Chapter XXXV: THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (continued) (2)

Sad and dull was life in Paris during the month of November, cheered only by one gleam of better fortune, when news came that the Army of the Loire had gained a victory at Coulmiers. At the end of the month a grand sortie was resolved upon, in order to facilitate the flanking operations of General d'Aurelle de Paladines' army, which Gambetta hoped to impel upon Paris at the same time. Great preparations were made and several demonstrations against various points of the German lines concerted, in order to deceive the enemy as to the object of the main attack, which was the peninsula of Champigny, beyond Charenton. Breaking through the Prussian lines at this point, Trochu hoped to push forward into the district of Brie, and march onwards till he fell in with the advancing army of De Paladines. Ducrot was appointed to the command of the troops destined for the operation, which numbered about 60,000 men. Bridges were thrown across the Marne, and on the morning of the 30th the Saxons and Würtembergers who guarded this part of the line were vigorously attacked and the villages of Brie and Champigny wrested from them. Still no great progress was made, and on the night of the 30th it became suddenly cold, and the French soldiers unused to the hardships of campaigning suffered terribly from exposure. The 1st of December was employed by Trochu and Ducrot in strengthening the line, Brie-Champigny, which they had seized. On the 2nd the Germans brought up fresh forces, and severe fighting took place, at the end of which the French retained all their positions, except the eastern end of the village of Champigny. On the 3rd Trochu resolved to retreat, moved to do so by the absence of any news of De Paladines and the increasing severity of the weather. The retreat was covered by the guns of the forts and was effected with little loss. Another great sortie was made on the 21st of December, with some vague hope of co-operating with a northern army, supposed to be at that time advancing towards Paris. The attack was directed against the Prussian Guard at Stains and the Saxons more to the east. It was repelled with little difficulty, the French losing considerably and showing in this sortie a lack of spirit and endurance, naturally to be accounted for by want of food, severe cold, and the depressing circumstances of the siege.

Besides Metz and Strasburg, eight other fortified places were compelled to surrender before the close of the year. In the case of Laon, the surrender on the 9th of September of a citadel and a position remarkably strong by nature, was rendered necessary by the weakness of the garrison. Toul, after a savage bombardment for several days, by which the town was set on fire in several places, surrendered to the Duke of Mecklenburg on the 23rd of September. Soissons, Verdun, La Fère, and Thionville were reduced in the course of October and November. Phalsburg (the fortress at which is laid the scene of Erckmann-Chatrian's famous novel, "Le Blocus"), after its brave commandant, General Talhouet, and its no less brave inhabitants, had endured a bombardment and blockade--the first intermittent, the second continuous--during four months, was compelled to surrender, by failure of provisions, on the 12th of December.

The narrative of the formation of the Army of the Loire, of its successes and its reverses, is one of the most striking and instructive chapters in the history of the war. All that will be here attempted is to give an outline of the course of events, as it may be clearly traced in the works of the two French generals who had most share in them, General d'Aurelle de Paladines and General Chanzy. Soon after the Revolution of the 4th of September, it being apparent that France must either raise fresh armies or submit to whatever terms the victors of Sedan might impose, the formation of a new army corps, the 15th, was commenced at Bourges, under the command of General Motterouge. By the beginning of October its organisation was nearly complete. Then came the advance of Von der Tann towards Orleans, the defeat of Motterouge at Artenay and the first German occupation of Orleans; the 15th Corps being driven over the Loire, and falling back as far as Ferte St. Aubin. On the 11th of October General d'Aurelle de Paladines, an officer on the retired list, who had offered his services and his experience to the new Government, was appointed to supersede General Motterouge. By the end of October came the disastrous news of the fall of Metz. Prince Frederick Charles was now free to march southward with 100,000 victorious troops and break up the nascent organisation of the Army of the Loire. Several weeks, however, must elapse before he could reach the Loire, and in that time the force which d'Aurelle's energy had rendered formidable might still be able to strike a blow. On the 25th of October the general concerted with the Minister of War, Gambetta, and his delegate, M. de Freycinet, the plan of an advance of the 15th and 16th Corps on Orleans. Crossing the Loire at Blois and other places, the 15th and 16th Corps, preceded by numerous bodies of Franc-tireurs, forming altogether an army of between 60,000 and 70,000 men, were ranged, at the end of October, on a line facing the north-east, and extending from the forest of Marchenoir to the Loire, near Beaugency. Von der Tann, who commanded in Orleans and whose force was considerably weaker in point of numbers, was alarmed at the movement and prepared to march out and attack the enemy, intending, should he be unsuccessful, to evacuate Orleans. D'Aurelle continued to press forward, handling his troops warily and deliberately, as well knowing how disastrous, with such inexperienced soldiers, the consequences of any mistake might easily be. The two armies met on the 9th of November, on the plain around the village of Coulmiers, ten miles west of Orleans, and for the first time in the war the Germans were defeated.

On the following day (November 10th) General d'Aurelle entered Orleans and was welcomed enthusiastically by the inhabitants. He fixed his headquarters at Villeneuve d'Ingre, about three miles outside the city. He has been repeatedly censured for not leading his army, after the victory of Coulmiers, directly upon Paris, so as to raise the siege. Had Prince Frederick Charles been still detained at Metz, this is what d'Aurelle undoubtedly ought to have done. But the Prince, in his southward march, was already almost as near Paris as the Army of the Loire; his headquarters on the 10th of November were at Troyes. D'Aurelle with good reason shrank from the enterprise of attacking the Duke of Mecklenburg (whose army, swelled by the remains of Von der Tann's corps, amounted to about 50,000 men and was posted near Chartres), with the certainty that Prince Frederick Charles, a man not likely to miss an opportunity, was, with 100,000 victorious Prussians, within striking distance of his right flank. D'Aurelle's plan, therefore, was this--to form a large entrenched camp in front of Orleans and fortify it with great care, mounting on the works a number of heavy marine guns of long range; behind these entrenchments to continue the organisation of the army and the instruction of the soldiers, in both of which respects much improvement was still to be desired; and to receive here, with his forces united and well in hand, the attack which Prince Frederick Charles was marching to deliver. Had that attack been successfully resisted, had the Prussian legions been beaten back from before the walls of Orleans, then, General D'Aurelle thought, there might be a chance of marching effectually to the relief of Paris. But Gambetta interfered with his plans, and the result was that a French advance was defeated on the 28th of November at Beaune la Rolande.

A council of war was held on the 30th of November, at St. Jean de la Ruelle, near Orleans, at which d'Aurelle, Chanzy, and Freycinet were present. Against the wishes and ideas of d'Aurelle, Freycinet communicated the formal order of Gambetta to advance with the whole army on Pithiviers, with a view to the relief of Paris. There was no choice but to obey. Next day, Chanzy, with the 16th and 17th Corps, forming the left of the army, advanced by Patay against the army of the Duke of Mecklenburg, and drove it back a considerable distance. But Prince Frederick Charles, observing the fatal error into which the French had fallen, through the interference of Gambetta and Freycinet, of dispersing their troops too widely, executed on the 2nd of December a masterly manœuvre, which in its results changed the whole aspect of the campaign. Concentrating the heavy masses of the German infantry on a narrow front, on each side of the great road which joins Artenay and Chevilly, he advanced, engaging Chanzy with his right, but directing the heaviest attack against the 15th Corps, which lay between him and Orleans. The strongest division of that corps (Paillères) had been sent away some days before, towards Pithiviers, by Gambetta's orders, and had not yet rejoined the main body. Pressing steadily forward, the Germans overpowered the resistance of the two remaining divisions of the 15th Corps, and drove them back beyond Chevilly. Chanzy's troops in this day's battle held their ground on most points, but the division Barry, of the 16th Corps, gave way, and Chanzy lost his hold of the road to Châteaudun. On the 3rd the fighting continued, the Germans slowly pressing onward, step by step. D'Aurelle, fearful of a block at Orleans, if the retreat of the whole French army should be directed thither, sent orders to Chanzy to retire on Beaugency. He was not prepared for the immense force which the enemy had developed in his front, and he seems to have abandoned the hope that his beaten troops, even behind the entrenchments he had prepared, could make an effectual stand. On the 4th, the arrival of Paillères with his division at headquarters inspired d'Aurelle with a momentary hope that the entrenchments might yet be held, and he telegraphed to Chanzy, directing him to march on Orleans. But it was now too late; the enemy held the Châteaudun road, and was interposed between Chanzy's army and Orleans. Moreover, the troops of Paillères' division, and of the 15th Corps generally, weary and dispirited, exhausted by want of sleep and food, could not be induced to man the entrenchments. They pressed on into Orleans, many even of the officers forgetting their duty, and repairing, without permission, to inns and private houses in the town. D'Aurelle entreated, expostulated, and threatened, but all in vain. Then he saw that Orleans must be evacuated and made arrangements accordingly. The immense supplies that had been accumulated there were removed, and on the night of the 4th of December the 15th Corps defiled over the Loire bridge, leaving about a thousand prisoners in the hands of the enemy. Thus was Orleans re-occupied by the Germans, and d'Aurelle de Paladines was promptly superseded by Chanzy.

The new Second Army of the Loire, under Chanzy, had an eventful history, which must here be summed up in a few words. Chanzy struggled gallantly; but so far from advancing nearer to Paris, he was ever driven farther away from it; he was continually fighting and falling back. He fought a battle at Villorceau, on the 8th of December, against the Duke of Mecklenburg, and maintained all his positions, except on the right, at Beaugency, which the Prussians obtained possession of in the night. This disaster was owing to another interference by Gambetta with the movements of the troops. Admiral Jauréguiberry had given positive orders to General Camo, who commanded the movable column of Tours, to hold firmly a strong position which he assigned to him in front of Beaugency. But during the day a direct order was received by Camo, from the Minister of War, to retire behind Beaugency; this order he obeyed and the result was tantamount to a defeat. After two more days' fighting, Chanzy fell back to the line of the Loire, hoping to protect Vendôme. Prince Frederick Charles followed, and a general engagement took place near Vendôme on the 15th of December, in which, as before, the French fought well; but at its conclusion, his line being forced back at one point, Chanzy resolved to evacuate Vendôme and fall back on Le Mans. He arrived at Le Mans on the 21st of December, and here for the present we will leave him.

In the east the military operations were not at first of such importance as to have much effect on the issue of the war. Since France had declared herself a Republic, the sympathies of Garibaldi were enlisted on her behalf; he came to Tours on the 9th of October. Garibaldi was warmly received by Gambetta and appointed to a special command in the east of France; a brigade of Franc-tireurs, of miscellaneous composition, being placed under his orders. Garibaldi's health was too infirm to allow of his exhibiting any great activity in the field. His headquarters were fixed at Autun, where he turned the fine old cathedral into a barrack for his Franc-tireurs. General Werder, who commanded the German troops employed in this part of France, was little hampered in his movements, either by the efforts of Garibaldi, or by those of his more regular opponent General Cambriels. On the 29th of October the important town of Dijon, the ancient capital of Burgundy, had fallen into the hands of Werder. The strong fortress of Besançon defied the German arms. It was of the highest importance for them to take Belfort, a fortress of the first class, situated in the southern corner of Alsace, in the gap between the Vosges mountains and the Jura. General Treskow appeared before the place on the 3rd of November, and commenced to invest it; but the investment was for a long time very incomplete, and communication with the country outside was scarcely interrupted. Garibaldi marched towards Dijon, on the 27th of November, at the head of a column of Mobiles and Franc-tireurs 10,000 strong. At a place called Pasques he fell in with Werder's outposts, who held his force in check till the arrival of a brigade from Dijon, by which the Garibaldians were easily routed, with the loss of many prisoners. On the whole, the employment of Garibaldi did more harm by causing disunion among the French, than it did good by any loss that it inflicted on the Germans.

The opening of 1871 found the besieged population of Paris enduring with exemplary patience the manifold hardships and gathering perils by which they were beset. An additional source of danger and distress was about to be disclosed, in the bombardment of the forts and city; but this also they sustained with the greatest fortitude and resignation. From the beginning of the year the bread distributed by the Government consisted of a detestable compound of flour mixed with all kinds of foreign ingredients. On the 3rd of January some Franc-tireurs brought some newspapers through the investing lines, which gave no cheering account of the state of affairs in the provinces. On that very day a battle was fought at Bapaume, the issue of which ought to have contributed to amend the state of things, but through some strange mismanagement it produced no good effect.

We will take this opportunity to give a brief sketch of the military operations in the northern district since the fall of Metz. When that event happened, the First and the Second German Armies, which had been united before Metz while the siege lasted, were again separated. The bulk of the Second Army marched with Prince Frederick Charles upon the Loire; the First Army, placed now under the command of General Manteuffel, was detached towards Amiens and Rouen, in order to disperse or press back any new French armies which might threaten to attain to such a consistence as to interfere with the secure prosecution of the siege of Paris. Manteuffel had the whole of the 8th Corps, one brigade of the 1st Corps, and a division of cavalry, under his immediate command, when he received intelligence that a considerable French force under General Farre had been concentrated in front of Amiens. The Prussians attacked on the morning of the 27th of November. On their left they were in overpowering strength, and quickly pushed back the French right for a considerable distance; on the right, however, they could make no progress, and even, on the appearance of a column advancing towards their right flank from Corbie, gave ground decidedly. But in the evening the cavalry division came into action on this wing and enabled the infantry again to advance. As the final result of the engagement, the French were defeated at all points and fell back to and behind Amiens. That important manufacturing city was immediately occupied by General Manteuffel. A far richer prize fell into his hands a few days later. The army defeated before Amiens retired towards Arras and Lille, and Rouen thus found itself open to attack while the military preparations for its defence were still very incomplete. General von Göben, at the head of the 8th Corps, encountering only trifling opposition, occupied Rouen on the 6th December, and immediately made a heavy requisition on the city for stores and clothing.

General Faidherbe, formerly the governor of the French colony of the Senegal, an officer of great talents and experience, reached Lille on the 4th of December, and took over the command of the Army of the North. After reorganising the troops as well as he could, he advanced in the direction of Amiens, and took up a strong position on the left bank of the little river Hallue, somewhat to the north-east of the site of the late battle on the south side of the city. Manteuffel resolved to attack Faidherbe, and falling upon him on the morning of the 23rd of December, he drove in the French outposts, and, in the course of the day, carried all the villages along the Hallue, as far as the foot of the hills rising from its left bank. This was the main French position, and it was held firmly against all attacks. It was clearly a drawn battle. On the next day the armies remained facing each other; it was a question which would browbeat the other into retiring first. Unfortunately for France, Faidherbe, on account of defects in his commissariat, found himself compelled to retreat on the night of the 24th of December, and fell back, first to Albert and ultimately beyond Bapaume.

On the 27th of December Manteuffel sent Von Göben to lay siege to Péronne. This little fortress on the Somme, the name of which is familiar to the readers of "Quentin Durward," it was a main object of German strategy to reduce, because the whole line of the Somme would then be in their power, and the passage of the river by a hostile force, especially considering the season of the year, would be attended with great difficulty. Of course, for the same reasons, it was important for the French to raise the siege. General von Göben posted a covering force of ten or twelve thousand men at Bapaume, while the siege, or rather bombardment, was being carried on with the greatest vigour. The covering force was attacked by Faidherbe on the 3rd of January, 1871, and driven, with heavy loss, into the town of Bapaume. The battle was over; already Von Göben had given orders for a retreat during the night, and his baggage trains had begun to move off, when the welcome news reached him that the French had fallen back. With a little more firmness General Faidherbe would have forced the Germans to retire, and Péronne would have been saved. Defective commissariat arrangements were again alleged by him, in a letter written shortly afterwards, and also a reluctance to destroy the town of Bapaume. Unrelieved, Péronne was obliged to surrender on the 10th of January, after many of its inhabitants had been killed by the bombardment, its ancient and beautiful church irreparably damaged, and great part of the town laid in ruins.

On the 19th of January, hearing that a strong French force was approaching, the Prussians occupying St. Quentin evacuated the town. Faidherbe then took possession of it, and concentrated its army outside the walls, on the west and south sides. Von Göben, who was now in command of the First Army, Manteuffel having been sent to assist Werder to defeat Bourbaki, at the head of what was called the Army of the South, resolved to strike a decisive blow. Calling in his detachments from all parts and skilfully combining their movements so as to result in a concentric attack on the French position, having also obtained the promise of Moltke to send him a reinforcement by rail from Paris, so as to arrive at what was likely to be the critical part of the battle, he advanced against Faidherbe at St. Quentin on the 19th of January. The result could not be doubtful; after a resistance bravely kept up by the 22nd, less tenaciously by the 23rd Corps, the French army was broken, and driven into and beyond St. Quentin. This was the last regular battle of the war. Von Göben advanced northwards and summoned Cambray to surrender, but the Governor refused. Nothing else of moment happened in this part of the country till the surrender of Paris brought about the cessation of hostilities.

An incident occurred on the Seine, towards the end of 1870, between Rouen and Havre, which caused some irritation in Britain until proper explanation and satisfaction had been made. The Prussians at Rouen, fearing that steam gunboats would be sent up the river to attack them, seized without ceremony six British colliers that were lying in the Seine off Duclair, and scuttled them in order that they might form an obstruction in the stream. Much stress was laid on this affair at the time, the tension of men's spirits on account of the continued misery of France being considerable, and the high-handed ways of Prussian officials not having been pleasant to put up with on the part of neutrals peaceably plying their vocations. But when Lord Granville wrote to Count Bismarck, nothing could be more frank, explicit, or satisfactory than the Chancellor's reply. He authorised Count Bernstorff to say to Lord Granville that the Prussian Government sincerely regretted that its troops, in order to avert immediate danger, had been obliged to seize ships that belonged to British subjects; that their claim to indemnification was admitted, and that the owners should receive the value of their ships, according to equitable estimation, without being kept waiting for the decision of the legal question, who was finally to indemnify them.

No gleam of hope came from the west after the beginning of the year. Chanzy, as we have seen, reached Le Mans with the Second Army of the Loire on the 21st of December, and being left in peace there for two or three weeks was able to do much towards the better organisation of his forces. A succession of small combats, between the line of the Sarthe and that of the Loire, took place between the 27th of December and the 10th of January, in some of which the French obtained the advantage; while others, particularly the later ones, marked a continual pressing back of the French outposts and small detachments by the army of Prince Frederick Charles, who had now made the necessary preparations to attack Chanzy, and drive him, if possible, still farther west. The decisive battle took place on the 11th of January. In numbers the French were probably much superior to the army that was about to attack them. But their _moral_ was fearfully shaken by the continued ill success that had attended their arms. The battle raged all day along the whole line and at six o'clock in the evening the French still held their ground. But an hour or two after dark, a strange incident occurred. Shrewdly counting, it would seem, on the nervousness and unsteadiness of young troops at night, Prince Frederick Charles ordered a strong force of all arms to attack, about 8 P.M., the division of mobilised Bretons who were holding the strong position of La Tuilerie. The Bretons, hearing rather than seeing the enemy coming upon them, when the first shots fell in their ranks, broke and fled. Quickly the contagion ran through the rest of the army; by the morning it seemed hardly to have more cohesion than a rope of sand; thousands of prisoners fell into the hands of the Germans; and a retreat beyond the Sarthe became indispensable. Chanzy fell back to Laval on the Mayenne, fifty miles west of Le Mans, and began again his Sisyphean task.

Thus Chanzy, with a beaten and demoralised army, was driven back to a greater distance from Paris than ever; nor could any reasonable man now entertain the hope that whatever exertions he, or Gambetta on his behalf, might make, his army could again become formidable before the lapse of many weeks. But with the Parisians starvation was become an affair of a few days.

The bombardment began on the morning of the 5th of January. There were three attacks--that directed against St. Denis and its forts; that against Fort Rosny and other eastern forts; and, lastly, that against the three southern forts, Issy, Vanves, and Montrouge. Two hundred guns concentrated their fire against these southern forts. The unimportant attack on the east was maintained by sixty guns, while a hundred and fifty thundered on St. Denis from the north. Issy, on account of the too great distance between it and Mont Valérien, was the fort against which, more than any other, the Germans could bring to bear a concentric fire, and it was accordingly more knocked about than any of the rest. The most formidable of the German batteries, containing twenty-four pieces, was on the terrace of Meudon. From the whole of them an average shower of ten thousand projectiles per diem was rained during the continuance of the bombardment on the forts and on Paris. In the daytime the fire was chiefly directed at the forts, in the night it was turned against the city. The promise of Count Bismarck, expressed with brutal cynicism, that the Parisians should "stew in their own juice," was now fulfilled. Thanks to the distance, and to the number and extent of the open spaces within the _enceinte_, the mortality caused by the bombardment was far less than might have been expected; absolutely, however, its victims were not few. Ninety-seven persons (including thirty-one children and twenty-three women) not employed in the defence were killed by the bombardment and two hundred and seventy-eight (including thirty-six children and ninety women) were wounded. Among the public buildings and institutions injured by it were, the Jardin des Plantes, the Panthéon, the Val de Grâce, the Observatory, the Church of St. Sulpice, and the Hôtel des Invalides. Nothing, says General Vinoy, could be more admirable than the behaviour of the people while the bombardment was going on. The effect of it was to harden rather than to weaken the spirit of resistance; and Trochu, forced as it were by the enthusiasm of those by whom he was surrounded, declared (January 6th) that he would never capitulate. The effect of the fire upon the forts was far less than the Germans had expected. Even of Fort Issy the defences were far from being ruined; it could still have held out a long time after the capitulation was settled. On the other hand the last sortie from Paris on the 19th of January was a disastrous failure and it was followed by grave signs of disaffection among the National Guard.

Paris was at the end of her resources. She could not wait to know the result of the great combination--Gambetta's masterpiece--by which Bourbaki, at the head of 130,000 unhappy conscripts, had been impelled against Werder and the German communications. Of that expedition we shall speak presently; but whether it succeeded or not, not a day was to be lost in coming to any terms whereby a fresh supply of food might be obtained for the 1,800,000 persons cooped up in Paris. Jules Favre visited the German headquarters on the 24th of January, and on several days afterwards, to arrange for a capitulation and an armistice. At seven o'clock in the evening of the 26th General Vinoy received the order to cause all the forts and field works to cease firing by midnight on the same day. The order was obeyed, and the siege of Paris was at an end. The convention establishing both a capitulation and an armistice for the masses of the belligerent armies was signed by Bismarck and Favre, at Versailles, on the 28th of January. The armistice was to last twenty-one days, and was to be established wherever military operations were being actually carried on, except in the departments of Doubs, Jura, and Côte d'Or; the siege of Belfort also was to continue. Bismarck would have readily consented to extend the armistice to these departments also; but unfortunately Jules Favre fancied that Bourbaki had achieved, or was about to achieve, great things, of which the relief of Belfort was the least; he would not therefore include his army in the armistice. The object of the cessation of hostilities was declared to be the convocation by the Government of a freely elected National Assembly, which was to meet at Bordeaux to decide whether the war should be continued or not. The forts of Paris, with all guns and war material contained in them, were at once to be surrendered to the German army, which during the continuance of the armistice was not to enter the city. The guns forming the armament of the _enceinte_ were also to be surrendered. The entire garrison of Paris were to become prisoners of war and to lay down their arms, except a division of 12,000 men, which the military authorities would retain for the maintenance of internal order. After the surrender of the forts, the reprovisioning of Paris would proceed without let or hindrance by all the ordinary channels of traffic, except that no supplies were to be drawn from the territory occupied by the German troops. A war contribution amounting to £8,000,000 sterling was imposed on the city. The terms of the armistice were punctually carried out, and on the 29th of January the German troops were put in possession of the forts.

All along the line, except in the three departments and before Belfort, the combatants dropped their arms. In that region a crowning disaster had already overtaken the last convulsive efforts of France. The three corps that had been placed under the command of Bourbaki, together with the 24th Corps (Bressolle), which was to be moved up from Lyons to co-operate in the movement, formed an army of about 130,000 men. With this force Bourbaki was expected to fall upon Werder and overpower him, raise the siege of Belfort, and, crossing the Rhine, carry the war into Germany; while Garibaldi and Cremer, after the defeat of Werder, were to fall on the German line of communications by the Strasburg-Paris railway. Entering Dijon on the 2nd of January, 1871, Bourbaki directed the main body of his army to concentrate round the fortress of Besançon, whence in two or three days he led it to the relief of Belfort. Werder, who had fallen back from Dijon on Vesoul, attacked Bourbaki's left flank on the 9th of January, at Villersexel, on the Oignon, his object being to gain time for the main body of his troops to fall back on the line of the Lisaine, in front of Belfort, and fortify a position there. The action at Villersexel was indecisive, but the march of the French was delayed by it, and Werder gained the time he so greatly needed. On the 15th, 16th, and 17th of January Bourbaki made successive attempts to force Werder's position behind the Lisaine, but always without success. With his immense preponderance in numbers, the boldest flank movements would have been permissible, and could hardly have failed to dislodge the Germans; but Bourbaki simply attacked them in front, and as they were strongly posted, and had a solidity which his own troops had not, his efforts failed. On the 18th Bourbaki resolved to retreat; and by the 22nd instant he had again concentrated his army in the neighbourhood of Besançon.

By the failure of the French to force Werder's position the fall of Belfort was made a certainty; but a greater disaster was behind. An Army of the South had been formed by Moltke, and placed under the command of Manteuffel, who took charge of it, on the 13th of January, at Châtillon-sur-Seine. Marching southwards to the assistance of Werder, Manteuffel seized Dôle, to the south-west of Besançon, and sent detachments to occupy various points near the Swiss frontier, so as to intercept the retreat of Bourbaki's army in that direction. After reaching Besançon, Bourbaki remained for some days irresolute what to do; the desperate situation of his army and the consciousness, perhaps, of his own incapacity to command, overset his reason; and on the 24th he attempted to commit suicide by shooting himself through the head. The want of supplies sufficient both for the fortress and for the support of so large an army was probably the cause why Clinchamp, upon whom the command devolved, instead of keeping the army under the shelter of the mountain forts and lofty citadel of Besançon, resolved on continuing the march southward, in order either to elude the Germans by escaping along roads close to the Swiss frontier, or, if the worst came to the worst, to cross the border and surrender to the Swiss authorities. Eventually the 24th Corps, under General Bressolle, succeeded in making its escape and reaching Lyons. The rest of the army, overtaken and attacked by Manteuffel in and around Pontarlier, after losing thousands of prisoners, was driven into Switzerland and there interned.

In pursuance of the terms of the armistice elections were held throughout France in order to the convocation of a National Assembly. By the 12th of February about three hundred members only, out of the seven hundred and fifty who were to compose the new Legislature, had arrived at Bordeaux; but so urgent was the case that the Assembly proceeded to constitute itself on that day. On the 16th of February M. Grévy was chosen President of the Assembly, and on the following day M. Thiers was appointed, by a large majority, Chief of the Executive Power. Some days before this, it being evident that the armistice which was only to last till the 19th of February, would expire before the Assembly could come to a decision upon the momentous question before it, Jules Favre hurried up to Versailles in order to obtain a prolongation of the time. It was granted, but at the same time the fate of Belfort, the governor of which had hitherto repelled all attacks, was sealed; the fortress was to be surrendered to the Germans, but the garrison, with their arms and stores, and the military archives, was to march out with the honours of war and be allowed to retire to the south of France. Accordingly the garrison, still 12,000 strong, marched out and proceeded to Grenoble; and the fortress was occupied by the Germans on the 18th of February. This may be regarded as the closing scene of the Franco-German War.

Gambetta fell from power as suddenly as he had risen to it. He appealed to the nation to use the interval for the collection of new forces, and caused the Delegation of the Government at Bordeaux to publish an electoral decree on the 31st of January, excluding from the possibility of being elected to the Assembly all persons who had stood in any official relation to the Second Empire. Against this outrageous decree Count Bismarck could not refrain from protesting, and fortunately he could appeal to the phrase in the article of the capitulation bearing on the question, which spoke of a "freely elected" National Assembly. It was a critical moment, for had M. Gambetta found a large body of Frenchmen unwise enough to back him in this course, great delays must inevitably have arisen, the legality and plenary authority of the Assembly might have been disputed, and perhaps the Germans might have been called in, or might themselves have stepped in, to arbitrate in a question of French internal politics. This consummation was happily avoided. The Government at Paris undertook to cancel the decree of the Delegation, and sent one of their number, Jules Simon, to Bordeaux, with instructions to publish and enforce their decision. Gambetta, finding his proceedings disavowed, resigned office on the 6th of February. In his stead Thiers was chosen to be Chief of the Executive. He appointed a Ministry, persuaded the Assembly to postpone all discussion as to the future Government of France, and proceeded to Versailles to agree with Count Bismarck upon the terms of peace.

On the 19th of February the National Assembly elected a diplomatic commission of fifteen members, who were to accompany MM. Thiers and Jules Favre to Paris, and assist them in negotiating a peace. No serious intention of continuing the war was entertained by any considerable party or faction in the Assembly. On the 21st of February the French negotiators met Count Bismarck at Versailles. Thiers knew that the Germans meant to have, substantially, the terms which they demanded, and he did not waste time by idle reclamations or counter-proposals. On two points, however, his efforts achieved a certain success. Count Bismarck desired to retain Belfort, a fortress which in German hands would make France as vulnerable to attack on the upper Rhine, as the loss of Metz left her weak and vulnerable on the lower. Thiers, however, succeeded in retaining Belfort for France, purchasing the concession by consenting to the march of the German army through Paris. Again, whereas Bismarck had originally demanded six milliards (£240,000,000) as the war indemnity, Thiers with infinite exertion succeeded in reducing it to five milliards. On this second point the assistance of British diplomacy was specially invoked by the French Government. Lord Granville, at the urgent request of the Duc de Broglie, the new French Ambassador, wrote to Berlin (February 24th) the mildest, faintest, weakest representation--remonstrance it was not--that could have been made, if any was made at all, on the subject of the excessive indemnity. Before, however, the duplicate of this despatch reached Mr. Odo Russell at Versailles, Count Bismarck had already given way. The preliminaries of peace were signed on the 26th of February. By them France agreed to cede Alsace and German Lorraine, including Metz, to Germany, and to pay a war indemnity of five milliards within three years, the German army to evacuate France as the instalments were paid.

In the preliminaries of peace a convention was inserted, authorising the occupation of a definite portion of Paris by a body of German troops not exceeding 30,000 men. Accordingly, on the morning of the 1st of March, portions of the 11th, 2nd Bavarian, and 6th Army Corps, crossing the Seine by the bridge of Neuilly, defiled along the avenue of the same name, passed under the Arc de Triomphe, and marched through the Champs Elysées into the Rue de Rivoli and other parts of the district assigned to them. But this occupation, deeply painful and humiliating as it must have been to the Parisians, was not of long duration. News came on the 2nd of March that the preliminaries of peace had been ratified at Bordeaux, and then Paris, in accordance with an express stipulation to that effect, was immediately evacuated. The preliminaries were submitted by M. Thiers to the National Assembly on the 28th of February. The terms of peace were oppressive and exorbitant; they were terms which Germany, having found France ill prepared for war, had been enabled by her admirable preparation, her profound study of the art and thorough elaboration of the means of war, to impose on the vanquished; nor is it to be supposed for an instant that the Assembly assented to them except under compulsion, and from the conviction that their refusal would bring still more terrible misfortunes upon France. In the course of the discussion that ensued, the Assembly solemnly voted the deposition of Louis Napoleon and his dynasty, by a resolution that declared him responsible for the invasion, dismemberment, and ruin of France. On the 1st of March the preliminaries of peace were accepted by a majority of 546 votes against 107, and after bitter controversies, chiefly connected with the payment of the indemnity, the definitive treaty was signed at Frankfort on the 10th of May.

Thus while France emerged from the war with a reduction of territory, the struggle brought to Germany a unification of the Empire. Various minds had been occupied with this project since the earliest German victories, among others that of the Crown Prince. He received, however, but cold encouragement from Count Bismarck, who was jealous of the Prince's interference in matters of State, chiefly on account of his English connections. Nevertheless, Bismarck was also occupied in shaping a plan and it gradually assumed the form of a German Empire with its chief at Berlin. After the battle of Sedan, negotiations were opened with each of the Southern States for its entry into the Northern Confederation, when it appeared that particularism was strong in Bavaria, which kingdom was not disposed to come into the agreement without favourable terms. Count Bismarck accordingly invited the various Governments to send representatives to Versailles for the arrangement of a settlement. At first the King of Würtemberg showed a disposition to act with Bavaria, but his Ministers resigned rather than refuse to sign the treaty, and the accession of Baden and Hesse-Darmstadt to the unionist side showed the two kings the peril of their situation. Accordingly, when Bavaria had been granted larger separate rights than any other State--for instance, an independent postal system, and an independent army--King Louis gave way and the treaties were signed. It was some time before Bavaria would consent to the assumption of the Imperial title by the King of Prussia. Under pressure from Bismarck, however, the king wrote a letter to his fellow-Sovereigns, proposing that William I. as President of the newly formed Federation should assume the title of German Emperor, and this request he renewed to William himself in a letter composed by Bismarck. A deputation from the North German Reichstag expressed the concurrence of the nation, but so strong was local patriotism in Bavaria that the ceremony was delayed from the end of one year to the beginning of the next and even then the approval of Munich had not been secured. Nevertheless on the 18th of January, surrounded by German princes and German warriors, King William assumed at Versailles the title of German Emperor. Thereby a fresh chapter in the history of Europe was begun, though it was some time before the effects of the new order were manifest.

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