-
papers reached Moltke in which were re-
ported speeches proclaiming '' that the
French general leaving his comrade in the
lurch was bringing the curses of the
country upon his head." To leave the
heroic Bazaine without relief, as Paris
thought, would be a disgrace to the French
nation.
" Considering the effect of such phrases
upon the French," is Moltke's sardonic
comment, '' it was to be expected that
military considerations would give way to
political." He had just reached that
90 Forty Years After
conclusion when again the French newspapers
came to his assistance. The Temps had
pnbhshed a statement to the effect that
'* MacMahon had suddenly resolved to has-
ten to the assistance of Bazaine though the
abandonment of the road to Paris placed
the country in danger/' This momentous
news was of course immediately telegraphed
to London. The German embassy in
London lost no time in telegraphing it
to the Prussian headquarters. So much
for the uses of newspapers in time of
war.
There was no more need for hesitation.
The new orders were immediately dispatched
to the various commanders. The north-
ward march was begun. Cavalry were
sent out in every direction and soon re-
ports came in which confirmed the round-
about telegrams. MacMahon was certainly
marching northward. It was no less cer-
tain that his march was marvellously
slow. Everything in fact was going just
as Moltke could have wished if he had
himself dictated the movements of the
French.
That the Germans were after him Mac-
Mahon soon discovered. But his information
must have been rather highly coloured. At
Vouziers one corps was kept under arms all
\
The Doom of MacMahon 91
night in a rain-storm to repel an immediate
attack which the Germans had neither the
power nor the intention of making. They
were still miles out of striking distance . Mac-
Mahon, however, was thoroughly alarmed,
and not without reason. He did not know
and could not find out — so good was the
German cavalry screen — how many men
Moltke was bringing against him. He
had excellent reasons for doubting the
ability of his own men to deal with equal
numbers.
It has been suggested that the right
thing for MacMahon to do would have
been to turn upon the pursuing Germans.
If he had won, he would have been out
of his difficulties. If he had lost, he should
have been able to withdraw his army with-
out utter disaster from an enterprise which
proved impracticable. A defeat would have
been better than a march into a trap. We
may doubt whether, in the situation and
with the troops engaged, there was any
practicable way of escape from catastrophe.
MacMahon's cavalry reached the Meuse
at Beaumont, just below Stenay, on August
27th. Their mission, of course, was to
look for Bazaine, who had had time enough
to get there if he was coming. They dis-
covered that nothing^had been seen of him
92 Forty Years After
and his army, and that in all probability
he had never moved an inch from Metz.
After that MacMahon concluded that he
had done enough or more than enough
for honour. He decided to retreat, and
informed Paris of his decision and his
reasons.
The Government could not be expected
to judge the situation by purely military
considerations. Even in time of war it
is the business of governments to give
political and moral arguments due weight.
In all large military operations some regard
has to be paid to other principles than
those of pure strategy. Every great war,
indeed, sees many a compromise between
strategy and policy, sometimes good and
sometimes bad in their consequences. But
the French ministry which interfered with
MacMahon could hardly plead sound
poUtical reasons. All through the night
of August 27th the wires were buzzing
protests from Paris. Finally the Ministerial
Council telegraphed a direct order that
Metz must be relieved. For that, futile
as it was, some sort of defence may be
made. There was reason to think that
if Bazaine was lost France was lost. It
conld be argued that MacMahon and his
men had better strike a gallant blow than
The Doom of MacMahon 93
fall back ingloriously on Paris. But the
truth is that the powers in Paris had no
such honourable reasons for their inter-
ference. It was not France or her honour
that they were trying to preserve, but
the regime of the Second Empire. The
Minister of War let the cat out of the bag.
" If you leave Bazaine in the lurch, revolu-
tion will break out,'' he telegraphed, and
he was right. Everything that was sound
and wholesome in France was passionately
eager for an end of the system which had
brought upon her the humiliation of this
disastrous war. It was already doubtful
whether revolution could long be deferred.
Even the placemen of the Tuileries knew
that. Any further disgrace to the French
arms would certainly cause an explosion.
So the unhappy MacMahon had to be
spurred on to his fate. With egregious
insolence the ministry proceeded to in-
struct him upon the military situation.
Things were not, he was assured, so bad
as he believed. The Germans near him were
really only part of the investing army. What
could be easier than to cut through them ?
As for forces upon his rear, they were
quite a long way off, and somewhere
or other there were more French forces in
being.
94 Forty Years After
What MacMahon thought of this wonder-
ful version of the situation we may guess.
But he was the most loyal of generals. He
would obey orders, though he lost his
army. He would serve the interests of
his emperor to the last breath. Once
more he changed his plans and turned his
army towards the east. There was natur-
ally confusion. The men who had, as an
inevitable consequence of such a maze of
marching, quite lost confidence in their
leaders were in the worst spirits. They
had to march till long after dark to reach
their quarters, and they encamped tired
out and wet through. Never did an army
begin a desperate enterprise with lower
spirits.
Moltke, who had not yet perfected the
arrangements of his trap, left the French
to go where they would. His cavalry
were told not to check or harass or divert
the march. The French were to be politely
escorted, not attacked. For two days this
was the mot d'ordre. Still the unhappy
MacMahon found difficulties grow upon
him. He wanted to cross to the eastern
bank of the Meuse. The bridges were broken,
and of course he had no pontoons. So again
he turned northward. Then came more
confusion. General de Failly was to have
The Doom of MacMahon 95
marched his corps on Beaumont. The staff
officer carrying the orders — they were not
sent in dupHcate — was captured. So Failly,
following an earlier plan, marched on Stenay.
As usual, when the supreme command
vacillates, it seemed as if the very stars in
their courses were fighting against the
army.
This ill-luck with the orders to Failly
was to be one of the decisive factors in
the fortunes of the army. MacMahon
determined that on August 30th his whole
army, having crossed where they could,
should concentrate on the east bank of the
Meuse. The Germans were close upon
them. Moltke laid his plans for the armies
of the two Crown Princes to unite and attack
the French before they could cross the
river.
Now Failly 's corps, having gone wander-
ing off to Stenay, only reached its proper
destination, Beaumont, at four in the
morning, after a long night march. The
men were worn out. Failly decided that
they must have a meal before they went on.
They took their time over cooking it, which
was a mistake. They set no outposts,
which was perhaps the most stupendous
blunder of the war. For they must have
known that the Germans were treading
96 Forty Years After
on their heels. But who was ever more
surprised than Failly's troops when, as
they sat at dinner, the German shells
began to burst among the cooking
pots ?
They tried to recover themselves by
hard fighting. It was impossible. The
German divisions stormed into their camp
and scattered them. Among the woods and
swamps of the Meuse valley other French
divisions fared not much better. The Ger-
man advance was expensive, and in killed
and wounded theysuiferedmoreseverelythan
the French. But the French retreat became
more and more like a rout. Many guns
and a lai*ge number of prisoners were
taken.
MacMahon determined to concentrate
on the little fortress of Sedan. He did
not hope or intend to make a stand there,
but his troops, worn out by day and
night marching in continuous rain and on
short rations, could do no more without
rest. Unless they had a short breathing
space he could not even provide them with
food and ammunition. As the wagons
of the supply columns passed into Sedan
they were beset by " thousands of fugitives
crying for bread." Even the divisions
which were comparatively unshaken
The Doom of MacMahon 97
marched in in a sorry plight. So ex-
hausted in body and spirit was the army
that even such elementary precautions as
the breaking down of bridges were neglected.
When the Emperor arrived late in the even-
ing of the 30th, he must have guessed that
nothing but disaster awaited him.
" The Story of Sedan " has been told
in another volume of this series. It is
therefore not necessary to describe the
battle in detail. But the briefest history
of the war would have been incomplete
without some study of MacMahon's dis-
astrous march from Chalons. For in the
events of that week we can find most
vividly illustrated all the causes which led
to the humiliation of France. The attempt
of a rotten government to use the war as
a means of prolonging its own existence —
the lack of unity in the nation — the lack
of enthusiasm in the army — ^the inefficiency
of general officers — ^the inadequacy of com-
missariat— all these are written large in
the doom of the unfortunate MacMahon.
The lesson is there for all nations to read.
CHAPTER VI
Exit the Emperor
Certainly MacMahon was not a great
commander. To achieve the task which
was set him with the army which was given
him he must have been a Napoleon or a
Marlborough. In his conduct of the march
from Chalons we can indeed find no military
qualities more distinguished than loyalty
and obedience, but his difficulties are hardly
to be exaggerated. It may well be argued
that under such conditions ultimate disaster
could only have been avoided by a miracle,
and the dispositions of Moltke did not
encourage miracles to happen. Consider
the elements of the situation. Given seven
army corps in the high spirits of victory
and capable of marching 15 miles a day for
a week, opposed to four corps shaken by
defeat, who could only make 5 miles a day,
what must be the result ? MacMahon, as the
man doomed to command those helpless four
corps, deservesall the sympathy due to a brave
man struggling against irresistible force.
98
Exit the Emperor 90
At last he had a whiff of good fortune.
The movements to envelop Sedan more
closely began early in the morning of
September ist. A tremendous artillery fire
was concentrated on the neighbouring village
of Bazeilles. MacMahon was struck by a
splinter of shell. At last he could with honour
give up his command. It devolved on
General von Wimpffen, who had just returned
from Algiers in time to share in the great
disaster which he had done nothing to cause.
MacMahon had intended to retreat down
the valley of the Meuse to Mezieres, and
dispositions had already been made for this
purpose when Von Wimpffen took over the
command. He thought that further retreat
would be impossible or disastrous. For the
army of the Prussian Crown Prince was
already between Mezieres and him. He
resolved to make his effort in exactly the
opposite direction . He hoped to break through
the lines of the Crown Prince of Saxony to
the south-east, force his way to Carignan
and so at last join hands with Bazaine.
The first event in the French advance
was that they came upon heavy artillery
fire and were driven back. Then they
found that in infantry as well as artillery
the Saxons were superior. In a few hours
the attempt to escape eastwards had failed.
100 Forty Years After
Meanwhile the Crown Prince Frederick
advanced to cut off the French Hne of
retreat to the west. That was done almost
without opposition. On three sides, south,
east and west, the French army was beset.
The next step was to send fresh troops to
complete the envelopment, to plunge in
between Sedan and the Belgian frontier,
to close the avenue of escape to northward.
Some days before, the possibility of a
French retreat into Belgium had been con-
sidered by Bismarck and Moltke. In those
days some respect for neutrality and treaties
and the opinion of the civilized world was
still considered necessary by Prussia. The
statesmanship of Bismarck was not scrupu-
lous but at least he understood that a crime
may be a blunder too. He did not tell the
world that German troops were to march
across the Belgian frontier because the
General Staff was afraid that the French
might some day. He made representations
in Brussels, to which no exception can be
taken by the most austere international
morality. There was reason to believe,
said the Prussian Ambassador, that Mac-
Mahon's army might retreat across the
Belgian frontier. In that event, the King
of Prussia relied upon the Belgian Govern-
ment to maintain its neutrality and disarm
Exit the Emperor 101
the invaders. But if the Belgians failed to
perform their obligations, the German troops
would be compelled to cross the frontier
and complete the French defeat. It does
not appear that Bismarck had any great
confidence in the Belgian power to remain
neutral. Belgian troops were on the frontier,
but, as he complained with a characteristic
scorn of everything small, they seemed to
be of no account ; the soldiers he had
seen were " all overcoat.''
So the German commanders strained
every nerve to save the Belgians trouble.
General von Kirchbach forced his way
round to the north of the French army,
flinging back a desperate attack delivered
by the cavalry under the Marquis de
Galliffet. A corresponding advance was
made by the army of the Crown Prince of
Saxony, and by ten o'clock in the morning
of that September ist, the internment of
the French was almost complete. All round
the investing lines the French made desperate
if spasmodic efforts to break through. But
at every point they found the Germans
too strong for them. Early in the day the
French artillery was everywhere mastered.
Batteries were not merely put out of action
but destroyed.
In the afternoon the French cavalry
102 Forty Years After
made one more gallant effort to change the
fortune of the day. General Margueritte
brought five regiments of light horse and
two of lancers into action. He was severely
wounded in the first shock. Shot through
the mouth, he could give no orders but
mutely pointed with his sword at the Ger-
man ranks. The command fell to the
Marquis de Galliffet. The French cavalry
charged out of the Bois de Garennes, found
themselves on treacherous ground and were
shattered by the flanking fire of the German
artillery. Still the heroic cavalry struggled
on. They crashed upon the infantry but
were received with volley fire at short range
which mowed them down by squadrons.
" Many fell into the quarries or over the
steep precipices. A few may have escaped
by swimming the Meuse. Scarcely more
than half of these brave troops were left
to return to the protection of the fortress."
No more magnificent feat of arms, no
more heroic sacrifice was consummated
in all the war. But the courage and the
devotion were all in vain. The Prussian
infantry were unshaken. They closed in
with new ardour upon the retreating French.
Meanwhile, on the original line of the French
attack to eastw^ard, the Germans were no
less successful. There the spirit of the French
Exit the Emperor 103
troops was soon broken. Prisoners were taken
by hundreds. Twenty- one German batteries
were > brought into line and concentrated
their fire upon Sedan. Soon flames were
seen rising from the town. The Bavarians
advanced to the assault and were about to
force the gates when the white flag was seen.
It was half-past four in the afternoon.
The order to raise a flag of truce came
from the Emperor himself. In a little
while there was brought to the presence of
the King of Prussia General Reille. He pre-
sented an autograph letter from the Em-
peror. Having been unable to die in the
midst of his troops, as he would have
chosen, so Napoleon wrote, nothing remained
for him but to place his sword in the hands
of King William. Afterwards in Paris and
even in towns less concerned, cruel sarcasms
were passed on that letter. Its form no
doubt does invite mockery. But a calm
judgment, while not palliating the blunders
and crimes of Napoleon III., will see little
matter for sneers in his humiliation at
Sedan. He would no doubt have left a
fairer memory if he had died among his
soldiers. But to jeer because an invalid
does not keep his place in the firing line is
not a valuable form of criticism.
Neither sympathy nor mockery he found
104 Forty Years After
from the powers that ruled the Prussian
policy — Bismarck and Moltke. Where the
Emperor '' placed his sword *' was in-
significant. The only answer he had to
his fine phrases was a demand that an
officer should be sent with full powers to
treat for the surrender of the French army.
Even Moltke, who seldom had emotions
to spare for the plight of his enemies, pauses
a moment in his austere narrative of events
to sympathize with the man who having
been with the French army only a few hours,
having succeeded to the command only that
morning, had to negotiate an unconditional
surrender in the evening. '' This sorrowful
duty,'* he notes, '' was imposed on General
von Wimpffen, who was in no way respon-
sible for the desperate straits into which
the army had been brought.'' And a
French soldier must indeed be blameless for
Moltke to find excuses for him.
All through the night between September
1st and 2nd, negotiations went on at
Donch6ry. It is remarkable that Moltke
afterwards thought it necessary to explain
if not to apologise for the severity of the
terms of surrender. He would accept no-
thing less than the disarmament and deten-
tion of the whole army, though he was
ready to let the officers go free on parole.
Exit the Emperor 105
Such a course, he says, was inevitable
because '* any act of untimely generosity
might lead the French to forget their defeat."
It was in fact desirable for Prussian prestige,
if not necessary to Prussian safety that
France should drink the cup of humiliation
to the dregs. Perhaps his foresight was
not as clear and did not reach as far as he
supposed. But '* untimely generosity " has
never been a vice of Prussian policy.
The luckless Von Wimpffen protested
vehemently against the ignominy of such a
surrender. He was told that unless the terms
were agreed to by nine o'clock in the morning
the bombardment would be renewed. And
the Germans had five hundred guns in
position. It is said that during this grim
parley by night the price which Prussia
meant to make France pay for the war
was first threatened. When Von Wimpffen
was urging his claim to a more honour-
able capitulation, and pleading that if his
army yielded themselves up, Germany ought
to consider that she had gained enough
and push the war no further, Bismarck broke
roughly in. Far more than the surrender
of armies Prussia would ask before she
stayed her hand. The spoils were to the
victors. When France sued for peace,
Prussia would exact not only four billions
106 Forty Years After
of francs but Alsace and German Lor-
raine.
In after years Bismarck sometimes wished
the world to understand that in this matter
of the provinces he was overruled by Moltke
and the General Staff. For himself, he
would have been content with a vast war
indemnity. It was the soldiers who insisted
that France must be mutilated. They
wanted a frontier which would be difficult
for France to attack, and give them the
advantage in an attack on France.
We should no doubt be foolish to believe
all that Bismarck wished us to believe.
But it is possible that he saw dangers
which the soldiers did not see or did not
wish to see. When Von Wimpffen heard
this cruel sentence on his country pro-
nounced he broke out passionately : ** De-
mand only money and you will be sure of
peace wdth us for an indefinite period.
If you take from us Alsace and Lorraine
you will only have a truce for a time. In
France from old men down to children all
will learn the use of arms, and millions of
soldiers one day will demand of you what
you take from us.'' For forty-four years
Europe has waited the fulfilment of that
prophecy. For forty-four years Ger-
many has always had to count upon the
Exit the Emperor 107
implacable resentment of France, and make
that the first consideration of her policy.
No wonder if Bismarck sometimes asked
himself whether it was worth while. When
he suggested that it was the strategist and
not the statesman who tore Alsace and
Lorraine from France he confessed that
the statesman blundered. For if the
strategy which is governed by questions of
policy is dubious, the policy which is ruled
by strategy is a snare. Forty-four years
have gone by, and now on each frontier
Germany faces millions of men in arms.
Whatever the issue of the war, would it
not have been cheaper to make a friend
of France when France could have been
won by a trifle of " untimely generosity ? "
But there was no generosity in the little
ill-lit room in Donchery. Surrender or
be pounded to atoms was the choice forced
upon Von Wimpffen, and surrender he did.
Never in the history of civilized warfare
has there been such a victory or such a
humiliation. When the great Napoleon
surrounded the Austrians at Ulm some
30,000 men were taken and that was
thought a stupendous feat. The army
which Napoleon le Petit brought to Sedan
yielded 21,000 prisoners in the fighting,
and 83,000 laid down their arms. Every
108 Forty Years After
year since, Germany has celebrated the
day of the surrender, September 2nd, as a
great national festival. Will she be still
rejoicing on September 2nd, 1915 ? After
the surrender Bismarck was talking to
the American general Sheridan and an
Englishman upon the field. An aide-de-
camp eager to celebrate the great event
produced from somewhere two bottles of
Belgian beer. In that modest fluid, Prus-
sian, American and Englishman drank
Bismarck's toast " to the nearer union of
the three great Teuton peoples." There is
a grim irony about that in 1914. And that
the beer should have been Belgian !
But words for Germany of more tragic
irony still came from Bismarck's lips on
that day. He was congratulated on the
victory. " Oh, my dear sir,'' he protested,
" I am no strategist. It is not my business
to win battles. But here are Bavarians,
Wurttemburgers, Saxons, all fighting to-
gether with Prussians in one army. That
is what I am proud of. That is my work."
The victory of Sedan was indeed made
possible only by the victory of Prussian
diplomacy. What does the world think
of the Prussian diplomacy of 1914 ?
" With the surrender of this army,"
says Moltke curtly, " Imperialism in France
Exit the Emperor 109
became extinct." The unhappy Emperor
doubtless had no delusions about the fate
of his throne. But at least he was more
manly in disaster than the greater
Napoleon. *' He was cast down/' the King
of Prussia wrote, *' but dignified in bearing
and resigned."
Resignation was not a virtue to be
expected of the nation which his rule had
brought to such shame. On the evening
of September 2nd the Empress Eugenie
learnt of the surrender. For a whole day
she and her advisers hesitated and faltered.
But the news, of course, could not be kept
secret. It came upon Paris like a storm
from a clear sky, for Paris had been con-
fident that MacMahon would fight his way
to Bazaine and the two great armies still
defy the Prussians. The government which
had fed France with assurances of certain
victory had only itself to thank for the
cry " Nous sommes trahisJ' When the
National Assembly met on the 4th, Palikao
the Prime Minister announced pathetically
that he was now going to tell the truth.
Then Jules Favre, the leader of the
Republicans, rose to ask : " Does the
Emperor still give orders ? " " No," said
Palikao. *' If it be so," Favre answered,
*' actual government has ceased to exist
llO Forty Years After
and the people has retaken its rights."
That was the real proclamation of the
Third Republic.
Excited crowds invaded the chamber
and the sitting was perforce dissolved.
That afternoon from the Hotel de Ville
formal proclamation of the Republic was
made and in its name the deputies of
Paris met as a provisional government.
Next day they formed a ministry in which
Jules Favre held the foreign office, and a
greater man, Leon Gambetta, was minister
of the interior. From that day began the
building of the new France, with its one
aim through all vicissitudes— the restoration
of the French spirit and French influence
to their rightful place in civilization.
CHAPTER VII
The Mystery of Bazaine
So the army which was to deliver Bazaine
fell upon ruin. What of Bazaine the while ?
While MacMahon's wretched men toiled
through the miry lanes of Champagne, eyes
aflame with hunger, belts drawn tighter
over emptiness at each bivouac, while the
mad march to relieve the invested army
was dragging on to disaster, what was that
invested army doing for itself ? MacMahon
was borne away a wounded prisoner. What
of Bazaine ? Among those who shared the
misery and the shame of Sedan many asked
that question with oaths and tears. All
France thundered it out with a vehemence
which drove Bazaine into disgrace and
exile. Criticism, military and historical,
has asked it often enough since. What of
Bazaine ? A judicial historian would pro-
batly confess that even now there is no
certain answer.
la one sense of course the answer is
obvious. The furious prisoners of Sedan
111
112 Forty Years After
wanted to know what Bazaine had done
for himself or for them in all that fortnight
through which they were spending them-
selves in a wild effort to rescue him. What
did Bazaine do ? Nothing. But when we
ask the much more interesting question,
why did he do no more, we find ourselves
in a maze of enigmas and for any solution
we have to turn from mihtary historians
to psychology.
First let us have the facts. There is
indeed not much interest in the story of
the leaguer of Metz. What interest could
there be in reading how a general with
170,000 men was content to do nothing
at the great crisis of a war and his
country's safety ? Whether to write or
read the story of a man's progress in
making himself negligible is a dull page.
But if the facts are in themselves tediDus
and uninspiring, the problems of human
nature which they suggest are fascinating
by their very obscurity.
Two days after Gravelotte, Bazaine wrote
to Chalons. '' I will give due notice of my
march if I am able to attempt it.*' Three
days later he announced to the Emperor,
** If the news of the extensive reductiDns
in the besieging army is corroborated,
I shall begin to march by way of the
The Mystery of Bazaine 113
fortresses on the north to risk nothing/'
Perhaps not even his Emperor expected
Bazaine to risk much. But was a marshal
of France ever before so blandly content
to write himself down no hero ? Bazaine
was invested, to be sure, and his troops
disheartened by defeat, but he had still
170,000 of them and the fate of France was
in the balance. Conceive a marshal of the
greater Napoleon professing in such cir-
cumstances that his guiding principle would
be ''to risk nothing ! "
It was more than a week after the defeat
at Gravelotte before Bazaine made his
first move. On August 26th his main
forces were collected on the right bank of
the Moselle. The advanced guard drove
in the German outposts. Then the in-
credible happened. Instead of ordering
an attack Bazaine called a council of war.
It was announced to the officers that there
was ammunition for one battle only. It
was pointed out to them that when that
was exhausted the army would be enve-
loped without the means of defence. Vic-
tory, you observe, is assumed to be im-
possible. It was added that the fortress
could not stand a siege if the army did
break its way out. Finally and with great
emphasis the unhappy generals were told
114 Forty Years After
" that the best service they could render
to their country was to preserve the army,
which would be of the greatest importance
if negotiations for peace should be entered
into."
Each succeeding sentence in this oration
is more amazing. You can hardly believe
in the face of overwhelming evidence that
a word of it was ever spoken. What can
Bazaine have intended ? Let us leave
that large question till the whole tale of
Metz is told. But one question, minor
indeed, yet even more baffling, must be
put at once. Whatever he intended, why
did he behave with such stupendous folly ?
He must have known how much ammuni-
tion he had before he put his army into
motion. If the supply was not enough
to justify him in fighting why did he move
at all ? Was it to make a parade of
activity ? Who would be impressed ? Not
the common soldier, to whom nothing but
utter defeat is more depressing than futile
marching to and fro. Not the generals,
who must have been appalled by the folly
of the affair. Above all, not France, which
was feverishly crying for action. It seems
idle to suppose that Bazaine himself can
have seen nothing odd in such conduct.
After all he had risen by ability as much
The Mystery of Bazaine 115
as court favour. He was not altogether
stupid. The truth seems to be that he
was one of the men who always prefer to
gain their ends by trickery. He did not
mean to fight. He wanted to have the
decision of a council of war to justify
himself. So he chose this preposterous
way of compelUng his generals to vote for
inaction.
Vote for inaction they did, and it is
impossible to blame them. Whatever they
may have thought of the situation and
Bazaine's performances, it is not to be
expected that any man would wish to fight
a desperate battle under the command
of Bazaine. So the Marshal '* who had
refrained,'' we are drily told, " from ex-
pressing any opinion on the matter," won
the support of his council of war for the
order to retire which he gave. In his
report to the Minister of War he stated
that lack of artillery ammunition made it
** impossible " to break out unless he were
assisted by another French army. And
he demanded information as to what " the
voice of the people " was saying.
Five days later he came to fighting after
all. He knew by that time of MacMahon's
march to relieve him. It was " impossible "
•—that favourite word of Bazaine ! — ^not
116 Forty Years After
to make some answering effort. Even
Bazaine must have seen that if he did not
make some pretence of helping himself he
was for ever dishonoured. It is not easy
to be quite fair in judging the man. He
put so many obstacles in the way of giving
him credit for what soldierly qualities he
had. But we ought not to doubt his
personal courage, and though we may with
reason suspect his loyalty to his fellow
commanders, it is probable that he had
sufficient soldierly instinct to feel that
he really wished to do something to support
MacMahon.
He made his attempt to northward,
which in Moltke's opinion was a mistake.
The country in that region was indeed
very difficult. But considering that Mac-
Mahon had marched northward it is hard
to blame Bazaine for his choice. At first
the French had the advantage, bringing
into action a force much greater than
Manteuffel's command, which was the part
of the investing army opposed to them.
The first day saw the battle undecided.
The morning of September ist saw the
plain covered in thick mist. Before fresh
fighting began Bazaine's resolution failed
him. He called his generals together and
announced that failing the capture of what
The Mystery of Bazaine 117
he took to be the key of the German posi-
tion he proposed to retreat immediately
under the guns of the fortress. He showed,
as Moltke sneers, " great lack of confidence
in his own success." The French never-
theless fought better than their commander
deserved, but they gained no ground against
far inferior forces, and about noon Bazaine
sounded the retreat. " On the same day
and the same hour as the destruction of
one French army was completed at Sedan,
the other returned to almost hopeless
internment at Metz." It was a vast
triumph for the Prussian arms and the
Prussian system. No wonder that Moltke
allows his cold narrative one phrase
of pride. *' Thus the issue of the war had
already been decided after only two months'
duration," he writes, " though the war
itself was far from ended." How far indeed
he little guessed when he forced the sur-
render of Sedan.
But with Bazaine's wretched army all
was over. The city of Metz had food for
more than three months, the fortress
garrison for five, but Bazaine 's troops
were only provisioned for forty days. The
investment became a blockade and not a
siege, for the Germans had no artillery
capable of mastering the fortress guns.
118 Forty Years After
At the end of a month provisions were
scarce, and by the beginning of October
Bazaine tried to negotiate a capitulation ;
but the Germans would only hear of un-
conditional surrender, and Bazaine de-
manded that his army should march out
free. By the twentieth of October bread
and salt failed and the troops were eating
horseflesh. The condition of the camp on
sodden clay was intolerable. Riots broke
out in the army. Men let themselves be
captured for the sake of a meal. On the
24th Bazaine again began to parley. He
suggested that he might be permitted to
take his army off to Algiers or failing that
an armistice and the entry of stores should
be granted. The Germans demanded pos-
session of the fortress and the whole
garrison as prisoners. The capitulation
was signed on October 27th. On the
29th " the French troops marched out by
six roads in perfect silence and good march-
ing order. At each gate a Prussian Army
Corps stood to take the prisoners who were
immediately placed in bivouacs that had
been prepared for them and supplied with
food. The ofiicers were allowed to keep
their swords and to return to Metz for the
time. Provisions were immediately sent
in," 173,000 ofi&cers and men were taken
The Mystery of Bazaine 119
and to these must be added 20,000 sick
in hospital. Altogether nearly 200,000
fighting men fell into the hands of Prince
Frederick Charies. The history of war
records few disasters so great, perhaps
none more ignominious.
After the war was over Bazaine was
brought before a court-martial. By an
ironic turn of fate MacMahon was made
to sit in judgment on the man whom he
had failed to relieve. Yet we may allow
some tragic justice in the choice of a judge.
Whatever we may think of MacMahon and
the army which he led to Sedan, it is obvious
that they dared the folly which ruined them
for Bazaine's sake and that but for the
stupendous inertia of Bazaine they might
have escaped with something less than
utter disaster.
All France demanded vengeance on the
'* traitor.'' We can hardly wonder that
such a charge was made. We may well
refuse to give any importance to the sneers
which suggest that Bazaine's only real
offence was the shock he gave to the
national vanity of France and that but
for the ignoble French habit of '' demand-
ing a * traitor ' to account for defeat " no
one would ever have dreamed of assailing
Bazaine. No nation has ever been free
120 Forty Years After
from the tendency to seek a scapegoat on
whom to place the blame of disaster. Not
only in French has the cry Nous sommes
traties been heard.
Of treason in any precise sense Bazaine
must indeed be acquitted. There is no
evidence at all that he did not act for
what he believed to be the interests of
France. But it is impossible to read the
shameful story of the blockade of Metz
without admitting that if punishment ought
to be inflicted on generals for incompetence,
for lack of energy, for over caution, France
was in the right to punish Bazaine. A
nation which allowed Byng to be shot.
Lord George Sackville to be cashiered,
never forgave Cumberland the Convention
of Klosterseven, or Burrard and Dalrymple
the Convention of Cintra, has no right to
blame the French for bringing Bazaine
before a court-martial. He was found
guilty of *' having failed to do his duty/'
and sentenced to degradation and death.
This was commuted to twenty years' im-
prisonment and, as he contrived or was
permitted to escape after one year in a
fortress and lived on till 1888, we need not
be extravagant in our pity.
But impartial history, if it has no right
to extenuate Bazaine's conduct must faith
The Mystery of Bazaine 121
fully explain all the difficulties of his
position. '* There is no doubt/' says
Moltke, who was not inclined to judge him
harshly, '' that Bazaine was influenced not
only by miUtary, but by political consider-
ations/' In the ordinary circumstances
of war there could be no more damning
criticism upon a commander. His business
is to leave poUtics to his government and
consider nothing but strategy. The govern-
ment indeed may be right to limit his opera-
tions by '* poHtical considerations." Then
the responsibility for any disasters so
caused falls to the government. But
Bazaine of his own choice acted from
political motives. Every party in France
wanted him to throw all his forces on the
Germans in an attempt to break out from
Metz. Before Sedan and after he made it
plain that his one purpose was to keep his
great army intact under his own command.
What might happen to MacMahon or to
France was comparatively of no importance.
In the ordinary circumstances of war,
it must be repeated, such conduct would
have been without excuse. But the cir-
cumstances were not ordinary. Before
Sedan the Imperial government was totter-
ing. After Sedan it fell. Bazaine had
sworn his oaths of fideUty to the Emperor.
122 Forty Years After
There is little doubt that he considered
his duty to the Emperor paramount, that
he considered himself free from any allegi-
ance to the RepubHc which established itself
on the ruins of the Empire. Probably he
hoped that he might keep his army in being
till the conclusion of peace. Then, as the
head of an overwhelming army in a France
broken and spiritless, he might again
estabhsh the Empire.
But this theory, true though it may be,
does not solve all the mystery of Bazaine.
He was loyal, we assume, to the Emperor.
That may account for his inaction after
Sedan. But what can explain his inaction
before ? Loyalty to the Emperor and
every other emotion which a soldier of
France could feel must surely have wrought
upon him to stake every man on an effort
to save MacMahon, save the Emperor
while yet there was time, and so save
France. How we interpret his unheroic
caution must depend rather on our view
of human nature than an estimate of the
military conditions. It has been held that
Bazaine's hidden purpose was really not
to re-establish the? Empire but to establish
himself. If peace left him, in Moltke's
suggestive phrase, '' the strongest man in
power " he might have ventured one more
i\
The Mystery ot Bazaine 123
coup d'etat. For such suspicions Bazaine
indeed had only himself to thank. But we
should hesitate to assume treachery for
which there is no substantial evidence. If
we say that Bazaine was a commander
incapable of bold resolution, prone to
prefer his own importance to vigorous co-
operation and guided above all by a puzzle-
headed faith in cunning and futile subtlety,
we shall probably have come near to under-
standing him. One of the worst blunders
of the Second Empire was that its system
brought such men to the front.
CHAPTER VIII
The Road to Paris
Though Moltke could claim that the issue
of the war was decided when MacMahon
was captured and Bazaine driven back
upon Metz, he was not at the end of his
difficulties. The German losses had been
very heavy and the deficiency of officers
was found " irremediable." Half the army
was still occupied in the investment of
Strassburg and Metz. Each mile of ad-
vance into hostile country increased the
difficulties of supply and diminished the
numbers which could be used for active
operations. On the morrow of Sedan it
was found that only 150,000 men could be
mustered to march on Paris. That Paris
should be their objective, there was of
course no doubt. It was a fundamental
principle of Moltke's plan of campaign.
While the German army is advancing on a
front of fifty miles we may watch the fate
of the French frontier fortresses.
Toul and Strassburg were of paramount
124
The Road to Paris 125
importance. Then as now they commanded
the great railway which runs from Paris
by way of Carlsruhe and Stuttgart into the
heart of Germany. So long as Strassburg
and Toul were in French hands it was
therefore a matter of great difficulty to
keep the invading army supplied. The
reduction of Toul was entrusted to a
division which had been detached to deal
with any French raid on the German coast.
When the inactivity of the French fleet
and the crushing disasters of the French
army satisfied Moltke that nothing was to
be feared from the sea, this 17th Division
was promptly brought up.
In 1870 Toul, though a place of con-
siderable strength, was commanded by
high groimd outside its defences. It was
already closely invested on September 12th
when the fresh German troops arrived.
On the i8th the siege artillery was brought
up. On the 24th sixty-two guns opened
fire, and by half past three in the afternoon
the white flag was hoisted. The garrison
numbered less than 3,000 men. When the
Germans entered the city they found that
it had suffered little and contained large
stores of provisions and forage.
Strassburg gave more trouble. Reasons
strategic, political and sentimental aU
126 Forty Years After
combined to make its possession of the first
importance to both nations. Not only
the railway but the Rhine is commanded
by Strassburg. While it was in the hands
of France, Moltke considered that it was
" a standing threat to Germany." Of
course the French with precisely equal
force could maintain the converse of that
proposition. The Rhine is in fact the
natural frontier between the nations, and
whichever power holds the great fortified
bridge heads has an enormous advantage
in war. The political and sentimental
importance of the place was hardly less.
Germany, or at least Prussia, meant to
annex Alsace. It was therefore desirable j
to have Alsace subdued as soon as possible,
so that France and the neutral powers
might be met with a fait accompli. To
Alsace, Strassburg was and is the key, l
Sentiment also was potent. Strassburg in
name and partially in population and
culture was German. During the French
Revolution its university was suppressed
as a stronghold of German influence. The
theory that the war was being fought for
German unity had expanded into the doc-
trine that it was a crusade for the liberation
of provinces once German and a population |
still German from French supremacy. We
The Road to Paris 127
may smile at the notion of Alsace and
Lorraine welcoming Prussian rule as liber-
ation or considering themselves by racial
ties part of Germany. But the docile
German people had adopted the doctrine
ardently. Strassburg was certainly the
most plausible example that could be found
to support it. For all these reasons there-
fore, every effort was made to force a sur-
render.
As early as August nth a German
force appeared before the town. It was
not in sufficient strength to effect anything
of importance. General Uhrich, the French
commandant, had a garrison of 23,000 men.
It is characteristic of the French War
Office under the Second Empire that there
was not among them a single company of
engineers. The town was however well
supplied with artillery. Just before the
end of August the siege began in earnest.
General von Werder brought to the walls
of the town 40,000 men of the ist Reserve,
with a siege train of 200 field pieces and
88 mortars. '' To attain the desired end
with the least possible delay,'' says Moltke
bluntly, " an attempt was made contrary
to the advice of General Schultz of the
Engineers, though with consent from head-
quarters, to force the town to surrender
128 Forty Years After
by means of a bombardment. The request
to remove the women and children had to
be refused." Why it "had to be" he
does not choose to inform us. But we
can read between the lines. The intention
was to force the hand of the French com-
mander by inflicting intolerable suffering
on the civilian population.
The Prussian doctrine of necessity, of
the right of armies to '' hack their way "
through justice and morality if they can
thereby secure a military advantage, had
not in 1870 grown to its full stature. There
was still a certain delicacy in confessing
and even in acting upon the full brutality
of the faith that might is right. Moltke
himself we may well believe, ruthless as
he was, would never have tolerated acts
forbidden by the laws of war. His troops
did not advance with women and children
to shield them from French fire. It is
probable that the brutal fool who yesterday
destroyed Louvain would have had short
shrift from him. But the seeds of the
infamy which disgraces the German arms
in 1 914 are to be found in the principles
of 1870. The laws of war justify the bom-
bardment of Strassburg. The laws of war
did not require the German commander
to spare women and children its horrors.
The Road to Paris 129
*' War is hell," said Sherman, and war
waged without chivalry engulfs us in
abysses of unspeakable horror. Moltke and
his commanders might claim, and on the
whole with justice, that they never trans-
gressed the letter of the law. But to their
harsh insistence upon their right to inflict
every horror within the law is to be traced
the barbarism which now has made German
soldiery the abomination of the world.
For they were successful, and the little
men who have inherited their system have
fancied, as weakness will, that their cruelty
was the secret of their success.
So the bombardment began. It had
been difficult to construct batteries for the
siege guns. All over the east of France
that autumn was dreary and wet, and the
besieging army lived and worked in miser-
able discomfort. Nevertheless, it was
found possible to get a number of the
heavy guns into position by August 25th,
and that night they opened fire. In a few
hours the town broke into flames. On
the next morning the Bishop of Strass-
burg came to the German outposts to ask
that the citizens might be spared. But
the agony of the citizens was part of the
Prussian plan. '' Much as the injury of
a German town was to be regretted/' say^
130 Forty Years After
Moltke with a naivete which ahnost sounds
like the cynical frankness of Bismarck,
** the firing had to be continued through
the night of the 25th, when it was hottest/'
And then he admits so suddenly that the
reader rubs his eyes that, after all, this
cruel bombardment of the town was futile.
*' At the same time,'' he says, *' it was
fully acknowledged in headquarters that
the end would not be attained by these
means and that the more deliberate method
of a regular siege must be tried."
In fact the German engineers were right
after all. The way to capture a fortress
is to attack the fortifications. No amount
of '' moral effect " produced by bombard-
ing private houses while fortress works
remain intact will frighten a resolute
garrison. So much for the '* necessity "
of keeping the women and children inside
as targets and the '' necessity " of firing
upon their houses. It remained to conduct
the siege according to the art of war.
Parallels were opened. Fresh batteries
were built. The duel with the guns of the
fortress began. The garrison attempted
a sortie which was repulsed. The fortress
guns were silenced. On the 3rd of Sep-
tember, General Uhrich asked for a truce
to bury the dead. That day his garrison
The Road to Paris 131
learnt by the German feu de joie of the fall
of Sedan.
The rain had been so heavy that the
trenches were ankle deep in water. Yet
the besieging force maintained their energy.
Their batteries were now firing from a short
range and the garrison could not man
their guns, but relied only on their mortars,
which of course the German grape and
shrapnel could not reach. The German
sappers worked very close to the walls.
In history on such a scale as this there
is no scope to celebrate mere incidents
however romantic. But the most austere
history may well find room for the name
of Captain Ledebour, and such a deed as
his. When the French found out that an
attempt was being made to drive mines
in front of the lunettes. Captain Ledebour
let himself down by ropes from the walls
into the trenches and took out the powder.
In the whole course of the war you will
hardly find another piece of daring so
splendid and so successful.
But there was no respite for Strassburg.
On September 15th a German fusilier
regiment defying heavy fire contrived^r'^
destroy the dam which kept ^^^Water"^^
in the moat. The batteries w^e ^jn^'VM
still closer to the walls and the^4i4!^.^pits^
132 Forty Years After
were so well used that the French could
hardly show themselves by daylight. Shell
fire made a breach, and by the 19th the
Germans were planning an assault. But
the preparations took time. Though the
dam of the moat had been broken, the
water was still breast high. It was decided
to make a cask bridge of beer barrels, of
which there was, you hear with a smile,
abundance at hand. Still there was more
work for the siege guns. The walls of
two bastions were shattered and the storm-
ing of the inner defences was only a matter
of hours.
On the 27th September a white flag was
seen on the cathedral tower and firing
ceased. The town had stood thirty days
of siege. It was still well supplied with
stores of all kinds, and the garrison, though
diminished, was still strong. But the plight
of the townsfolk was miserable. 10,000
people were homeless, 62,000 killed and
wounded. Countless public buildings were
destroyed. We cannot blame General
Uhrich for his surrender. The fate of the
city was certain. He did well to spare
the tortured people the outrages of a storm.
17,000 troops were taken prisoners, but that
was the least important part of General
von Werder's success. Every German
The Road to Paris 133
heart exulted in the triumph which saw
" the old German town restored by German
daring to German rule/' With Strassburg
fell Alsace. One of the coveted provinces
was in the German grasp. The great
bridge head was mastered. The main rail-
way from Germany through the east of
France was free for the passage of German
troops and stores. It was in fact imme-
diately used to carry some of the army
which had besieged the town to a like
task before Paris.
For before the day of Strassburg's fall
Paris itself was invested. There was no
considerable force to oppose the march of
Moltke's 150,000. With MacMahon's army
gone in captivity to Germany, and Bazaine's
little more use under the guns of Metz,
France was left almost naked of troops.
In 1870 there was no force left to make
the invader pay as he has paid now for
every mile of advance by heavy losses.
No fortifications of any importance existed
within the frontier save at Paris. Laon
capitulated to the first summons of a
cavalry division. After the surrender of
the town an odd thing happened. The
courtyard of the citadel was crowded with
French and Germans, prisoners and con-
querors, when the magazine exploded upon
134 Forty Years After
them. How or why it was fired still
remains unknown. At the time there were
stories of treachery. The Germans had
been admitted, it was whispered, in order
that they might be blown up. For that
there is no evidence at all ; and as the
explosion occurred while many French
were still in the citadel, and in fact the
French losses were at least thrice as heavy
as the Germans and included the com-
mandant himself, the theory of treachery,
though not absolutely incredible, may well
be dismissed. It is quite possible that
the cause of the explosion may have been
mere accident. But intention is on the
whole probable, and we may suggest that
some zealous officer ordered or eager to
prevent the ammunition from falling into
German hands blew it up at an awkward
moment. The incident is not of much
historical importance, but as it caused a
good deal of bitterness at the time, it seems
to deserve a place in this narrative.
The German advance then was unim-
peded by any organized force. The hos-
tility of the people on the line of march,
though unable to impose any decided
obstacles, gave continual trouble. Roads
were torn up and bridges broken down.
The Francs-tireurs skirmished everywhere.
The Road to Paris 135
The German advance began on Septem-
ber 4th. In a week the Prussian head-
quarters were estabHshed in Rheims. King
WiUiam was master of the town in which
so many of the kings of France had been
crowned. On September 17th a forag-
ing party sent out from Paris was driven
back under the guns of the fort at Charenton.
The king's headquarters were brought up
to Meaux. The investment of Paris was
begun. Less than seven weeks had passed
since the campaign had opened. In forty-five
days almost the whole of the French army
had been captured or besieged. With
150,000 men Moltke surrounded Paris. In
all the rest of France there was no trained
mobile force. Napoleon himself might have
been satisfied with success so vast and so
swift.
CHAPTER IX
1870 — 1914
It is probable that the historian in the
future considering the causes of the tremen-
dous world warfare of 1914 will decide
that it was the natural if not the inevitable
consequence of the spirit in which the
war of 1870 was fought and ended. Many
causes, no doubt, which could not be
suspected by Moltke or Bismarck, Thiers
or Gambetta, have their part in embittering
the present struggle and marshalling new
forces on either side. But the faith that
the German Empire could only be estab-
lished by war, could only be maintained
by vast armaments and must look to war
for fresh strength, is to be traced to the
policy of Bismarck and Moltke and their
achievements. The Prussian principle that
in peace the victor must seek not the
conciliation but the maiming of the van-
quished has borne fruit in the steady
enmity between France and Germany. The
growing ferocity of the German armies
136
I870-I9I4 1^*^
as the resistance of France grew more and
more stubborn has persuaded Germany
that brutality and victory are inseparable
allies.
But if we have to trace a close con-
nection between the wars of 1870 and
1914, we note differences of incalculable
importance. These lines are written while
even the first phase of the conflict of 19 14
is undecided. But already on September
1st, the anniversary of Sedan, we know
that the German arms are not to fall upon
the feeble opposition, enjoy the easy vic-
tories and the swift decisions of 1870.
Already it is clear that the France of 1914
is fighting the war with a united front,
with an amplitude of preparation, with a
fervour and resolution which recall not
the disasters of 1870 but the tremendous
defiance of the days when she flung back
the arms of all Europe with Camot as the
organizer of victory. But it is not the
stubborn resistance to the German advance,
not even the spirit of the new France
which is the chief difierence between the
campaigns of 1870 and 1914.
In 1870 France stood alone. In 1870
the political conditions of the struggle had
been determined by the consummate ability
of Bismarck, The war of 1914, as we
138 Forty Years After
know, was preluded and conditioned if it
was not caused by a stupendous defeat for
German diplomacy. The statesmanship of
Berlin has contrived to array against itself
not merely a France prepared to fight to
the end a battle for national existence.
It has brought down upon Germany the
whole power of Russia inspired by a fervent
national faith in the righteousness of the
cause. It has forced the dominant sea
power and the almost unbounded resources
of the British Empire to alliance with its
enemies and convinced every dominion,
every race, every party under the British
flag that the world will have in it no place
for honour or justice till Germany has been
taught that might is not right.
Germany indeed has one ally on whose
friendship she could not count in 1870.
Then Austria, though she did not dare to
break through her proclaimed neutrality,
was hostile in spirit. Now in all the world
Austria alone stands with Germany. But
we may have suspicions that as the veiled
hostility of the Austria of 1870 was of small
account to Prussia, her aid in 1914 will be
of little help. An empire in hourly dread
of disruption, an empire of peoples bitterly
inimical to each other held together by
no bond but a tottering dynasty, an
1 8 70-19 14 139
empire seeking in a desperate war some
relief from the distracting dangers of peace,
is not the ally which statesmanship would
choose for a conflict against the mass of
three of the strongest powers in the world.
What Bismarck would have said of the
diplomacy which involved his Prussia
in such a plight we may amuse ourselves
with imagining. It is certain that he
would have thought the Wilhelmstrasse
manned by imbeciles if it had proposed
to him to involve Germany in the war of
1914. Disciple of the faith in *' blood and
iron," ardent believer in the might of the
Prussian arms as he was, he was always
supremely careful that Prussia should never
have to fight more than one enemy at a
time. When he wanted to tear Schleswig-
Holstein from Denmark he made sure first
that Austria would join him and the rest
of Europe stand aside. When Austria was
to be crushed, the neutrality of France and
Russia was secured. When it was the
turn of France, he chose a time which
found Austria hors de combat; he played
for English sympathy and bribed Russia
into neutrality.
The '* Government of National Defence
and War " which rose in Paris on the ruins
of the Empire, sought through Europe for
140 Forty Years After
help in vain. Austria, whose pohcy was
directed by Count Beust, an old and stub-
born enemy of Bismarck, would have liked
to intervene if she had dared and liked
still better to make some other power inter-
vene. Before Sedan several Foreign Offices
were hinting at plans of kindly mediation.
Gortschakoff, the Russian chancellor, who,
though his work has left no such mark on
the world as Bismarck's, was gifted with
foresight at least not inferior to the Prus-
sian's, let it become known that Russia
would disapprove of a demand for the
cession of French territory. If French
provinces passed to Prussian hands, he said,
they would be a perpetual source of enmity
between Germany and France, a standing
menace to the peace of Europe. The his-
tory of fifty years has even too completely
fulfilled that prophecy.
Bismarck, whether or no he had originally
intended to grasp at Alsace and Lorraine,
whether or no he was over-ruled by the
General Staff, soon made it understood that
the frontier provinces were to be the
reward of the conqueror. London was told
that he had said privately, " Wir konnen
nur mit Metz und Strassburg ufrieden
sein,'* and eagerly argued about what he
meant. Would the Prussians "be content
1 8 70-1 9 14 141
with " Metz and Strassburg alone and
not demand the provinces as well ? By
the middle of September all speculation was
silenced. In two circulars to the am-
bassadors of the North German Confed-
eration, Bismarck explained that Germany
could not after a peace trust to the good-
will of France for her security, and that
the German frontier must therefore be
extended to include the two fortresses of
Strassburg and Metz, the whole of Alsace
and the German portion of Lorraine.
A little earlier the French Government
of National Defence had declared through
Jules Favre that if the King of Prussia
continued the war after the Emperor and
his ministers had been swept away, France
would take up the challenge and yield to
the invader " ni un pouce de notre territoire
ni une pierre de nos forteresses " — *' not
an inch of our territory, not a stone of our
fortresses."
Brave words — ^but unfortunately it was
already obvious that their courage would be
hard to translate into action. France might
prolong the struggle. Could she hope to
change its fortune ? Not of her own strength
perhaps, but there might be aid from with-
out. To tear two provinces from France
would make such a change in the European
14^2 Forty Years After
system that neutral powers might intervene.
Thiers volunteered to see what his diplo-
macy could do. From capital to capital he
went, making the grand tour of Europe.
In London, in Vienna, in St. Petersburg, in
Florence, he received courtesy and sym-
pathy, but not a straw of support. England
was under a Gladstonian government which
had no taste for any enterprise in foreign
policy. The sympathies of the people were
rather on the side of Germany than France,
and the victory of the Prussian arms was
commonly regarded as the triumph of the
Puritan virtues. Austria would have inter-
vened if she had dared, but she was still
dazed by the blow of Sadowa and could not
again challenge Moltke's corps. Beust in
much agitation declared '' Je ne vois plus
d'Europe " — '' I see no Europe left.''
That was an extravagance in 1870, but we
who have to resist a fierce effort to make
all Europe subject to Prussian domination
must admit that Beust had more insight
into the reahties of the situation than some
of his more famous contemporaries.
What of Gortschakoff ? He knew well
enough, as we have seen, what would come
of the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine.
But Gortschakoff was playing his own
hand. He owed nothing to France. Hardly
I870-I9I4 1*^
fifteen years had gone by since France and
England had fought Russia to keep her
away from the Balkans and Constantinople.
Russian eyes were still turned to the south.
By the treaty which ended the Crimean
War, Russia was bound to consider the
Black Sea neutral, and construct on its
shores no naval harbour. Bismarck let
Gortschakoff understand that if Russia
declined to intervene between France and
Germany, Germany would support Russia
in denouncing this treaty and in claiming
the right to put a navy on the Black Sea.
Gortschakoff accepted the bribe. When
Thiers came to St. Petersburg he was coldly
advised to make peace quickly whatever
the sacrifice, for the longer France delayed
the more she would have to pay.
Not much was to be hoped from the
young and still weak kingdom of Italy. No
power which she could wield would have
stayed the hand of Prussia. She, like
Russia, chose, and is not to be blamed for
choosing, to use the difficulties of France for
her own ends. It had been part of the
tortuous poHcy of Napoleon III. to keep
Rome and the Papal States independent
of the new kingdom of Italy which he had
done much to create. In 1867 a French
army had driven back Garibaldi from his
144 Forty Years After
assault on the Temporal Power. When
the necessities of the war with Germany
withdrew the French army, Italy seized
the moment to consummate her own unity
by the capture of Rome. On September
20th, just as the Germans were closing
their Unes about Paris, Rome was entered
by the Italian troops. The ministers of
Victor Emmanuel knew that Bismarck
would make no trouble for them. Why
should they invite his hostility by futile
intervention on behalf of the country which
had stood between them and their prize ?
So France in 1870 found at the hour
of her utmost need no friend in all Europe.
The wheel has gone full circle. It is not
France but her enemy which 1914 sets in
that perilous isolation.
CHAPTER X
La Defense Nationalb
On September 19th the German army
closed its lines around Paris. " By the end
of October," said Moltke, ''I shall be
shooting hares at Creisau/' His calcula-
tions had not revealed to him that some of
his most difficult hours were to come.
By all the principles of the art of war the
campaign had been decided when MacMahon
was captured and Bazaine driven back on
Metz. But Moltke now had to deal with an
adversary who knew very little of the art
of war, but understood thoroughly the right
policy for a nation in arms to defend its
life, '* De I'audace, encore de Taudace et
toujours de I'audace " — '' Daring, and again
daring and daring always/' When the
greatest of English war ministers, the elder
Pitt, began to show his energy, ''England
has been long in labour,'' said Frederick
the Great, '' but at last she has brought
forth a man." Amid the downfall of the
shams and dummies of the Second Empire,
145
146 Forty Years After
France at last gave birth to a man. Leon
Gambetta must rank in history not far
below the great statesmen of the Revolu-
tion, Danton and Carnot. It was not his
destiny to be an organizer of victory, but
he had not at his command the passionate
force of a renascent nation. His miracles
had to be wrought with a France which
had lost faith in everything, even herself.
And miracles they were. The more closely
we examine the course of *' La Defense
Nationale,'' the wonderful campaign of the
nation in its own defence, the more we
must honour the demoniac energy and the
terrible will of Gambetta.
There is here no place for a study of his
character. He came from the Midi. When
the war broke out he was a young lawyer
who had made himself known by fierce
denunciations of the Emperor and the
Empire, in particular of the Foreign Office
and the War Office, the two departments
chiefly responsible for the disasters which
followed. As soon as the news of Worth
reached Paris he had demanded the appoint-
ment of a committee of Public Safety to
take over the government and the conduct of
the war. When the Empire was overthrown
after Sedan he became, as we have seen.
Minister of the Interior in the Government
La Defense Nationale 147
of National Defence. In that capacity he
did all that was possible to prepare Paris
for a long siege. After the city was invested
he escaped in a balloon in order to reach the
new seat of Government at Tours. There
he assumed the general direction of the war,
and till it ended he was in fact, though not
in name, Dictator of France. To his enemies
he was always what Thiers called him '' un
fou furieux," a wild madman. He had of
course the defects of his qualities, the usual
defects of fierce energy and despotic will.
He was apt to interfere in things for which
he had no capacity. He tried to be com-
mander in chief as well as minister of war,
to direct in the field the operations of the
armies which he called into being, and no
doubt some of his generals — for he dis-
covered some of ability — would have done
better if he had left them alone. But w^e
have to remember that without Gambetta
the generals would have done nothing at all.
For the worst that can be said of him
and his campaign we may turn to Moltke.
" Gambetta's rare energy and unrelenting
perseverance," he writes, *' availed indeed
to induce the entire population to take up
arms, but not to direct these masses on a
uniform plan. Without giving them time
to be drilled into fitness for the field, he
148 Forty Years After
sent them out with ruthless cruelty, in-
sufficiently prepared to carry out ill-digested
plans against an enemy on whose firm
solidity all their courage and devotion must
be wrecked. He prolonged the struggle
with great sacrifice on both sides without
turning the balance in favour of France/'
Such is the judgment of the enemy. The
impartial military critic is more concerned
to point out that *' nothing but Gambetta's
energy enabled France in a few weeks to
create and equip twelve army corps/' a force
of 600,000 men and 1,400 guns, and to
emphasize the greatness of that achieve-
ment. He is not so certain as Moltke that
disaster was its inevitable reward.
You may read between the lines of
Moltke's bitter attack resentment not at
the "ruthless cruelty'' which caused France
suffering in vain, but at the impudence
of a civilian's daring to prolong the war
when professional soldiers knew it was over
and at the anxious days which that civilian's
improvised troops brought upon the *' firm
solidity " of Prussian strategy and Prussian
battalions. France and Gambetta ought
to have known when they were beaten.
France and Gambetta ought never to have
made it doubtful whether the German
armies would be able to keep their grip upon
La Defense Nationale 149
Paris. When we are asked to blame Gam-
betta for prolonging the wax with useless
suffering, we begin to remember that after
all, it takes two parties to make a fight. If
Gambetta persisted in fighting, so did
Moltke, and history before it consents to
scold either will enquire what each was
fighting for.
There are no mysteries about that. The
watchword of the Defense Nationale was
" not an inch of our territory, not a stone
of our fortresses." In the great days of
old when revolutionary France was beating
back all the armies of Europe she talked
ofiicially of " the French Republic, One
and Indivisible." You find that headline,
for example, above the letters in which
Napoleon wrote of his triumphs in Italy.
In the darkest hours of 1870 Gambetta
made his appeals in the name of " The
unity and integrity of the country, the
indivisibility of the Republic." It was for
that and for that alone, that he " prolonged
the war." Wild and mad as he seemed to
his enemies he can never have dreamed that
France would be able to take the offensive
or prevent the union of Germany. What he
fought for was the national life of France.
Why did Prussia choose to " prolong the
war ? " After her victories, materially
150 Forty Years After
decisive and morally crushing, it was im-
possible that France could for many a year
be a danger to Germany. After Sedan, at
the end of a war of some five weeks, she
could have made a peace — Favre offered her
the opportunity — which would have given
her an enormous indemnity and military
prestige greater than any in Europe. She
/chose to demand French provinces in order
that she might have strategic advances in
any future war and that France should be
left to struggle maimed with intolerable
humiliation. The campaign against the
National Defence of Gambetta was in fact
a campaign for the power to inflict a rank-
ling incurable wound in France. If we
believe in the inalienable rights of nationality
we shall not lightly blame Gambetta for the
** ruthless cruelty " and *' the great sacri-
fices " of which Moltke complains.
Even in 1870 when the blatant faults
of the government of the Second Empire
and the plausible craft of Bismarck's
diplomacy deprived France of any effective
help or even any warm sympathy from
England, there were powerful voices raised
in protest against the Prussian poUcy. The
general opinion of England on the Govern-
ment of National Defence, may be summed
up in a sentence from a newspaper leader
La Defense Nationalc 151
of the time : "A capital convulsed and
a levee en masse can make horrors more
horrible, but not alter the award of destiny/'
It was indeed true, but not all the truth.
One of those who saw more clearly the real
issues was John Ruskin. His close associa-
tion with the thought and work of Carlyle
will sufhciently absolve him from any
imputation of prejudice against Prussia.
On October 8th, immediately after Gam-
betta had escaped from Paris to organize
his campaign, The Daily Telegraph published
a letter from Ruskin; which was in substance
a solemn warning to Prussia, to England
and to Europe. It was impressive then,
for all its apocalyptic style. It is still
more impressive now. After some com-
phments to the old virtues of Prussia,
'' let her look to it now," he wrote, '' that
her fame be not sullied. She is pressing
her victory too far — dangerously far, as
uselessly. The Nemesis of battle may
indeed be near her : greater glory she
cannot win by the taking of Paris nor the
over-running of provinces. She only pro-
longs suffering, redoubles death, extends
loss, incalculable and irremediable. But
let her now give unconditional armistice,
and offer terms that France can accept
with honour, and she will bear such rank
152 Forty Years After
among the nations as never yet shone on
Christian history. For, as we ought to
help France now, if we did anything — ^but,
of course, there remaii.s for us only neu-
traUty, selling of coke and silence, if we have
grace enough left to keep it — I have only
broken mine to say that I am ashamed to
speak as being one of a nation regardless
of its honour, aUke in trade and policy :
poor yet not careful to keep even the
treasure of probity ; and rich without being
able to afford the luxury of courage/'
Few of us can have much respect for
Ruskin as a practical statesman. Who in
1914 will deny to that letter something
of the inspiration of a prophet ?
Almost at the same moment the cause
of France received the support of another
man, who was never found in arms for any
cause but liberty and nationaHty. We
may rule Garibaldi out of the spheres of
high poUtics and strategy as a mere knight
errant. No one has ever accused his
knight errantry of blindness to the real
issues of its warfare. He had his own
causes of quarrel with France. In the early
days of the war his sympathies were on
the side of Germany. After the blockade
of Paris he landed at Marseilles to offer
himself for the National Defence.
La Dtfense Nationale 153
The plan of Gambetta may be stated
in a sentence. Behind a screen of armed
peasantry, francs -tireurs and national
guards regular armies were to be organized.
Such warfare has always been attended
with horrible cruelty. But when armies
not content with defeating the ambitions
of their enemy, press on to assail the
national unity and life, such desperate
warfare as this must be the consequence.
For the misery which followed we cannot
hold the francs-tireurs responsible.
Under the inspiration of Gambetta,
France rose en masse. Considerable armies
mustered at Rouen, at Evreux, at Besan9on
and in the departments beyond the Loire.
Their composition was heterogeneous, and
there was naturally a deficiency of capable
officers. In drill and discipUne they were
no match for the German troops. It was
hoped that war itself would give them
training. They were not to venture upon
pitched battles, but to worry the enemy
by continual skirmishing and affairs of
outposts. By the end of September the
army of Evreux was annoying the German
forces round Paris. An army of 30,000
men had been formed at Orleans and they
held all the forest on the north of the Loire.
The Prussian headquarters became uneasy.
154 Forty Years After
This renaissance of French mihtary strength
was not counted upon in Moltke's plans.
Orleans was a place of the highest strategical
importance. *' If Paris is the head of
France/' said Clausewitz, *' Orleans is the
heart.'' In the circumstances of the
moment a French mobile force at Orleans
was a dangerous menace. The army block-
ading Paris might find its communications
broken. The Bavarian Corps of General
von der Tann was sent off to Orleans in
a hurry. He met no opposition till he
reached Artenay, a little place twelve miles
due north of Orleans. It is modestly
famous in English history as the scene of
the Battle of Herrings. In 1429, Sir John
Fastolf, the original perhaps of Shake-
speare's hero, was taking a convoy of salt
fish, the Lenten food, to the English force
besieging Orleans, when he was attacked
by an army of French and Scotch. He
beat them off, but a few months later on
the same field ran away from Joan of Arc.
The French of 1870 had no Joan of Arc
to lead them, and in their first battle they
did not cover themselves with glory. They
were resolutely attacked in front while
cavalry threatened their flanks and they
broke and fled. What else could have
been expected of raw levies facing troops
La Defense Nationalc 155
which had conquered at Worth ? General
la Motterouge their commander resolved
to withdraw beyond the Loire and to
cover his retreat he posted 15,000 in a strong
defensive position on the north bank of
the river. They taught the German troops
that the new armies of France were not to
be despised. ''In an open field/' says
Moltke with grudging praise, the French
force " would soon have been defeated ;
but in street-fighting under shelter of the
houses unflinching personal courage is all
that is needed, and even the recruits of the
newly-created French army did not lack
that." With a day of hard street fighting
the recruits welcomed the Bavarian veterans
and at the end of it General von der Tann
was not in a hurry for more.
The French entrenched themselves on
ground where a number of buildings and
enclosures offered obstacles to attack.
When they were driven from that position
they retreated upon Orleans through a
mile of villages, orchards and vineyards.
Again and again the German advance was
checked. It was not till nightfall that the
town was won. The French rearguard
made good their retreat across the river.
The Germans had lost 900 men and taken
1,800 prisoners. They made no attempt
156 Forty Years After
at pursuit. Moltke was not satisfied. The
armies before Paris were indeed delivered
from any risk of interrupted communica-
tions. But Moltke hoped for more sub-
stantial results. He had expected Von der
Tann to push on fifty miles to the south, and
destroy the arms which had been accumu-
lated at Vierzon among the iron works of
Berry. He hoped that there would be
some attempt to beat up the quarters of
the Government of National Defence
seventy miles away at Tours. But Von
der Tann preferred to stay in the neigh-
bourhood of Orleans repairing bridges and
railways. Though La Motterouge's 30,000
had been defeated, they were not much
the worse for it and still in being. Another
French army corps had suddenly been bom
in the neighbourhood of Blois and the
Germans were afraid of others. Von der
Tann is hardly to be blamed for venturing
no further, but his inaction is the first
symptom of the awkwardness of the German
commanders in this new warfare. They
would as ever obey orders and successfully
accomplish a prescribed task. They showed
no power of initiative, no enterprise in
dealing with the strange conditions of this
unorthodox war.
" If I stamp my foot on the ground.
La Defense Nationale 157
legions will start up." Gambetta might have
allowed himself that boast. *' The warlike
energy of this remarkable man " — so Moltke
stiffly salutes him — *' had achieved the feat
of placing 600,000 soldiers and 1,400 guns in
the field in the course of a few weeks."
During October new army corps came
into existence at Blois and at Gien on the
Loire and at Nogent-le-Rotrou, near
Chartres. All these forces and the first
formed corps were under the command of
General d'Aurelle de Paladines. In Picardy,
Bourbaki mustered a large army. There was
another at Rouen under Briand. Yet another
on the south bank of the Seine. It wUl be seen
that though the quality of officers and men
might be poor and the plan of compaign,
such as it was, incoherent, this ring of armies
seriously threatened the German success.
The troops investing Paris were beset
on every side by strong French forces.
The Germans had the better of many small
engagements, but they could gain no
decisive success, and if they had left their
positions to pursue the siege would have been
abandoned. The Prussian headquarters be-
gan to look anxiously over their shoulders to-
wards Metz. The sooner Bazaine surrendered
the better. For the army of Prince Frederick
Charles which was blockading him was
158 Forty Years After
urgently needed to deal with these new wasp-
ish French forces. But Prince Frederick
Charles could not be expected to come into
action in the centre of France before the
middle of November. There was reason to fear
that all the French armies would make a com-
bined advance on Paris some time in October.
Here we may well pause to note how
the German conception of the laws of war
has changed since 1870. It is acknow-
ledged by all, and not least frankly by
German writers, that the later phases of
the campaign of 1870 were fought out
with a brutality from which the earUer
battles, murderous as they were, were alto-
gether free. But even when the conflict
had been embittered and cruelty, ruthless
and wanton, was part of the daily work of
armies there was still some restraint.
Compare the case of Chateaudun in 1870,
with that of Louvain yesterday. Chateau-
dun is a little town half-way between Paris
and Tours. It was the scene of an insigni-
ficant action between a French rearguard
and the Germans under General von
Wittich. The townsfolk joined in the fight.
Barricades were thrown up. House after
house had to be stormed. The Germans
had to fight hard and were roughly handled.
They won in the end. Wh^ijtbe German
La Defense Nationale 159
officer_o^f_i9i4 would have done- to the
hapless citizens we shudder to imagine.
General von Wittich thought their offence
would be sufficiently expiated by their
defeat and a fine. But Germany has gone
far on the path of culture since 1870.
Wittich then was operating on the south-
west of Paris, in the neighbourhood of
Chartres. On the other fronts the invest-
ing army was much harassed. So strong
were the French forces around Amiens that
the Germans could hardly keep them back
along the line of the Oise, and from week
to week the French became more formidable
in numbers and discipline. To the south-east
of Paris there was more fighting. Irregular
troops held the forest of Fontainebleau, cut
off the foraging parties of German cavalry and
interfered with the transport of siege guns.
But Gambetta was not content. It was
plain that such operations, however haras-
sing, could not of themselves deliver Paris
or restore the fortunes of France. A
council of war at Tours resolved to seize
Orleans. The next step in the campaign
was not decided. If Orleans was captured
it was to be the site of an entrenched camp
for 200,000 men. General von der Tann
divined that something was impending,
but could not discover what it was. The
180 Forty Years After
irregulars were active, the peasantry every
day more hostile and his reconnaissances
only informed that strong forces were
closing round him. He did not dare hold
on to Orleans, for in the forests about it
his force would lose the advantage of its
superior manoeuvring power and its strong
cavalry and artillery, while the half-trained
hard fighting French masses would be at
their best. He moved out of the town
towards Chartres and took up a position
in open country at Coulmiers. He had only
20,000 men to meet French forces estimated
at 70,000 but the advantages of superior
discipUne, equipment, guns and cavalry
gave some reason to hope that he could
hold his ground. The Germans fought
stubbornly and more than once the battle
wavered. Admiral Jaur^guiberry decided
the issue of the day. The Germans had
already yielded to the pressure of numbers
and were retiring by brigades. But under
the fire of their artillery the French advance
was checked and flung back in great
disorder. Then Jaur6guiberry came upon
the scene, rallied the shattered advance
and drove back the counter attack. The
Germans retreated swiftly covered by their
cavalry and General von der Tann thought
it wise to continue his march all through the
La Defense Nationalc 161
night. He saved his stores, but Orleans
itself, an ammunition column and his
hospitals fell into the hands of the French.
So the first important stroke in the cam-
paign of National Defence was rewarded
with a great success. The first thought of
the generals of the Army of the Loire was
to make good what they had won. Large
earthworks were constructed round Orleans,
and artillery was brought up from the naval
arsenals at Cherbourg. The difficulties of
the Prussian headquarters were now much
diminished by the arrival of the army of
Prince Frederick Charles which enabled them
to put a large force in the field while still main-
taining the siege of Paris. As soon as the sur-
render of Bazaine set him free the Red Prince
marched westward with all speed. He found
the roads broken up, National Guards and
Francs-tireurs always ready to harass his line
of march and the peasantry fiercely hostile.
It was nearly the end of November before he
could bring any force to bear upon Orleans.
Gambetta could not long be patient of
inaction. At this point in the campaign
begins that interference with generals in
the field which has brought down upon
him the wrath of military critics. No
doubt it is in general undesirable for a
civilian, even if he is a Gambetta, to
162 Forty Years After
over-rule the decisions of generals and direct
their movements. But Gambetta's generals
for the most part could not be trusted to
move at all without an impulse from him.
It is probable that he made disastrous
blunders. But after all whatever vigour
there was in the National Defence, what-
ever it did effect for France is to be traced
to him and his plans. General d^Aurelle
de Paladines did not want to move from
Orleans. Gambetta telegraphed orders for
an advance of the 15th Corps on Pithiviers
and of the 20th on Beaune-la-Rolande. Then
both were to march on Fontainebleau and
Paris. In vain the generals protested that
this would mean fighting superior forces of
Germans in an open country. Gambetta
wanted to relieve Paris, and it was plain that
an army sitting down in its entrenchments
at Orleans would never do that.
Around Beaune-la-Rolande there followed
much confused fighting. Both sides
suffered serious losses, and both could
boast of successes. It was obvious to a
cool judgment that while the quality of
the German troops had deteriorated since
the first battles of the war, the new French
levies were not likely without generalship
of supreme capacity to win any victories
of sufficient importance to loosen the
La Defense Nationalc 163
German grip on Paris. Yet Gambetta did
not relax his efforts. Some time before
the fight at Beaune-la-Rolande a balloon
had been sent up from Paris to announce
that on November 29th General Ducrot
would lead 100,000 men with 400 guns
against the German hnes of investment
and try to join hands with the Army of
the Loire. The winds were unkind and
in 1870 balloons were not dirigible. This
one the winds chose to carry to Norway
before they gave it a chance to descend on
neutral ground. Thence the dispatch was
forwarded to Tours. The delay had been so
great that Gambetta resolved to push his
armies on at all costs. If Ducrot's sortie had
been made according to programme it was
certain that he must be vigorously engaged
before any help could reach him from the
Loire. For the army there had no chance
of beginning its march before December ist.
The process of getting it to move throws
hght upon Gambetta's difficulties with his
generals. His deputy, Freycinet, had orders
to submit to the council of war a plan for
the advance of the whole army. If this
was rejected he was to produce a decree
which superseded the Commander-in-Chief.
The council of war consented to advance.
On December ist the French gained some
164 Forty Years After
substantial success. News reached Tours
that the sortie from Paris had also been
fortunate. It was beheved that the Ger-
mans were about to suffer a crushing blow.
But the Army of the Loire was still
many a mile from Paris and Prince Frederick
Charles had strong forces still unshaken.
On the next day there was fresh fighting
further west about Loigny and Pourpry.
At first General Chanzy gained a good deal
of ground from Von der Tann's Bavarians.
The French right was checked and repulsed by
Prussian troops. When night fell, both armies
had lost heavily, but the general advance of
the French was arrested. Moltke decided
that ''the^ moment had come to putan end
toJhc_ijicessarit dagger to the investing lines
from the south.'' He ordered Prince Frederick
Charles*to march all his forces upon Orleans.
Without much fighting the French were
driven back. The superior manoeuvring
power and the vastly stronger artillery of
the Germans were used with resolution,
and upon a coherent plan. Neither one
nor the other was evident in the disposi-
tions of General d'Aurelle de Paladines.
His chief anxiety seemed to be to retreat
— to retreat anyhow and anywhere. Rather
than run the risk of blocking the bridge
over the Loire at Orleans he resolved to
La Defense Nationale 165
divide his force. Only one corps was to
retreat on Orleans itself. General Crouzat
was ordered to retire on Gien, General
Chanzy on Beaugency. If the Germans
had gained a crushing victory they could
hardly have scattered the JFrench more
completely. Who can wonder that Gam-
betta interfered with the discretion of
his generals ? As soon as he heard of this
ruinous scheme, he issued peremptory orders
to hold Orleans at all costs. It was then
too late. The army of the Loire was
scattered. With the one corps which he
had reserved for the retreat through Orleans
d'Aurelle did indeed make an attempt
at checking the German march, and these
troops fought gallantly to repair the
blunders of their commander. They '* de-
fended every tenable spot,'' made barricades
and rifle pits around the railway station
and the deep cutting through which the
main road runs, and held them persistently
against overwhelming forces. It was not
till December 4th that the Germans
took possession of the town. In the course
of their operations they nearly took Gam-
betta too. He was in a military train steam-
ing from Tours to Orleans which had reached
the neighbourhood of Meung. His mission,
of course, was to put some of his own energy (Q)
166 Forty Years After
and determination into his generals. Fortu-
nately for himself and France he never
reached Orleans. The artillery of a German
cavalry division opened fire upon his train.
The engine was promptly reversed and hurried
the train back to Tours at its best speed.
Thanks to the errors of its commander the
scattered French Army of the Loire had
lost 20,000 men and inflicted small damage
on the Germans. General d'Aurelle was
dismissed, and what remained of his troops
given to General Bourbaki.
Winter was now adding to the horrors of
the war. At the beginning of December a
bitter frost came down upon northern and
central France. *' It was almost impossible
to move, excepting along the high roads
and they were frozen so hard that it was
often necessary to dismount and lead the
horses.'' After the disaster at Orleans the
war took on yet more of the character of a
guerilla campaign. The French regular
troops often made a feeble resistance, readily
abandoned their supplies and allowed them-
selves to be taken prisoners. On the
other hand the country people resented
more and more fiercely the German exactions
and the German cruelty — '' they pillage
terribly "^ an English war correspondent
reported, with the significant addition '^ I am
La D6fensc Nationale 167
pbliged to keep silence on many points, ot I
should be sent away from the army/'
Gambetta still would not give up hope.
His lieutenant Freycinet urged Bourbaki
to advance with what was left of the Army
of the Loire. Bourbaki declared that if he did,
*' not a gun, not a man of his three corps would
ever be seen again." Gambetta hurried to the
camp at Bourges, but when he saw the con-
dition of the troops even he had to confess
that they were incapable of action. " C'est
encore ce que j'ai vu de plus triste," '* the
saddest sight I have seen yet," said he, as he
walked among the wretched regiments.
General Chanzy, whom Moltke pro-
nounced the most capable of all the French
leaders in this phase of the war, infused some
spirit and discipline into the corps which he
commanded. They were operating in the
valley of the Loire between Tours and Orleans
and they offered an obstinate resistance to the
German advance. Only when he heard that
Bourbaki could do nothing to help him did
Chanzy fall back westward. The immediate
result of that retreat was the removal of the
seat of government from Tours to Bordeaux
A third of France was now in the posses-
sion of the Germans. Between the Somme
and the Loire they had no organized opposi-
tion to fear. A halt was made to rest,
168 Forty Years After
reinforce and re-equip their troops. Then
three armies took the field. The ist was
based on Beauvais, the 2nd on Orleans,
the 3rd on Chartres. Away in the south-east,
Belf ort the one remaining frontier fortress of
France was invested. The sporadic efforts
of the force raised by Garibaldi and other
weak corps were fiercely checked.
France still had forces in the field
numerically formidable. But what they
suffered in the bitter winter weather from
lack of supplies and disease is not to be
told. General Chanzy's force was under
canvas in a snow-covered country about Le
Mans. Its hospitals were full of wounded
when small-pox broke out. Yet the army
of Le Mans remained more efficient than
Bourbaki's beyond the Loire, or Faidherbe's
in the north. Chanzy hoped for a concerted
campaign by these three forces. Paris was
at its last gasp. Trochu reported that with-
out help he could not hope to hold out.
Gambetta was at Lyons. Chanzy sent a
staff officer to him to urge that only a swift
combined advance of the three armies on
Paris could help France. Gambetta's reply
might have been admirable as part of a public
speech. It was not a useful contribution to
the strategy of the campaign. '' You have
decimated the Mecklenburgers,'* he wrote,
La Defense Nationale 169
" the Bavarians are wiped out, the rest of the
army is already demoralized and worn out.
Let us persevere and we shall drive these
hordes backfrom French soil empty-handed."
What was an unhappy general to make
of that ? Chanzy determined to march
on Paris alone. The Germans anticipated
him. On New Year's Day, 1871, Prince
Frederick Charles received orders to advance
immediately on Le Mans and his army
was strengthened by reinforcements from
the 3rd Army at Chartres. The country
was difficult, smooth ice and snow drifts
hampered every movement, and the
French offered a stubborn opposition. The
sufferings of both armies were severe. In
the battle of Le Mans which lasted over
three days, Germans and French alike
won the honour which is due to desperate
courage and stern resolution. At first the
French had some advantage, for their posi-
tion was strong and General von Alvensleben
had only a part of the German forces upon
the field. When Prince Frederick Charles
heard that Alvensleben was being attacked
in flank and rear, he hurried Voights-Rhetz
up to the field with the loth Corps. There
was fierce fighting hand to hand. A couple
of French guns were taken by a charge of
infantry. By January 12th the French
170 Forty Years After
officers began to find it impossible to make
their men advance. Body and mind could
do no more. The battle had been fought
among deep snow drifts, sometimes in fog so
thick that, says Moltke, the German artillery
could only direct their fire by the map. Tlji
French ^vere poorly clad and poorly fed. They
were defeated by physical exhaustion rather
than the tactics of the Germans. On the morn-
ing of the I2th, Chanzy ordered a general
retreat on Alengon. He had lost 6,200 men
killed and wounded, and 20,000 prisoners. His
army remained in existence but as an offensive
force it had ceased to be of importance. With
the defeat of Le Mans it may be said that the
cause of the National Defence was lost.
In the north, General Faidherbe, who
like Chanzy might in happier circum-
stances have won a considerable reputation,
had given the Germans some trouble. In
an enterprising fight at Bapaume he forced
the Germans to abandon the siege of
Peroune. Reinforcements came up, the
siege was renewed, and the place was
taken. Then Faidherbe received orders
from Gambetta to attract to himself as
much of the German forces as possible, so
that a sortie from Paris might be attempted
with better hope of success. This, of course,
was the same sortie which Chanzy had
La Defense Nationale 171
hoped to assist before the battle of Le Mans.
Faidherbe's advance and his defeat are to
be considered as the parallel operations in
the northern theatre of war to the affair of
Le Mans. Faidherbe advanced with some
40,000 men, and General von Goeben met
him at St. Quentin with 32,000. The French
fought hard from morning till dusk of the
short January day and Goeben had to bring
his last reserves into action before the French,
in grave danger on their left flank and
utterly exhausted, slowly fell back from the
stubbornly held positions. The Germans
had suffered heavy loss but they had put
the French Army of the North out of
action.
Meanwhile, what of Bourbaki ? We left him
at Bourges with his troops in such a miserable
condition that he could not advance a mile.
He was destined for a new campaign in the
south-east. The plan was devised by Frey-
cinet, but it must have had Gambetta's
approval. The greater part of Bourbaki's
army was to go by railway to Beaune, join
Garibaldi's force, and so making up a body
of 70,000 men, occupy Dijon. Meanwhile
another 50,000 were to be gathered at
Besangon, and it was believed that the mere
existence of these armies would raise the
sieg« of Belfort without a blow, cut the
172 Forty Years After
German communications in all directions and
give Faidherbe a chance of new activity.
*' Hope told a flattering tale/' From
a military point of view the most striking
quality of the plan was its sanguine com-
plexion. To some extent however fate
was kind. The movement of troops escaped
the notice of the German intelligence
department, and the first Moltke heard of it
was a telegram from Belfort, which informed
him that it had been accomplished. He
took steps at once to form a new army in
the south, but General von Werder who
commanded the troops besieging Belfort
could not at once be reinforced. Bourbaki's
army vastly outnumbered the forces which
Werder could command, but he was not the
man to use them effectively. A fair general
of division, he was tried too high by such a
task as this. He tried to drive Werder away
from the weakened forces which had been
left to maintain the investment of Belfort.
After some manoeuvring and a little fighting
*' the French in three corps were as near
to Belfort as the Germans were with three
divisions." But Bourbaki did not press his
advantage. It seems that he intended to
surround Werder's inferior force and win a
new, if a minor Sedan. But neither the general
nor the troops were capable of such a victory.
La Defense Nationale 173
The plans were bad and the marching was
bad.
Von Werder may be excused for a fit of
nervousness. He expected every hour an
attack from vastly superior forces. He
could not move without abandoning the
siege of Belfort. To stay where he was
seemed likely to involve the destruction of
his army. He telegraphed to headquarters
" earnestly praying '' that they would decide
for him whether the siege of Belfort must
be continued. Moltke, of course, bade him
hold on and accept battle, but exonerated
him from " the moral responsibility for the
consequences of a possibly disastrous issue."
Before he received this reply, Werder had
pulled himself together and resolved to fight.
He need not have been alarmed. There
was a three days' battle before him from
January 15th to 17th, but no desperate
fighting . The French attacked and drove his
right wing back upon Belfort. The besieged
fortress celebrated this success with a feu
de joie but made no attempt at a sortie.
Further French advances were not pressed.
The physical strength of the troops was fail-
ing, their morale, not very high at the first,
had been shattered by heavy losses, and the
generals ©f division had no confidence in
Bourbaki's scheme of further enveloping
174 Forty Years After
movements. Then came the news that Man-
teuff el was coming down upon them from the
north. There was nothing for it but retreat.
Detaching a brigade to deal with Gari-
baldi's force at Dijon — ^some hard fighting
there saw the Germans lose the only stand-
ard taken from them in all the war — Man-
teuffel struck for Besan9on and cut French
communications with their bases of supply
in the west. On January 24th, Bourbaki's
generals told him that scarcely half their
men remained and these readier to run
away than fight. The Commissary General
reported only four days' supplies. There
was nothing to do but retreat on the Swiss
frontier. Gambetta, or at least Freycinet,
still believed that Bourbaki could break
his way through and from Bordeaux pro-
vided him with plans. What confidence in
himself the unhappy general still had was
destroyed. Under the strain of reports of
disaster from all sides, and of the growing
misery of his army, he attempted his own life.
General Clinchant succeeded to the command.
Some confusion over the terms of a limited
armistice which had been arranged in Paris
increased his difficulties. On February ist he
marched his columns across the Swiss frontier.
For five months after the crushing dis-
aster of Sedan France had prolonged the
La Defense Nationale 175
war at a frightful cost in life and suffering.
She won for herself no better terms of
peace. After Pontarlier, Bismarck asked
neither less nor more than he had asked
of Wimpffen on the night of Sedan. It is
literally true that all the energy of
Gambetta, all the sacrifices which France
made at his call had not in Moltke's phrase
** affected the result of the war." But 1
those who understand in what the strength
of national life consists will not admit that
the campaign of National Defence was not
worth fighting. If France had surren-
dered on the morrow of Sedan she would
have saved for herself thousands of men.
She would have lost her honour. She
would have admitted that the old military
prowess of France was dead and that she
had become a nation ready to cower at
the first shock of disaster. By the cam-
paign of National Defence she won for i
herself out of the midst of disaster the J
respect of the worl(ljShe preserved for the
generations to come tEeTaith in her great-
nesTand her power to rise superior to any
defeat. The swift restoration of national
strength after 1871 amazed the world and
alarmed Germany. It would never have
been achieved but for the desperate struggle
of La Defense National*. The vitality
176 Forty Years After
of the Third RepubUc springs from that
stupendous effort. And not yet, not till
the mad onslaught of the new German
militarism has learnt what waits it in the
campaign of 1914 from the resolution of the
new France shall we be able to estimate the
achievement of the National Defence of 1871.
CHAPTER XI
The Siege of Paris
Not long before 1870, a committee of the
House of Commons investigating some
question of high finance asked Lord Over-
stone ''what would happen if London were
occupied by a hostile army ? " To which
Lord Overstone blandly replied : " London
must not be occupied by a hostile army."
The answer was recognized as adequate.
In the same spirit the Government of
National Defence and the people of Paris
received the menace of the German siege.
We have seen how the Germans in their
advance on the city were not checked by
any opposition and how Moltke was able
to begin the investment without fear of
the operations of any French force. On
September 17th when the German lines
closed around the city the only French
armies were Bazaine's helpless force at
Metz, and the corps which by a helter-
skelter retreat Vinoy had contrived to
save from the German advance and fling
177
178 Forty Years After
into Paris. At first then and for some
time to come the German headquarters
were able to devote the whole of their
available force to the reduction of the city.
It is inevitable that we should make
some comparison between the conditions
of 1870 and. 1914. As these lines are
written comes the news that a German
army has again forced its way to the
ramparts of Paris. What is to be the next
step in German strategy will be known
before this sentence is read. But what-
ever the course of events in the war now
being waged, it must be obvious that the
Germans in 1914 have attempted a cam-
paign which is wholly unlike Moltke's.
He was able to force decisive battles in the
first few days of the war. The German
armies of 1914 penetrated to the fortifi-
cations of Paris without inflicting any
grave injury upon the opposing forces.
Siege, investment, blockade, assault could
not be undertaken at once without grave
peril from strong, well-equipped and un-
defeated armies so situated as to be capable
of developing a dangerous offensive. We
need not again emphasize the even more
important if more obvious part that in
1914 the fate of Germany depends at least
as much upon battles in the North Sea
The Siege of Paris 179
and in Eastern Europe as upon the war in
France.
Before these lines are published it may
well be that their headlong daring will
have forced the first phase of the campaign
to a decisive issue. Whether that be to
the German advantage or not, history will
nevertheless record that while the arrival
before Paris in 1870 meant the reaping
of the harvest of victory, in 1914 it meant
only the first struggle to clear the
ground.
If we Umit our view still further and
examine only the case of Paris we find
differences still more striking. In 1914
Paris has defences which, however they
stand the test of war, are reputed to estab-
Ush it the strongest fortress in the world.
Every preparation has been made by a
strong government for a stubborn re-
sistance. The garrison is sufficient and
composed of well-trained troops who come
fresh and undefeated to their work. In
1870 the fortifications, though in Moltke's
opinion they '' effectively protected the
city from being taken by storm," had not
been designed to cope with the artillery
of the period. They were constructed
under Louis PhiUppe, whose reign had ended
more than twenty years before, and no
180 Forty Years After
attempt had been made to improve them.
In the interim the range of guns had been
doubled or trebled. So the outworks of
Paris were *' at so short a distance from
the main work that the latter could easily
be reached by the fire of heavy batteries."
The garrison of 1870 though nominally
very numerous was for the most part of
small military value. There were 100,000
National Guards raised in the city itself
who were almost worse than useless from
their deficiencies in equipment and disci-
pline. There were 115,000 Gardes-Mobiles
from the provinces who were not much
better. The effective force of regulars
numbered less than 80,000 and these w^ere
disheartened and in some degree disorgan-
ized by the early events of the campaign
and hurried retreats. Provisions had to
be furnished for 2,000,000 people. Just
before the investment 3,000 oxen, 6,000
pigs and 180,000 sheep had been brought
within the lines besides large quantities of
other stores. But it was calculated that
the supplies of food were only sufficient
for six weeks.
It has been calculated that for the invest-
ment of Paris to-day some half-a-million
men would be required. In 1870 the cir-
cumference of the fortifications was far
The Siege of Paris 181
smaller. Places far outside Paris, such as
Versailles, which was the German head-
quarters, are now within the defences. But
even in 1870 the Germans had to blockade
a line of fifty miles. An attempt to carry
the fortifications by storm was, as we have
seen, pronounced by Moltke impracticable.
An overwhelming bombardment was for
the time impossible. " It may safely be
asserted," says Moltke, and the dictum is at
least interesting in 1914, " that an attack
on a large fortified place in the heart of the
enemy's country must always be impossible
so long as the invader is not master of the
railways or waterways to bring in endless
supplies of the necessary material. Its
mere conveyance by ordinary highways,
even for a short distance, is a gigantic under-
taking." The development of mechanical
transport has no doubt made some change
in the conditions which Moltke knew. But
siege guns are still difficult things to move.
In 1870 the Germans for all their crushing
victories had the control of only one rail-
way and even that had been seriously in-
terrupted by the destruction of a tunnel.
*' Thus a bombardment was in the first
instance not to be thought of, and in any
case the object of it would not be to
destroy Paris." What would the German
182 Forty Years After
commaiiders of 1914 think of that weak
humanity? — "but to exert a final pressure
on the inhabitants."
On September 19th Versailles was cap-
tured, and the blockade was complete on all
sides. Six army corps were drawn up on
a line of eleven miles ready to meet any
attempt at a sortie. Then Favre made an
attempt at negotiations. ^^'Bismarck, of
course, would hear of no discussion on the
basis of '' not an inch of territory.'* He
declined even to grant an armistice except
on intolerable conditions. The blockade
went on. The Germans were comfortably
lodged in the deserted villages, but had for
some time difficulty in obtaining supplies.
" The fugitive inhabitants had driven off
their cattle and destroyed their stores :
only the wine-cellars seemed inexhaustible.
For the first few days all the food needed
had to be drawn from the commissariat
stores, but ere long the cavalry succeeded
in obtaining fresh provisions. High prices
and good discipline made traffic safe.'*
Such is the official German version. Im-
partial observers tell another tale.
r-^tt Their system of warfare " — wrote Mr.
Ajibson Bowles — " is based throughout upon
/terrorism exercised upon those who cannot
/defend themselves, in order to awe those
The Siege of Paris J£2^
who can, precisely the same system in fact
that is pursued by brigands of all countries.
They fight, indeed, when they cannot help
it, but when they can they prefer to take
hostages and levy requisitions upon civil-
ians, and now that they have met in Paris
a force capable of resistance they do not
scruple to take their revenge upon women
and children.'^
How General Trochu the governor of
Paris " had a plan " which was to deliver
the city has become a proverb. Many a
plan was tried. What fortune attended
the efforts from without we have seen.
They were supported by gallant efforts from
within. But for the first half of October the
garrison attempted no more than a daily
cannonade which effected nothing of
importance. " If one of the gigantic Mini6
shells happened to fall on a picquet the
destruction was of course terrific ; but on
the whole they did little execution." The
French fire, however, wrecked the beautiful
palace of St. Cloud, the chateau of Meudon,
and the porcelain factory of Sevres.
On October i8th, roused by some German
movements made with the object of
strengthening the blockade, General Vinoy
led 25,000 men to the first sortie. He
forced his way to Chatillon but there found
184 Forty Years After
considerable forces in front of him, and as
he had not hoped to do more than test
the German lines he withdrew at dusk
behind the forts. Nothing more of im-
portance was attempted till the news of
the French victory at Coulmiers reached
Paris. Then spirits rose high in the city.
It was beUeved that the investing armies
would be compelled to detach large forces
to deal with the danger in the south, and
elaborate arrangements were made to
break through the weakened lines. The
garrison was reorganized. The untrust-
worthy National Guard, perhaps 130,000
men, were to hold the inner defences and
keep order in the city. 70,000 of the
Gardes-Mobiles with a stiffening of better
troops were to carry on minor operations
against the besieging Unes, while the main
attacks were delivered by the field army
of General Ducrot, some 100,000 men
with 300 guns. On November 30th was
fought the most important engagement
of the siege. The sortie was directed
towards the south, because relief was to
be expected from that region. It happened
that on the south the lines of the invest-
ment were at their weakest. The main
sortie was cleverly prefaced by minor
attacks in all directions so that the Germans
The Siege of Paris 185
were at a loss to know where serious work
was intended. In the morning twihght
a strong force of Ducrot's army moved
out of Paris, and crossing the Marne by
temporary bridges, occupied the peninsula
between the Marne and the Seine as far
as Champigny and Bry. Other troops
moved along the north bank of the Marne
to Neuilly and, bringing artillery into
action, under protection of its fire con-
structed bridges and crossed to join their
comrades on the southern bank. But once
over they could make no further progress.
Hard fighting won not an inch of ground.
The French began to entrench themselves
and a truce was arranged. On December
2nd the fighting was renewed, but neither
side gained much ground. It had how-
ever became obvious that the French
would not be able to break through, and
on the 4th as the German patrols rode out
towards Bry and Champigny they found
that the French had withdrawn. This
sortie of Champigny, the hardest fought
attempt to break through the blockade,
cost the Germans more than 6,000 men,
the French nearly 12,000.
The first news which Paris had of the
defeat of the army of d'Aurelle de Pala-
dines and the German capture of Orleans
186 Forty Years After
came it is said in a letter from Moltke.
After that disaster nothing was to be gained
by sorties to southward. It was resolved
to make the next attempt to the north
through Le Bourget. In the mist of a
December morning — it was December 21st
— the German advanced post at Le Bourget,
one battalion and four companies, found
itself under fire from the forts, several
batteries and an armoured train. Large
numbers of French infantry rushed to the
attack, and a stubborn fight followed.
German reinforcements came up, and after
some murderous hand-to-hand work the
French were repulsed. That was the end
of the sortie, for the cannonade which
followed was a mere display of fireworks.
By this time Paris had been invested
three months, but owing to the lack of
heavy artillery no siege works had been
constructed. The difficulties of bringing
it up did not diminish with the growing
severity of the winter. Both wagons and
horses were lacking, and the roads were
not fit for a trafiic in siege guns. By the
end of the year, however, German energy
had gained a partial victor}^ over these
troubles, and 100 guns of the heaviest
calibre known to 1870 were in position
to open fire on the southern fortifications.
The Siege of Paris 187
The siege of Paris is to be dated from
September 19th, 1870, but we have to
reckon the bombardment from January
5th, 1871. The French forts attacked
were Issy, Vanves, Montrouge and Mont
Valerien, and in number of guns the
French had the advantage. The Germans
were superior in rapidity of fire. Some
of the forts were much shattered after
ten days' bombardment, and the guns at
Issy and Vanves ahnost silenced. Though
the German shells were chiefly directed
against the forts and ramparts, an attempt
was made to terrorize the city. The main
points of attack were '* the Luxembourg,
the InvaHdes, and the ambulance of the
Val de Grace. A number of women,
children, and inoffensive citizens were
killed, but the Parisians soon got used to
the shells, and the cry of ' Gare Tobus 1 '
It is computed that 6,000 shells were thrown
into Paris in the twelve days, and that the
deaths due to them were 296."
One more sortie was attempted. There
was now only one front on which large
bodies of troops could be brought into
action, the region to the south of the city
in the neighbourhood of Mont Valerien and
the peninsula of Gennevilliers. On Janu-
ary 19th a large force marched out under
188 Forty Years After
Vinoy, Bellemare and Ducrot. At first
they made easy progress, for the morning
was foggy and the German patrols had
not observed the advance. Then the 4th
corps of the Germans was roused, the
Crown Prince sent a strong force of Bav-
arians and the Landwehr Guard into the
fight. German artillery came into action,
and about midday the French were checked.
A fresh attack brought no further success.
Late in the afternoon orders were given
for a retreat.
After this final repulse, the bombardment
of the city continued upon three sides,
north, south and west. At the end of a
week the damage to the fortifications was
great. It became probable that the shat-
tered works would no longer be defensible
if the Germans chose to attempt an assault.
Even more perilous than the condition of
the fortifications was the condition of
citizens and soldiers. When the blockade
was begun there had been provisions for
six weeks. The siege had lasted four
months. The people were on the brink
of starvation. A pound of ham sold for
i6s., a pound of butter for 20s. Horses,
dogs, and even cats and rats had long been
used as food. The sufferings of hunger
were multiplied by the bitter cold and
WILLIAM I.
The Siege of Paris 189
the scarcity of fuel. Disease came down
upon the crowded city. In four months
64,200 people died of small-pox. There is
here no room for pictures of the misery
of that winter. From a brief, cold narrative
of the facts it must be sufficiently apparent
that Paris only thought of surrender when
she had borne all that life can bear, when
prolonged resistance could only mean a
fruitless sacrifice of two million human
bodies on the altar of war.
On January 23rd, Jules Favre came to
Versailles to negotiate an armistice. The
triumph of Germany was complete. Five
days before, in the Hall of Mirrors of that
grandiose pile which Louis XIV. reared as
a temple of his own glory at Versailles, the
King of Prussia had been proclaimed
German Emperor. '* Blood and iron '' had
done its work. With some searchings of
heart but with outward enthusiasm the
great states of southern Germany admitted
the supremacy of the King of Prussia,
their leader in this triumphant war. The
new Emperor announced, in words provided
for him by Bismarck, his resolution " to
aid at all times the growth of the Empire,
not by the conquests of the sword, but
by the goods and gifts of peace in the
sphere of national prosperity, freedom and
190 Forty Years After
culture/' How that resolution has been
translated by the ruling classes of Prussia,
how faithfully it has been kept by his
grandson the world knows well enough.
For Paris and France there was of course
no mercy. Favre could only obtain an
armistice on condition that all the forts
were given up and the ramparts disarmed.
During the armistice, which was prolonged
till March 12th, a National Assembly was
elected and met at Bordeaux. Though
Gambetta remained intractable, it was soon
clear that the voice of the majority w^as
for peace. Thiers was elected " Chief of the
Executive " and sent to Versailles to con-
clude the negotiations.
Bismarck exacted his price. The whole
of Alsace save Belfort, a fifth of Lorraine
including Metz, £200,000,000 and the
triumphal entry of the German troops
into Paris were the terms forced from
Thiers' helpless hands. France was to
be mutilated, enfeebled, and above all the
shame of her humiliation was to be branded
upon her. There is some reason to be-
lieve that in after years Bismarck allowed
himself doubts whether it had been true
statesmanship to tear the frontier provinces
from France. Not from any kindness for
the feeling of the people thus ruthlessly
The Siege of Paris 191
compelled to change their allegiance. It
was nothing to him that the great mass of
them were strongly opposed to German
rule, and that more than 50,000 preferred
to abandon home and property and go into
exile rather than be subjects of the German
empire. A Prussian statesman, heir to the
traditions of Frederic the Great, could have
no qualms at violating the principle of
nationality. But if all things were lawful
to Bismarck, all things were certainly not
expedient. There are odd hints to be found
in his queer, frank conversations — ^with
Crispi for example — that he sometimes
doubted whether the acquisition of Alsace-
Lorraine was worth to Germany what it
cost her — the steady hostility of France.
FoHf the most obvious result of the Franco-
Glerman war has been the growth of German
power and arrogance, there is another not
less important to the world, the resolute
recuperation of the French people. From
the downfall of the first Napoleon to the
downfall of the second France never had
a policy, or rather, she had by fits and starts
a score. From the disasters of 1870 to our
own time she has had but one — to make
herself so strong that never again should
she be the victim unallied and unprepared
of German arms. If we choose to seek
192 Forty Years After
more deeply into the history of the war
and its causes and its effects, we may find
one more result more important than all
this. The war was born of faith in the
gospel of blood and iron, in the doctrine that
might is right, that military power and
material strength are the only forces which
can make or mar national destiny. The
crushing victories of Germany confirmed
her in that faith. She has proclaimed in
and out of season, with a brutal arrogance
and^with a comical naivete her resolution to
stand by it. For the sake of it she has cast
down the gauntlet to civilization. Now
we have upon us a war which must decide
whether Germany can escape the doom which
ever since nationality became a principle
of civilization, has stricken down all powers
of her faith, or whether the old and proven
laws of national Hfe and national honour
are still endowed with the old inexorable
sanction.
Wyman & Sons Ltd., Primers, London and Reading,
PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY
^ Bailey, Henry Christopher
290 Forty years after, the story
B25 of the Franco-German war, I87O
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