Chapter XVI: Part XXIII: The Latest Times (5)

The French field army, called at the outset the "Army of the Rhine," consisted nominally of 336,000 men with 924 guns. It was considered that of these, 300,000 would be available for the initial operations. The infantry of the army was provided with a breech-loading weapon, called after its inventor the Chassepot. The Chassepot was a weapon in all respects superior to the famous needle-gun, which was still the weapon of the Prussian army. Attached likewise to the divisional artillery was a machine gun called the Mitrailleuse, from which great things were expected. But this gun had been manufactured with a secrecy which, while it prevented foreign inspection, had withheld also the knowledge of its mechanism from the soldiers who were to work it. In the field, therefore, it proved a failure.

Since the Crimean and Austrian wars, while the armies of the other European states had advanced in efficiency, the French army had deteriorated. The reason was that favoritism rather than merit had been made the road to court favor. The officers who had pointed to the training of the Prussian soldiers, as indicating the necessity for the adoption of similar modes for the French army, had been laughed at and left in the cold. The consequence was, that for ten years prior to the war of 1870, the French army had received instruction only of the most superficial character. It had been considered sufficient if the soldiers were brought to the point of making a good show on the parade ground. Little more had been required of them. Field training and musketry training had been alike neglected. The officers had ceased to study, and the government had taken no pains to instruct them. What was more vicious still, the alienation between officers and men, which had been noticed even in the war of 1859, had widened. The officers generally had ceased to take the smallest interest in the comfort of the men in camp or in quarters. These matters were left to the non-commissioned officers. Needless to add, they were not always properly attended to. It may be added that the system of drill was so devised as to give no play to the reasoning powers of the officer. He was a machine and nothing more.

Of the artillery of the French army it has to be said, that it was far inferior to that of the Germans, and known to be so by the French war department. In the matter of reserves, France had comparatively nothing.

Far different were the composition and the state of preparation of the Prussian army; far different, also, those of her German allies; far higher the qualities of their general officers; far superior the discipline and morale of their troops; far more ready, in every single particular, to begin a war; far more thoroughly provided to carry that war to a successful issue.

The German infantry had been thoroughly organized on a system which gave to every officer the necessity of exercising independent action, and to the men the faculty of understanding the object of the manoeuvre directed. Its cavalry had been specially instructed in duties of reconnoissance, of insuring repose for the infantry, of collecting intelligence, of concealing the march of armies, of acting as a completer of victory, or as a shield in case of defeat. It had profited greatly by the lessons it had learned in the war of 1866.

The German artillery had likewise been greatly improved in efficiency of manoeuvre since 1866. It was in all respects superior to that of the French.

Of the Prussian and South German leaders, I will only say that we shall meet again the men from whom we parted on the conclusion of the armistice of Nikolsburg. What was their task and how they executed it will be described in the pages that follow. In mere numbers, the king of Prussia had a great advantage over his enemy. For, while without any assistance from South Germany, and after allowing for three army corps which might be necessary to watch Austria and Denmark, he could begin the campaign with a force of 350,000 men, he was certain of the assistance of Southern Germany, and confident that, unless the French should obtain considerable successes at the outset, neither Austria nor Denmark would stir a hand to aid them.

To counterbalance this superiority of numbers the French emperor had cherished a vague hope that, in a war against Prussia, he might possibly count upon the ancient friendship for France of Bavaria and Saxony, and to a still greater extent upon Austria and Italy. With regard to Bavaria and Saxony he was speedily undeceived. Moreover, contrary to expectation, other German states decided to support Prussia and placed their armies, which were eventually commanded by the crown prince, at the disposal of King William. With regard to Austria and Italy, Colonel Malleson in a work on this subject,[1] to which we are much indebted, states that their co-operation was made dependent on the initial successes of the French troops. Colonel Malleson adds:

"It was not only understood, but was actually drafted in a treaty--the signing of which, however, was prevented by the rapid course of the war--that if, on the 15th of September, France should be holding her own in Southern Germany, then Austria and Italy would jointly declare war against Prussia."

These conditions made it clear that ultimate success in the struggle about to commence would accrue to the power which should obtain the first advantages.

That Germany--for it was Germany and not Prussia only which entered upon this great struggle--would obtain these initial advantages seemed almost certain. Count Moltke had for some time previous been engaged in planning for a war with France. So far back as 1868 all his arrangements for the formation of the armies to be employed, the points to be occupied, the nature of the transport, had been clearly laid down. These instructions had been carefully studied by the several corps commanders and their staff. Not one matter, however apparently trivial, had been neglected. When, then, on the 16th of July, the king of Prussia gave the order for mobilization, it required only to insert the day and the hour on which each body of troops should march. With respect to the armies of the states of Southern Germany, Moltke, anticipating that the French emperor would throw his main army as rapidly as possible into Southern Germany, had recommended that the contingents from that part of the country should march northward to join those of Prussia on the middle Rhine, to assume there a position which should menace the flank and rear of the invading army. This position would be the more practical, as in the event of the French not invading Southern Germany, the combined force, stretching from Saarbrucken to Landau, would be ready to invade France, and sever the communications with Paris of the French armies on the frontier. Count Moltke had calculated that the German troops intended to cross the French frontier would be in a position to make their forward movement by the 4th of August. Pending the development of the French strategy with respect to Southern Germany, therefore, he thought it prudent to delay the march of the southern contingents, in order that no part of the army might be suddenly overwhelmed by a superior force. On the actual frontier he placed, then, only a few light troops, for the purposes of reconnoitring, and for checking the first advance of the enemy until supports should arrive.

The French emperor had, indeed, been keenly alive to the advantages which would accrue to himself from a prompt invasion of Southern Germany. He designed to concentrate one hundred and fifty thousand men at Metz; one hundred thousand at Strasburg; to cross into Baden with these armies; while a third, assembling at Chalons, should protect the frontier against the German forces. The plan itself was an excellent one had he only been able to execute it, for, as we have seen, early success in Southern Germany would have meant the armed assistance of Austria and Italy. But the French army was in a condition more unready, one might truly say, of greater demoralization, thus early, than its severest critics had imagined. Considerable forces were indeed massed about Metz and Strasburg. But the commissariat and transport departments were in a state of the most hopeless confusion. The army could not move. To remedy these evils time was wanted, and time was the commodity the generals could not command. Every day which evoked some little order out of chaos brought the Germans nearer to positions, the occupation of which would render impossible the contemplated invasion. The emperor had quitted Paris for Metz, accompanied by the prince imperial, on the 28th of July, and had arrived there and taken the supreme command the same day. The day following he met his generals at St. Avoid, and unfolded to them his plans. Since war had been declared he had lost many illusions. It had become clear to him that he was warring against the concentrated might of Germany; that he could not make the inroad into Southern Germany originally contemplated without exposing Paris to an attack from forces already occupying the country between Treves and Mannheim: that he was bound to hold that line. Anxious, however, to assume the offensive, he dictated the following plan to his marshals. Bazaine, with the Second, Third, and Fifth Army Corps, should cross the Saar at Saarbrücken, covered on his left by the Fourth Corps, which should make a show of advancing against Saarlouis, while MacMahon, pushing forward from his position near Strasburg, should cover his right. The emperor had some reason to believe that the Saar was weakly held.

But his own generals showed him that his plan was impossible. They represented to him that instead of the three hundred thousand men whom, in the delirium of the Paris enthusiasm, he believed he would find available for his purposes, he had at the utmost one hundred and eighty-six thousand; that in every requirement for moving the army was deficient; that there was scarcely a department which was not disorganized. He was compelled, therefore, to renounce his plan for decisive offensive action. He came to that resolve most unwillingly, for Paris was behind him, ready to rise unless he should make some show of advancing. It was to reassure the excited spirits of the capital, rather than to effect any military result, that on the 2d of August, he moved with sixty thousand men in the direction of Saarbrücken. The garrison of that place consisted of something less than four thousand men with six guns. The emperor attacked it with the corps of Frossard, eighteen battalions and four batteries. These compelled the slender German garrison to evacuate the place, but Frossard, though the bridges across the Saar were not defended, made no attempt to cross that river. The soldierly manner in which the Germans had covered their retreat had left on his mind the impression that they were more numerous than they were, and that there was a larger force behind them.

Still, for the only time in the war, the emperor was able to send a reassuring telegram to Paris. The young prince, upon whom the hopes of the nation would, he hoped, rest, had undergone the "baptism of fire." French troops had made the first step in advance.

Soon, however, it became clear to him that the enemy had concentrated along the line of the frontier, and were about to make their spring. Moltke, in fact, from his headquarters at Mayence, was, by means of solitary horsemen employed in profusion, keeping himself thoroughly well acquainted not only with the movements of the French, but with their vacillation, their irresolution, their want of plan. The sudden appearance from unexpected quarters of these horsemen conveyed a marked feeling of insecurity to the minds of the French soldiers, and these feelings were soon shared by their chiefs. It was very clear to them that an attack might at any moment come, though from what quarter and in what force they were absolutely ignorant. This ignorance increased their vacillations, their uncertainties. Orders and counter-orders followed each other with startling rapidity. The soldiers, harassed, began to lose confidence; the leaders became more and more incapable of adopting a plan.

Suddenly, in the midst of their vacillations, of their marchings and counter-marchings, the true report reached them, on the evening of the 3d of August, that a French division, the outpost of MacMahon's army, had been surprised and defeated at Weissenburg by a far superior force. Napoleon at once ordered the Fifth Corps to concentrate at Bitsche, and despatched a division of the Third to Saarguemünd. These orders were followed by others. Those of the 5th of August divided the army of the Rhine into two portions, the troops in Alsace being placed under MacMahon, those in Lorraine under Bazaine, the emperor retaining the Guard. Those of the 7th directed the Second Corps to proceed to Bitsche, the Third to Saarguemünd, the Fourth to Haut-Homburg, the Guard to St. Avoid. These instructions plainly signified the making of a flank movement in front of a superior enemy. With such an army as the emperor had, inferior in numbers, many of the regiments as yet incomplete, all his resources behind him, and these becoming daily more unavailable, his one chance was to concentrate in a position commanding the roads behind it, and yet adapted for attack if attack should be necessary. As it was, without certain information as to the movements of the Germans, anxious to move, yet dreading to do so, until his regiments should be completed, the French emperor was confused and helpless. He forgot even to transmit to the generals on one flank the general directions he had issued to those on the other. Bazaine, for instance, was left on the 5th in ignorance of the emperor's intentions with respect to MacMahon; on the 6th none of the subordinate generals knew that the flank march was contemplated. Frossard, who had fallen back to Spicheren, considered his position so insecure that he suggested to Leboeuf that he should be allowed to retire from the Saarbrücken ridge. He was ordered in reply to fall back on Forbach, but no instructions were given him as to the course he should pursue in the event of his being attacked, nor were the contemplated movements of the emperor communicated to him. In every order that was issued there was apparent the confused mind of the issuer.

Turn we now to MacMahon and the movements of himself and his generals. When the war broke out MacMahon was in the vicinity of Strasburg with forty-five thousand men; General Douay with twelve thousand men at Weissenburg. The same confusion prevailed here as at Metz. The orders given to MacMahon were of the vaguest description: Douay had no instructions at all. Yet, in front of him, the German hosts had been gathering. The commander of the left wing of the German army, the crown prince of Prussia, had, in obedience to the instructions he had received, crossed the frontier river, the Lauter, on the 4th of August, with an army composed of the Second Bavarian and Fifth Prussian army, numbering about forty thousand men, and marched on Weissenburg. As his advanced guard approached the town, it was met by a heavy fire from the French garrison. The crown prince resolved at once to storm the place. Douay had placed his troops in a strong position, a portion of his men occupying the town defended by a simple wall; the bulk, formed on the Gaisberg, a hill two miles to the south of it. Against this position the crown prince directed his chief attack. The contest which ensued was most severe, the assailants and the defenders vying with one another in determination and courage. But the odds in favor of the former were too great to permit Douay to hope for ultimate success. After a resistance of five hours' duration the Germans carried the Gaisberg. Douay himself was killed; but his surviving troops, though beaten, were not discouraged. They successfully foiled an attempt made by the Germans to cut off their retreat, and fell back on the corps of MacMahon, which lay about ten miles to the south of Weissenburg.

The same day on which the crown prince had attacked and carried Weissenburg, another German army corps, that of Baden-Würtemberg, a part of the Third Army, under the command of the crown prince, had advanced on and occupied Lauterburg. That evening the entire Third Army, consisting of one hundred and thirty thousand men, bivouacked on French ground. Meanwhile MacMahon, on hearing of Douay's defeat, had marched to Reichshofen, received there the shattered remnants of Douay's division, and, with the emperor's orders under no circumstances to decline a battle, took up a position on the hills of which Worth, Fröschweiler and Elsasshausen form the central points. He had with him forty-seven thousand men, but the Fifth Corps, commanded by De Failly, was at Bitsche, seventeen miles from Reichshofen, and MacMahon had despatched the most pressing instructions to that officer to join him. These orders, however, De Failly did not obey.

The ground on which MacMahon had retired offered many capabilities for defence. The central point was the village of Worth on the rivulet Sauerbach, which covered the entire front of the position. To the right rear of Worth, on the road from Gundershofen, was the village of Elsasshausen, covered on its right by the Niederwald, having the village of Eberbach on its further side, and the extreme right of the position, the village of Morsbronn, to its southeast. Behind Wörth, again, distant a little more than two miles on the road to Reichshofen, was the key to the position, the village of Fröschweiler. From this point the French left was thrown back to a mound, covered by a wood, in front of Reichshofen.

On the 5th of August the crown prince had set his army in motion, and had rested for the night at Sulz. There information reached him regarding the position taken by MacMahon. He immediately issued orders for the concentration of his army, and for its march the following morning toward the French position, the village of Preuschdorf, on the direct road to Wörth, to be the central point of the movement. But the previous evening General von Walther, with the Fifth Prussian Corps, had reached Görsdorf, a point whence it was easy for him to cross the Sauerbach, and take Worth in flank. Marching at four o'clock in the morning Walther tried this manoeuvre, and at seven o'clock succeeded in driving the French from Wörth. MacMahon then changed his front, recovered Wörth, and repulsed likewise an attack which had in the meanwhile been directed against Fröschweiler by the Eleventh Prussian and Fifth Bavarian Corps.

For a moment it seemed as though he might hold his position. But between eleven and twelve the enemy renewed his attack. While one corps again attacked and carried Wörth, the Eleventh Prussian Corps, aided by sixty guns placed upon the heights of Gunstett, assailed his right. They met here a most stubborn resistance, the French cuirassiers charging the advancing infantry with the greatest resolution. So thoroughly did they devote themselves that they left three-fourths of their number dead or dying on the field. But all was in vain. The Prussians steadily advanced, forced their way through the Niederwald, and threatened Elsasshausen. While the French were thus progressing badly on their right, they were faring still worse in the centre.

The Germans, having seized Wörth, stormed the hilly slopes between that place and Froschweiler, and made a furious assault upon the latter, now more than ever the key of the French position. For while Froschweiler was their objective centre, their right was thrown back toward Elsasshausen and the Niederwald, their left to Reichshofen. While the Eleventh Prussians were penetrating the Niederwald, preparatory to attacking Elsasshausen on the further side of it, the Fifth Prussian Corps with the Second Bavarians were moving against Froschweiler. It was clear then to MacMahon that further resistance was impossible. Still holding Froschweiler, he evacuated Elsasshausen, and drew back his right to Reichshofen. The safety of his army depended now upon the tenacity with which Froschweiler might be held. It must be admitted, in justice to the French, that they held it with a stubborn valor not surpassed during the war. Attacked by overwhelming numbers, they defended the place, house by house. At length, however, they were overpowered. Then, for the first time, the bonds of discipline loosened, and the French, struck by panic, fled, in wild disorder, in the direction of Saverne. They reached that place by a march across the hills the following evening. On their way they fell in with one of the divisions of the corps of de Failly, and this served to cover the retreat.

Though their defeat, considering the enormous superiority of their assailants, might be glorious, it was doubly disastrous, inasmuch that it followed those perturbations of spirit alluded to in a previous page, which had done so much to discourage the French soldier. A victory at Worth might have done much to redeem past mistakes. A defeat emphasized them enormously. It was calculated that, inclusive of the nine thousand prisoners taken by the Germans, the French lost twenty-four thousand men. The loss of the victors amounted to ten thousand. They captured thirty-three guns, two eagles, and six mitrailleuses.

The emperor was deeply pained by the result of the battle. To keep up, if possible, the spirits of his partisans, he wired on the evening of the 7th to Paris, with the news of the defeat, the words, "tout se peut retablir." He was mistaken. While the crown prince was crushing MacMahon at Wörth, the imperial troops were being beaten at Spicheren as well.

Thereafter the German advance was hardly checked for a moment, though the losses on both sides were heavy. On the 18th of August was fought the battle of Gravelotte, in which King William commanded in person, and though his troops suffered immense loss, they were again victorious, and forced Bazaine to shut himself up in Metz, which he subsequently surrendered. In this battle, one of the most decisive of the war, it is worth noting that the Germans outnumbered the French by more than two to one. The exact figures are uncertain, but we shall probably be correct in accepting 230,000 as the strength of the Germans, and in estimating the French outside of Metz at 110,000.

We now come to Sedan. With the army of Bazaine beleaguered, there remained, in the opinion of the German chiefs--an opinion not justified by events--only the army of MacMahon. To remove that army from the path which led to Paris was the task intrusted to the crown prince. MacMahon, meanwhile, after his defeat at Wörth, had fallen back with the disordered remnants of his army on Chalons, there to reorganize and strengthen it. Much progress had been made in both respects, when, after the result of the battle of Gravelotte had been known in Paris, he received instructions from the Count of Palikao to march with the four army corps at his disposal northward toward the Meuse, and to give a hand to the beleaguered Bazaine.

MacMahon prepared to obey. But circumstances ordered otherwise. On the night of August 31st, accompanied by the emperor--who, having transferred his authority to the Empress Eugenie and his command to Bazaine, followed the army as mere spectator--MacMahon reached Sedan, and there ranged his troops so as to meet an attack which he foresaw inevitable, and fatal too. Placing his strongest force to the east, his right wing was at Bazeilles and the left at Illy. The ground in front of his main defence was naturally strong, the entire front being covered by the Givonne rivulet, and the slopes to that rivulet, on the French side of it.

The possibility that the French marshal would accept battle at Sedan had been considered at the German headquarters on the night of the 31st, and arrangements had been made to meet his wishes. The army of the crown prince of Saxony (the Fourth Army) occupied the right of the German forces, the Bavarian Corps formed the centre, and the Prussians the left wing. The advanced troops of the army were ranged in the following order. On the right stood the Twelfth Corps, then the Fourth Prussian Corps, the Prussian Guards, and finally the Fourth Cavalry Division, their backs to Remilly. From this point they were linked to the First and Second Bavarian Corps, opposite Bazeilles; they, in turn, to the Eleventh and Fifth Corps; and they, at Dom-le-Mesnil, to the Würtembergers. The Sixth Prussian Corps was placed in reserve between Attigny and Le Chene.

A word now as to the nature of the ground on which the impending battle was to be fought. Sedan lies in the most beautiful part of the valley of the Meuse, amid terraced heights, covered with trees, and, within close distance, the villages of Donchery, Iges, Villette, Glaire, Daigny, Bazeilles, and others. Along the Meuse, on the left bank, ran the main road from Donchery through Frenois, crossing the river at the suburb Torcy, and there traversing Sedan. The character of the locality may best be described as a ground covered with fruit gardens and vineyards, narrow streets shut in by stone walls, the roads overhung by forests, the egress from which was in many places steep and abrupt. Such was the ground. One word now as to the troops.

The German army before Sedan counted, all told, 240,000 men; the French 180,000. But the disparity in numbers was the least of the differences between the two armies. The one was flushed with victory, the other dispirited by defeat. The one had absolute confidence in their generals and their officers, the other had the most supreme contempt for theirs. The one had marched from Metz on a settled plan, to be modified according to circumstances, the drift of which was apparent to the meanest soldier; the other had been marched hither and thither, now toward Montmedy, now toward Paris, then again back toward Montmedy, losing much time; the men eager for a pitched battle, then suddenly surprised through the carelessness of their commanders, and compelled at last to take refuge in a town from which there was no issue. There was hardly an officer of rank who knew aught about the country in which he found himself. The men were longing to fight to the death, but they, one and all, distrusted their leaders. It did not tend, moreover, to the encouragement of the army to see the now phantom emperor, without authority to command even a corporal's guard, dragged about the country, more as a pageant than a sovereign. He, poor man, was much to be pitied. He keenly felt his position, and longed for the day when he might, in a great battle, meet the glorious death which France might accept as an atonement for his misfortunes.

The battle began at daybreak on the morning of the 1st of September. Under cover of a brisk artillery fire, the Bavarians advanced, and opened, at six o'clock, a very heavy musketry fire on Bazeilles. The masonry buildings of this village were all armed and occupied, and they were defended very valiantly. The defenders drove back the enemy as they advanced and kept them at bay for two hours. Then the Saxons came up to the aid of the Bavarians, and forced the first position. Still the defence continued, and the clocks were striking ten when the Bavarians succeeded in entering the place. Even then a house-to-house defence prolonged the battle, and it was not until every house but one[2] had been either stormed or burned that the Germans could call the village, or the ruins which remained of it, their own. Meanwhile, on the other points of their defensive position; at Floing, St. Menges, Fleigneux, Illy, and, on the extreme left, at Iges, where a sharp bend of the Meuse forms a peninsula of the ground round which it slowly rolls; the French had been making a gallant struggle. In their ranks, even in advance of them, attended finally by a single aide-de-camp, all the others having been killed, was the emperor, cool, calm, and full of sorrow, earnestly longing for the shell or the bullet which should give a soldier's finish to his career. MacMahon, too, was there, doing all that a general could do to encourage his men. The enemy were, however, gradually but surely making way. To hedge the French within the narrowest compass, the Fifth and Eleventh Corps of the Third Army had crossed the Meuse to the left of Sedan, and were marching now to roll up the French left. But before their attack had been felt, an event had occurred full of significance for the French army.

Early in the day, while yet the Bavarians were fighting to get possession of Bazeilles, Marshal MacMahon was so severely wounded that he had to be carried from the field into Sedan. He made over the command of the army to General Ducrot. That general had even before recognized the impossibility of maintaining the position before Sedan against the superior numbers of the German army, and had seen that the one chance of saving his army was to fall back on Mezieres. He at once, then, on assuming command, issued orders to that effect. But it was already too late. The march by the defile of St. Albert had been indeed possible at any time during the night or in the very early morning. But it was now no longer so. The German troops swarmed in the plains of Donchery, and the route by Carignan could only be gained by passing over the bodies of a more numerous and still living foe. Still Ducrot had given the order, and the staff officers did their utmost to cause it to be obeyed. The crowded streets of Sedan were being vacated, when suddenly the orders were countermanded. General Wimpffen had arrived from Paris the previous day to replace the incapable De Failly in command of the Fifth Corps, carrying in his pocket an order from the Minister of War to assume the command-in-chief in the event of any accident to MacMahon. The emperor had no voice in the matter, for, while the regency of the empress existed, he no longer represented the government. The two generals met, and, after a somewhat lively discussion, Ducrot was forced to acknowledge the authority of the minister. Wimpffen then assumed command. His first act was to countermand the order to retreat on Mezieres, and to direct the troops to reassume the positions they had occupied when MacMahon had been wounded. This order was carried out as far as was possible.

Meanwhile the Germans were pressing more and more those positions. About midday the Guards, having made their way step by step, each one bravely contested, gave their hand to the left wing of the Third Army. Then Illy and Floing, which had been defended with extraordinary tenacity, as the keys of the advanced French position, were stormed. The conquest of those heights completed the investment of Sedan. There was now no possible egress for the French. Their soldiers retreated into the town and the suburbs, while five hundred German guns hurled their missiles, their round shot and their shells, against the walls and the crowded masses behind them.

Vainly then did Wimpffen direct an assembly in mass of his men to break through the serried columns of the enemy. In the disordered state of the French army the thing was impossible. The emperor, who had courted death in vain, recognized the truth, and, desirous to spare the sacrifice of life produced by the continued cannonade, ordered, on his own responsibility, the hoisting of a white flag on the highest point of the defences, as a signal of surrender. But the firing still continued, and Wimpffen, still bent on breaking through, would not hear of surrender. Then Napoleon despatched his chief aide-de-camp, General Keille, with a letter to the king of Prussia.

King William early that day had taken his stand on an eminence which commanded an extensive view and which rises a little south of Frenois. There, his staff about him, he watched the progress of the fight. Toward this eminence Reille rode. Walking his horse up the steep, he dismounted, and raising his cap presented the letter. King William, breaking the imperial seal, read these phrases, which, if somewhat dramatic, are striking in their brevity:[3]

"MONSIEUR MON FRÈRE--N'ayant pu mourir au milieu de mes troupes, il ne me reste qu' à remettre mon epée entre les mains de Votre Majeste.

"Je suis de Votre Majeste, "le bon Frere,

"NAPOLÉON.

"Sédan, le 1er Septembre, 1870."

"Only one half hour earlier," writes Mr. George Hooper in his "Campaign of Sedan," "had the information been brought that the emperor was in Sedan." Mr. Hooper adds:

"The king conferred with his son, who had been hastily summoned, and with others of his trusty servants, all deeply moved by complex emotions at the grandeur of their victory. What should be done? The emperor spoke for himself only, and his surrender would not settle the great issue. It was necessary to obtain something definite, and the result of a short conference was that Count Hatzfeldt, instructed by the chancellor, retired to draft a reply. 'After some minutes he brought it,' writes Dr. Busch, 'and the king wrote it out, sitting on one chair, while the seat of a second was held up by Major von Alten, who knelt on one knee and supported the chair on the other.' The king's letter, brief and business-like, began and ended with the customary royal forms, and ran as follows:

"'Regretting the circumstances in which we meet, I accept your Majesty's sword, and beg that you will be good enough to name an officer furnished with full powers to treat for the capitulation of the army which has fought so bravely under your orders. On my side I have designated General von Moltke for that purpose.'

"General Reille returned to his master, and as he rode down the hill the astounding purport of his visit flew from lip to lip through the exulting army which now hoped that, after this colossal success, the days of ceaseless marching and fighting would soon end. As a contrast to this natural outburst of joy and hope we may note the provident Moltke, who was always resolved to 'mak siker.' His general order, issued at once, suspending hostilities during the night, declared that they would begin again in the morning should the negotiations produce no result. In that case, he said, the signal for battle would be the reopening of fire by the batteries on the heights east of Frenois.

"The signal was not given. Late on the evening of September 1st a momentous session was held in Donchery, the little town which commands a bridge over the Meuse below Sedan. On one side of a square table covered with red baize sat General von Moltke, having on his right hand the quartermaster-general Von Podbielski, according to one account, and Von Blumenthal according to another, and behind them several officers, while Count von Nostitz stood near the hearth to take notes. Opposite to Von Moltke sat De Wimpffen alone; while in rear, 'almost in the shade,' were General Faure, Count Castelnau, and other Frenchmen, among whom was a cuirassier, Captain d'Orcet, who had observant eyes and a retentive memory. Then there ensued a brief silence, for Von Moltke looked straight before him and said nothing, while De Wimpffen, oppressed by the number present, hesitated to engage in a debate 'with the two men admitted to be the most capable of our age, each in his kind.' But he soon plucked up courage, and frankly accepted the conditions of the combat. What terms, he asked, would the king of Prussia grant to a valiant army which, could he have had his will, would have continued to fight? 'They are very simple,' answered Von Moltke. 'The entire army, with arms and baggage, must surrender as prisoners of war.' 'Very hard,' replied the Frenchman. 'We merit better treatment. Could you not be satisfied with the fortress and the artillery, and allow the army to retire with arms, flags and baggage, on condition of serving no more against Germany during the war?' No. 'Moltke,' said Bismarck, recounting the interview, 'coldly persisted in his demand,' or as the attentive d'Orcet puts it, 'Von Moltke was pitiless.' Then De Wimpffen tried to soften his grim adversary by painting his own position. He had just come from the depths of the African desert; he had an irreproachable military reputation; he had taken command in the midst of a battle, and found himself obliged to set his name to a disastrous capitulation. 'Can you not,' he said, 'sympathize with an officer in such a plight, and soften, for me, the bitterness of my situation by granting more honorable conditions?' He painted in moving terms his own sad case, and described what he might have done; but seeing that his personal pleadings were unheeded, he took a tone of defiance, less likely to prevail. 'If you will not give better terms,' he went on, 'I shall appeal to the honor of the army, and break out, or, at least, defend Sedan.' Then the German general struck in with emphasis, 'I regret that I cannot do what you ask,' he said; 'but as to making a sortie, that is just as impossible as the defence of Sedan. You have some excellent troops, but the greater part of your infantry is demoralized. To-day, during the battle, we captured more than twenty thousand unwounded prisoners. You have only eighty thousand men left. My troops and guns around the town would smash yours before they could make a movement; and as to defending Sedan, you have not provisions for eight-and-forty hours, nor ammunition which would suffice for that period.' Then, says De Wimpffen, he entered into details respecting our situation, which, 'unfortunately, were too true,' and he offered to permit an officer to verify his statements, an offer which the Frenchman did not then accept.

"Beaten off the military ground, De Wimpffen sought refuge in politics. 'It is your interest, from a political standpoint, to grant us honorable conditions,' he said. 'France is generous and chivalric, responsive to generosity, and grateful for consideration. A peace, based on conditions which would flatter the amour-propre of the army, and diminish the bitterness of defeat, would be durable; whereas rigorous measures would awaken bad passions, and, perhaps, bring on an endless war between France and Prussia.' The new ground broken called up Bismarck, 'because the matter seemed to belong to my province,' he observed when telling the story; and he was very outspoken as usual. 'I said to him that we might build on the gratitude of a prince, but certainly not on the gratitude of a people--least of all on the gratitude of the French. That in France neither institutions nor circumstances were enduring; that governments and dynasties were constantly changing, and the one need not carry out what the other had bound itself to do. That if the emperor had been firm on his throne, his gratitude for our granting good conditions might have been counted upon; but as things stood it would be folly if we did not make full use of our success. That the French were a nation full of envy and jealousy, that they had been much mortified by our success at Koniggratz, and could not forgive it, though it in nowise damaged them. How, then, should any magnanimity on our side move them not to bear us a grudge for Sedan.' This Wimpffen would not admit. 'France,' he said, 'had much changed latterly; it had learned under the empire to think more of the interests of peace than of the glory of war. France was ready to proclaim the fraternity of nations;' and more of the same kind. Captain d'Orcet reports that, in addition, Bismarck denied that France had changed, and that to curb her mania for glory, to punish her pride, her aggressive and ambitious character, it was imperative that there should be a glacis between France and Germany. 'We must have territory, fortresses and frontiers which will shelter us forever from an attack on her part.' Further remonstrances from De Wimpffen only drew down fresh showers of rough speech very trying to bear, and when Bismarck said, 'We cannot change our conditions,' De Wimpffen exclaimed, 'Very well; it is equally impossible for me to sign such a capitulation, and we shall renew the battle.'

"Here Count Castelnau interposed meekly to say, on behalf of the emperor, that he had surrendered, personally, in the hope that his self-sacrifice would induce the king to grant the army honorable terms. 'Is that all?' Bismarck inquired. 'Yes,' said the Frenchman. 'But what is the sword surrendered,' asked the chancellor; 'is it his own sword, or the sword of France?' 'It is only the sword of the emperor,' was Castelnau's reply. 'Well, there is no use talking about other conditions,' said Von Moltke, sharply, while a look of contentment and gratification passed over his face, according to Bismarck; one 'almost joyful,' writes the keen Captain d'Orcet. 'After the last words of Von Moltke,' he continues, 'De Wimpffen exclaimed, "We shall renew the battle." "The truce," retorted the German general, "expires to-morrow morning at four o'clock. At four, precisely, I shall open fire." We were all standing. After Von Moltke's words no one spoke a syllable. The silence was icy.' But then Bismarck intervened to soothe excited feelings, and called on his soldier- comrade to show, once more, how impossible resistance had become. The group sat down again at the red baize-covered table, and Von Moltke began his demonstration afresh. 'Ah,' said De Wimpffen, 'your positions are not so strong as you would have us believe them to be.' 'You do not know the topography of the country about Sedan,' was Von Moltke's true and crushing answer. 'Here is a bizarre detail which illustrates the presumptuous and inconsequent character of your people,' he went on, now thoroughly aroused. 'When the war began you supplied your officers with maps of Germany at a time when they could not study the geography of their own country for want of French maps. I tell you that our positions are not only very strong, they are inexpugnable.' It was then that De Wimpffen, unable to reply, wished to accept the offer made but not accepted at an earlier period, and to send an officer to verify these assertions. 'You will send nobody,' exclaimed the iron general. 'It is useless, and you can believe my word. Besides, you have not long to reflect. It is now midnight; the truce ends at four o'clock, and I will grant no delay.' Driven to his last ditch, De Wimpffen pleaded that he must consult his fellow- generals, and he could not obtain their opinions by four o'clock. Once more the diplomatic peacemaker intervened, and Von Moltke agreed to fix the final limit at nine. 'He gave way at last,' says Bismarck, 'when I showed him that it could do no harm.' The conference so dramatic broke up, and each one went his way; but, says the German official narrative, 'as it was not doubtful that the hostile army, completely beaten and nearly surrounded, would be obliged to submit to the clauses already indicated, the great headquarter staff was occupied, that very night, in drawing up the text of the capitulation,' a significant and practical comment, showing what stuff there was behind the severe language which, at the midnight meeting, fell from the Chief of that able and sleepless body of chosen men.

"From this conference General de Wimpffen went straight to the wearied emperor, who had gone to bed. But he received his visitor, who told him that the proposed conditions were hard, and that the sole chance of mitigation lay in the efforts of his Majesty. 'General,' said the emperor, 'I shall start at five o'clock for the German headquarters, and I shall see whether the king will be more favorable;' for he seems to have become possessed of an idea that King William would personally treat with him. The emperor kept his word. Believing that he would be permitted to return to Sedan, he drove forth without bidding farewell to any of his troops; but, as the drawbridge of Torcy was lowered and he passed over, the Zouaves on duty shouted 'Vive l'Empereur!' This cry was 'the last adieu which fell on his ears' as we read in the narrative given to the world on his behalf. He drove in a droshki toward Donchery, preceded by General Reille, who, before six o'clock, awoke Bismarck from his slumbers, and warned him that the emperor desired to speak with him. 'I went with him directly,' said Bismarck, in a conversation reported by Busch; 'and got on my horse, all dusty and dirty as I was, in an old cap and my great waterproof boots, to ride to Sedan, where I supposed him to be.' But he met him on the highroad near Frenois, 'sitting in a two-horse carriage.' Beside him was the Prince de la Moskowa, and on horseback Castelnau and Reille. 'I gave the military salute,' says Bismarck. 'He took his cap off and the officers did the same; whereupon I took off mine, although it was contrary to rule. He said, "Couvrez-vous, done." I behaved to him just as if in St. Cloud, and asked his commands.' Naturally, he wanted to see the king, but that could not be allowed. Then Bismarck placed his quarters in Donchery at the emperor's disposal, but he declined the courtesy, and preferred to rest in a house by the wayside. The cottage of a Belgian weaver unexpectedly became famous; a one-storied house, painted yellow, with white shutters and Venetian blinds. He and the chancellor entered the house, and went up to the first floor where there was 'a little room with one window. It was the best in the house, but had only one deal table and two rush-bottomed chairs.' In that lowly abode they talked together of many things for three- quarters of an hour, among others about the origin of the war--which, it seems, neither desired--the emperor asserting, Bismarck reports, that 'he had been driven into it by the pressure of public opinion,' a very inadequate representation of the curious incidents which preceded the fatal decision. But when the emperor began to ask for more favorable terms, he was told that, on a military question, Von Moltke alone could speak. On the other hand, Bismarck's request to know who now had authority to make peace was met by a reference to 'the Government in Paris'; so that no progress was made. Then 'we must stand to our demands with regard to the Army of Sedan,' said Bismarck. General von Moltke was summoned, and 'Napoleon III. demanded that nothing should be decided before he had seen the king, for he hoped to obtain from his Majesty some favorable concessions for the army.' The German official narrative of the war states that the emperor expressed a wish that the army might be permitted to enter Belgium, but that, of course, the chief of the staff could not accept the proposal. General von Moltke forthwith set out for Vendresse, where the king was, to report progress. He met his Majesty on the road, and there 'the king fully approved the proposed conditions of capitulation, and declared that he would not see the emperor until the terms prescribed had been accepted'; a decision which gratified the chancellor as well as the chief of the staff. 'I did not wish them to come together,' observed the count, 'until we had settled the matter of the capitulation'; sparing the feelings of both and leaving the business to the hard military men.

"The emperor lingered about in the garden of the weaver's cottage; he seems to have desired fresh air after his unpleasant talk with the chancellor. Dr. Moritz Busch, who had hurried to the spot, has left a characteristic description of the emperor. He saw there 'a little thick-set man,' wearing jauntily a red cap with a gold border, a black paletôt lined with red, red trousers, and white kid gloves. 'The look in his light gray eyes was somewhat soft and dreamy, like that of people who have lived hard. His whole appearance,' says the irreverent Busch, 'was a little unsoldierlike. The man looked too soft, I might say too shabby, for the uniform he wore.' While one scene in the stupendous drama was performed at the weaver's cottage, another was acted or endured in Sedan, where De Wimpffen had summoned the generals to consider the terms of capitulation. He has given his own account of the incident; but the fullest report is supplied by Lebrun. There were present at this council of war more than thirty generals. With tearful eyes and a voice broken by sobs, the unhappy and most ill-starred De Wimpffen described his interview and conflict with Von Moltke and Bismarck, and its dire result--the army to surrender as prisoners of war, the officers alone to retain their arms, and by way of mitigating the rigor of these conditions, full permission to return home would be given to any officer, provided he would engage in writing and on honor not to serve again during the war. The generals, save one or two, and these finally acquiesced, felt that the conditions could not be refused; but they were indignant at the clause suggesting that the officers might escape the captivity which would befall their soldiers, provided they would engage to become mere spectators of the invasion of their country. In the midst of these mournful deliberations Captain von Zingler, a messenger from Von Moltke, entered, and the scene became still more exciting. 'I am instructed,' he said, 'to remind you how urgent it is that you should come to a decision. At ten o'clock, precisely, if you have not come to a resolution, the German batteries will fire on Sedan. It is now nine, and I shall have barely time to carry your answer to headquarters.' To this sharp summons De Wimpffen answered that he could not decide until he knew the result of the interview between the emperor and the king.' 'That interview,' said the stern captain, 'will not in any way affect the military operations, which can only he determined by the generals who have full power to resume or stop the strife.' It was, indeed, as Lebrun remarked, useless to argue with a captain charged to state a fact; and at the general's suggestion De Wimpffen agreed to accompany Captain von Zingler to the German headquarters.

"These were, for the occasion, the Château de Bellevue, where the emperor himself had been induced to take up his abode, and about eleven o'clock, in a room under the imperial chamber, De Wimpffen put his name at the foot of the document drawn up, during the night, by the German staff. Then he sought out the emperor, and, greatly moved, told him that 'all was finished.' His majesty, he writes, 'with tears in his eyes, approached me, pressed my hand, and embraced me,' and 'my sad and painful duty having been accomplished, I remounted my horse and road back to Sedan, '"la mort dans l'âme."'

"So soon as the convention was signed, the king arrived, accompanied by the crown prince. Three years before, as the emperor reminds us in the writing attributed to him, the king had been his guest in Paris, where all the sovereigns of Europe had come to behold the marvels of the famous Exhibition. 'Now,' so runs the lamentation, 'betrayed by fortune, Napoleon III. had lost all, and had placed in the hands of his conqueror the sole thing left him--his liberty.' And he goes on to say, in general terms, that the king deeply sympathized with his misfortunes, but nevertheless could not grant better conditions to the army. 'He told the emperor that the castle of Wilhelmshohe had been selected as his residence; the crown prince then entered and cordially shook hands with Napoleon; and at the end of a quarter of an hour the king withdrew. The emperor was permitted to send a telegram in cipher to the empress, to tell her what had happened, and urge her to negotiate a peace.' Such is the bald record of this impressive event. The telegram, which reached the empress at four o'clock on the afternoon of the 3d, was in these words: 'The army is defeated and captive; I myself am a prisoner.'

"For one day more the fallen sovereign rested at Bellevue to meditate on the caprices of fortune or the decrees of fate. But that day, at the head of a splendid company of princes and generals, King William, crossing the bridge of Donchery, rode throughout the whole vast extent of the German lines, to greet his hardy warriors and be greeted by them on the very scene of their victories. And well they deserved regal gratitude, for together with their comrades who surrounded Metz, by dint of long swift marches and steadfast valor, they had overcome two great armies in thirty days.