Notes on the War (1870-1871)

Add a subpage to this text

Read the help page for usage.

 

🔍 See also : Preface by Trotsky.

Notes on the War.-I, July 29, 1870

Scarcely a shot has been fired so far, and yet a the war has passed away, ending in disappointment to the Emperor. A few observations on the political and military situation will render this evident.

It is now admitted on all hands that Louis Napoleon expected to be able to isolate the North German Confederation from the Southern States, and to take advantage of the disaffection existing in the newly annexed Prussian provinces. A rapid dash upon the Rhine with as large a force as could be collected, a passage of that river somewhere between Germersheim and Mayence, an advance in the direction of Frankfort and Würzburg, might promise to effect this. The French would find themselves masters of the communications between North and South, and would compel Prussia to bring down to the Main, in hot haste, all available troops, whether ready or not, for a campaign. The whole process of mobilization in Prussia would be disturbed, and all the chances would be in favour of the invaders being able to defeat the Prussians in detail as they arrived from the various parts of the country. Not only political but also military reasons were in favour of such an attempt. The French cadre system admits of a far quicker concentration of say 120,000 to 150,000 men than the Prussian landwehr system. The French peace footing differs from the war footing merely by the number of men on furlough, and by the non-existence of depôts, which are formed on the eve of marching out. But the Prussian peace footing includes less than one-third of the men who compose the war footing; and moreover, not only the men, but the officers also of these remaining two-thirds are in time of peace civilians. The mobilization of these immense numbers of men takes time; it is, moreover, a complicated process, which would be thrown into complete disorder by the sudden irruption of a hostile army. This is the reason why the war was so much brusqué by the Emperor. Unless he intended some such unexpected surprise, the hot language of Gramont, and the precipitate declaration of war would have been absurd.

But the sudden, violent outburst of German feeling put an end to any such plan. Louis Napoleon found himself face to face, not with King William “Annexander,” but with the German nation. And, in that case, a dash across the Rhine, even with 120,000 to 150,000 men, was not to be thought of. Instead of a surprise, a regular campaign with all available forces had to be undertaken. The Guards, the armies of Paris and Lyons, and the corps of the camp at Châlons, which might have sufficed for the first purpose, were now barely sufficient to form the mere nucleus of the great army of invasion. And thus began the second phase of the war — that of preparation for a great campaign; and from that day the chances of ultimate success for the Emperor began to decline.

Let us now compare the forces that are being got ready for mutual destruction; and to simplify matters, we will take the infantry only. The infantry is the arm which decides battles; any trifling balance of strength in cavalry and artillery, including mitrailleurs and other miracle-working engines, will not count for much on either side.

France has 376 battalions of infantry (38 battalions of Guards, 20 Chasseurs, 300 line, 9 Zouaves, 9 Turcos, &c.) of eight companies each in time of peace. Each of the 300 line battalions, in time of war, leaves two companies behind to form a depôt, and marches out with six companies only. In the present instance, four of the six depôt companies of each line regiment (of three battalions) are intended to expand into a fourth battalion by being filled up with men on furlough and with reserves. The remaining two companies appear to be intended as a depôt, and may hereafter be formed into fifth battalions. But it will be certainly some time, at least six weeks, before these, fourth battalions will be so far organized as to be fit for the field; for the present they and the Garde Mobile can be counted as garrison troops only. Thus, for the first decisive battles, France has nothing available but the above 376 battalions.

Of these, the army of the Rhine, according to all we hear, comprises, in the six army corps No. 1 to 6 and the Guards, 299 battalions. Including the Seventh Corps (General Montauban), which is supposed to be intended for the Baltic, the figure is given as high as 340 battalions, which would leave but 36 battalions to guard Algiers, the colonies, and the interior of France. From this it appears that France has sent every available battalion against Germany, and cannot increase her force by new formations fit for the field before the beginning of September at the very earliest.

Now for the other side. The North German army consists of thirteen army corps, composed of 368 battalions of infantry, or, in round numbers, twenty-eight battalions per corps. Each battalion counts, on the peace footing, about 540, and on the war footing 1,000 men. On the order for the mobilization of the army being received, a few officers are told off in each regiment of three battalions for the formation of the fourth battalion. The reserve men are at once called in. They are men who have served two to three years in the regiment, and remain liable to be called out until they are twenty-seven years of age. There are plenty of them to fill up the three field battalions and furnish a good stock towards the fourth battalion, which is completed by men from the landwehr. Thus the field battalions are ready to march in a few days, and the fourth battalions can follow in four or five weeks afterwards. At the same time, for every line regiment a landwehr regiment of two battalions is formed out of the men between twenty-eight and thirty-six years of age, and as soon as they are ready the formation of the third landwehr battalions is taken in hand. The time required for all this, including the mobilization of cavalry and artillery, is exactly thirteen days; and the first day of mobilization having been fixed for the 16th, everything is or should be ready to-day. At this moment, probably, North Germany has in the field 358 battalions of the line, and in garrison 198 battalions of the landwehr; to be reinforced, certainly not later than the second half of August, by 114 fourth battalions of the line and 93 third battalions of the landwehr. In all these troops there will scarcely be a man who has not passed through his regular time of service in the army. To these we must add the troops of Hesse-Darmstadt, Baden, Württemberg, and Bavaria, 104 battalions of the line in all; but as the landwehr system in these States has not yet had time to fully develop itself. there may be riot more than seventy or eighty battalions available for the field.

The landwehr are principally intended for garrison duty, but in the war of 1866 a large portion marched out as a reserve army for the field. This will no doubt be done again.

Of the thirteen North German army corps ten are now on the Rhine, forming a total of 280 battalions; then the South Germans, say 70 battalions, grand total, 350 battalions. There remain available on the coast or as a reserve three army corps or 84 battalions, One corps, together with the landwehr, will be ample for the defence of the coast. The two remaining corps may be, for aught on the road to the Rhine too. These troops can be reinforced by the 20th of August by at least 100 fourth battalions and 40 to 50 landwehr battalions, men superior to the fourth battalions and Gardes Mobiles of the French, which mostly are composed of almost undrilled men. The fact is. France has not more than about drilled men at ber disposal, North Germany alone has 950,000. And this is in advantage for Germany, which tell more and more the longer decisive fighting is delayed. until it will reach its culminating point towards the end of September.

Under these circumstances, we reed not be astonished at the news from Berlin that the German commanders hope to save German soil from the sufferings of war; in other words, that unless they are attacked soon they will attack themselves. How that attack, unless anticipated by Louis Napoleon, will he conducted is another question

Notes on the War.-II, August 01, 1870

On the morning of Friday, the 29th of July, the forward movement of the French army will have commenced. In which direction? A glance at the map will show it.

The valley of the Rhine, on the left bank, is closed in to the west by the mountain chain of the Vosges from Belfort to Kaiserslautern. North of this latter town the hills become more undulating, until they gradually merge in the plain near Mayence.

The valley of the Moselle in Rhenish Prussia forms a deep and winding clough, which the river has worked out for itself through a plateau, which rises to the south of the valley into a considerable range called the Hochwald. As this range approaches the Rhine the plateau character becomes more predominant, until the last outlying hills meet the farthest spurs of the Vosges.

Neither the Vosges nor the Hochwald are absolutely impracticable for an army; both are crossed by several good high-roads, but neither are of that class of ground where armies of from 200,000 to 300,000 men could operate with advantage. The country between the two, however, forms a kind of broad gap, twenty-five to thirty miles in width, undulated ground, traversed by numerous roads in all directions, and offering every facility to the movements of large armies. Moreover, the road from Metz to Mayence goes through this gap, and Mayence is the first important point on which the French will probably move.

Here, then, we have the line of operations prescribed by nature. In case of a German invasion of France, both armies being prepared, the first great encounter must take place in the corner of Lorraine east of the Moselle and north of the railway from Nancy to Strasbourg; so, with a French army advancing from the positions where it concentrated last week, the first important action will take place somewhere in this gap, or beyond it, under the walls of Mayence.

The French army was thus concentrated: — Three corps (the 3rd, 4th, and 5th) in a first line at Thionville, St. Avold, and Bitche; two corps (the 1st and 2nd) in second line at Strasbourg and Metz; and as a reserve, the Guards at Nancy and the 6th Corps at Châlons. During the last few days the second line was brought forward into the intervals of the first, the Guard was moved to Metz, Strasbourg was abandoned to the Mobile Guard. Thus the whole body of the French forces was concentrated between Thionville and Bitche, that is, facing the entrance of the gap between the mountains. The natural conclusion from these premisses is that they intend marching into it.

Thus, the invasion will have commenced by occupying the passages of the Saar and the Blies; the next day’s proceedings will probably be to occupy the line from Tholey to Homburg; then the line from Birkenfeld to Landstuhl or Oberstein to Kaiserslautern, and so forth — that is to say, unless they are interrupted by an advance of the Germans. There will be, no doubt, flanking corps of both parties in the hills, and they, too, will come to blows; but for the real battle we must look to the ground just described.

Of the positions of the Germans we know nothing. We suppose, however, that their ground of concentration, if they intend to meet the enemy on the left bank of the Rhine, will be immediately in front of Mayence, that is, at the other end of the gap. If not, they will remain on the right bank, from Bingen to Mannheim, concentrating either above or below Mayence as circumstances may require. As to Mayence, which in its old shape was open to bombardment by rifled artillery, the erection of a new line of detached forts, 4,000 to 5,000 yards from the ramparts of the town, seems to have made it pretty secure.

Everything points to the supposition that the Germans will be ready and willing to advance not more than two or three days later than the French. In that case it will be a battle like Solferino — two armies deployed on their full front, marching to meet each other.

Much learned and over-skilful manoeuvring is not to be expected. With armies of such magnitude there is trouble enough to make them move simply to the front according to the preconcerted plan. Whichever side attempts dangerous manoeuvres may find itself crushed by the plain forward movement of the masses of the enemy long before these manoeuvres can be developed.

A military work on the Rhine fortresses, by Herr von Widdern, is much talked of just now at Berlin. The author says that the Rhine from Bâle to the Murg is not fortified at all, and that the only defence of South Germany and Austria against a French attack in that direction is the strong fortress of Ulm, occupied since 1866 by a mixed force of Bavarians and Württembergers, amounting to 10,000 men. This force could in case of war be augmented to 25,000 men, and 25,000 more could be stationed in an entrenched camp within the walls of the fortress. Rastatt, which, it is expected, will present a formidable obstacle to the French advance, lies in a valley through which runs the river Murg. The defences of the town consist of three large forts, which command the surrounding country, and are united by walls. The southern and western forts, called “Leopold” and “Frederick,” are on the left bank of the Murg; the northern fort, called “Louis,” on the right bank, where there is also an entrenched camp capable of holding 25,000 men. Rastatt is four miles from the Rhine, and the intervening country is covered with woods, so that the fortress could not prevent an army from crossing at that point. The next fortress is Landau, which formerly consisted of three forts — one to the south, one to the east, and one to the north-west, separated from the town by marshes on the banks of the little river Queich. The southern and eastern forts have been recently abandoned, and the only one kept in a state of defence is now the north-western. The most important and the best situated fortress in this district is Germersheim, on the banks of the Rhine. It commands a considerable stretch of the river on both sides, and practically closes it to an enemy as far as Mayence and Coblenz. It would greatly facilitate the advance of troops into the Rhine Palatinate, as two or three bridges might be thrown across the river, besides the floating bridge which already exists there, under cover of its guns. It would also form a basis of operations for the left wing of an army posted on the line of the River Queich. Mayence, one of the most important of the Rhine fortresses, is commanded by some of the adjoining hills; this has rendered it necessary to multiply the fortifications in the town, and there is, in consequence, hardly room enough for a large garrison. The whole of the country between Mayence and Bingen is now strongly fortified, and between it and the mouth of the Main (on the opposite bank of the Rhine) there are three large entrenched camps. As to Coblenz, Herr von Widdern says that it would require a force six times as large as the garrison to besiege it with any prospect of success. An enemy would probably begin the attack by opening fire on Fort Alexander from the hill known as the Kuhkopf, where his troops would be sheltered by the woods. The author also describes the fortifications of Cologne and Wesel, but adds nothing to what is already known on the subject.

Notes on the War.- III, August 02, 1870

At last the plan of campaign of the Prussians begins to emerge from the dark. It will be recollected that, although immense transports of troops have taken place on the right bank of the Rhine, from the east towards the west and south-west, very little was heard of concentrations in the immediate vicinity of the menaced frontier. The fortresses received strong reinforcements from the nearest troops. At Saarbrücken, 500 men of the 40th Infantry and three squadrons of the 7th Lancers (both 8th Corps) skirmished with the enemy; Bavarian Chasseurs and Baden dragoons continued the line of outposts to the Rhine. But no large masses of troops appear to have been placed immediately in rear of this curtain formed by a few light troops. Artillery had never been mentioned in any of the skirmishes. Trèves was quite empty of troops. On the other hand, we heard of large masses on the Belgian frontier; of 30,000 cavalry about Cologne (where the whole country on the left bank of the Rhine, to near Aix-la-Chapelle, abounds in forage); of 70,000 men before Mayence. All this seemed strange; it looked like an almost culpable distribution of troops, contrasted with the close concentration of the French within a couple of hours’ march of the frontier. All at once, a few indications drop in from different quarters which seem to dispel the mystery.

The correspondent of the Temps, who had ventured as far as Trèves, witnessed on the 25th and 26th the passage of a large body of troops of all arms through that city towards the line of the Saar. The weak garrison of Saarbrücken was considerably reinforced about the same time, probably from Coblenz, the head-quarters of the 8th Corps. The troops passing through Trèves must have belonged to some other corps, coming from the north across the Eifel. Finally, from a private source we learn that the 7th Army Corps on the 27th was on its march from Aix-la-Chapelle, by Trèves, to the frontier.

Here, then, we have at least three army corps, or about 100,000 men, thrown on the line of the Saar. Two of these are the 7th and 8th, both forming part of the Army of the North under General Steinmetz (7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th corps). We may pretty safely assume that the whole of this army is by this time concentrated between Sarrebourg and Saarbrücken. If the 30,000 cavalry (more or less) were really in the neighbourhood of Cologne, they too must have marched across the Eifel and the Moselle towards the Saar. The whole of these dispositions would indicate that the main attack of the Germans will be made with their right wing, through the space between Metz and Saarlouis, towards the upper Nied valley. If the reserve cavalry has gone that way, this becomes a certainty.

This plan presupposes the concentration of the whole German army between the Vosges and the Moselle. The Army of the Centre (Prince Frederick Charles, with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 12th corps) would have to take up a position either adjoining the left flank of Steinmetz or behind him as a reserve. The Army of the South (the Crown Prince, with the 5th Corps, the Guards, and the South Germans) would form the left wing, somewhere about Zweibrücken. As to where all these troops are, and how they are to be transported to their positions, we know nothing. We only know that the 3rd Army Corps began passing through Cologne southwards by the railway on the left bank of the Rhine. But we may assume that the same hand which traced the dispositions by which from 100,000 to 150,000 men were rapidly concentrated on the Saar from distant and apparently divergent points, will also have traced similar converging lines of march for the rest of the army.

This is, indeed, a bold plan, and is likely to prove as effective as any that could be devised. It is intended for a battle in which the German left, from Zweibrücken to near Saarlouis, maintain a purely defensive fight; while their right, advancing from Saarlouis and west of it, supported by the full reserves, attack the enemy in force and cut his communications with Metz by a flank movement of the whole of the reserve cavalry. If this plan succeeds, and the first great battle is won by the Germans, the French army risks not only being cut off from its nearest base — Metz and the Moselle — but also being driven to a position where the Germans will be between it and Paris.

The Germans, having their communication with Coblenz and Cologne perfectly safe, can afford to risk a defeat in this position; such a defeat would not be nearly so disastrous in its consequences to them. Still it is a daring plan. It would be extremely difficult to get a defeated army, especially the right wing, safe across the defiles of the Moselle and its tributaries. Many prisoners and a great portion of the artillery would undoubtedly be lost, and the reforming of the army under shelter of the Rhine fortresses would take a long time. It would be folly to adopt such a plan unless General Moltke were perfectly certain to have such overwhelming strength at his command that victory was almost undoubted, and, moreover, unless he knew that the French were not in a position to fall upon his troops while still converging from all sides to the position selected for the first battle. Whether this is really the case we shall probably know very soon — perhaps to-morrow, even.

In the meantime it is well to remember that these strategic plans can never be relied upon for the full effect of what is expected from them. There always occurs a hitch here and a hitch there; corps do not arrive at the exact moment when they are wanted; the enemy makes unexpected moves, or has taken unexpected precautions; and finally, hard, stubborn fighting, or the good sense of a general, often extricates the defeated army from the worst consequences a defeat can have — the loss of communications with its base.

Notes on the War.-IV, August 06, 1870

On the 28th of July the Emperor reached Metz, and from the following morning he assumed the command of the Army of the Rhine. According to Napoleonic traditions, that date ought to have marked the beginning of active operations; but a week has passed, and we have not yet heard that the Army of the Rhine, as a body, has moved. On the 30th the small Prussian force at Saarbrücken was enabled to repel a French reconnaissance. On the 2nd of August the second division (General Bataille) of the 2nd Army Corps (General Frossard) took the heights south of Saarbrücken and shelled the enemy out of the town, but without attempting to pass the river and to storm the heights which on its northern bank command the town. Thus the line of the Saar had not been forced by this attack. Since then no further news of a French advance has been received, and so far the advantage gained by the affair of the 2nd is almost nil.

Now it can scarcely be doubted that when the Emperor left Paris for Metz his intention was to advance across the frontier at once. Had he done so he would have been able to disturb the enemy’s arrangements very materially. On the 29th and 30th of July the German armies were still very far from being concentrated. The South Germans were still converging by rail and march towards the bridges of the Rhine. The Prussian reserve cavalry was passing in endless files through Coblenz and Ehrenbreitstein, marching southwards. The 7th Corps was between Aix-la-Chapelle and Trèves, far away from all railways. The 10th Corps was leaving Hanover, and the Guards were leaving Berlin by rail. A resolute advance at that time could scarcely have failed to bring the French up to the outlying forts of Mayence, and to ensure them considerable advantages over the retiring columns of the Germans; perhaps even it might have enabled them to throw a bridge over the Rhine, and protect it by a bridgehead on the right bank. At all events, the war would have been carried into the enemy’s country, and the moral effect upon the French troops must have been excellent.

Why, then, has no such forward movement taken place? For this good reason, that, if the French soldiers were ready, their commissariat was not. We need not go by any of the rumours coming from the German side; we have the evidence of Captain Jeannerod, an old French officer, now correspondent of the Temps with the army. He distinctly states that the distribution of provisions for a campaign began on the 1st of August only; that the troops were short of field flasks, cooking tins, and other camping utensils; that the meat was putrid and the bread often musty. It will be said, we fear, that so far the army of the Second Empire has been beaten by the Second Empire itself. Under a régime which has to yield bounties to its supporters by all the old regular established means of jobbery, it cannot be expected that the system will stop at the intendance of the army. This war, according to M. Rouher’s confession, was prepared long ago; the laying in of stores, especially equipments, was evidently one of the least conspicuous parts of the preparation; and yet at this very point such irregularities occur as to cause nearly a week’s delay at the most critical period of the campaign.

Now, this week’s delay made all the difference to the Germans. It gave them time to bring their troops to the front and to mass them in the positions selected for them. Our readers are aware that we suppose the whole of the German forces to be by this time concentrated on the left bank of the Rhine, more or less facing the French army. All public and private reports received since Tuesday, when we supplied The Times with all the opinion it ever had on the subject, and which this morning it swears is its own, tend to confirm this view. The three armies of Steinmetz, Prince Frederick Charles, and the Crown Prince represent a grand total of thirteen army corps, or at least 430,000 to 450,000 men. The total forces opposed to them cannot much exceed, at a very liberal estimate, 330,000 to 350,000 drilled soldiers. If they are stronger, the excess must consist of undrilled and recently formed battalions. But the German forces are far from representing the total strength of Germany. Of field troops alone there are three army corps (the 1st, 6th, and 11th) not included in the above estimate. Where they may be we do not know. We know that they have left their garrisons, and we have traced regiments of the 11th Corps to the left bank of the Rhine and the Bavarian Palatinate. We also know for certain that there are now in Hanover, Bremen, and neighbourhood no troops but landwehr. This would lead to the conclusion that the greater part at least of these three corps had also been forwarded to the front, and in that case the numerical superiority of the Germans would be increased by from some forty to sixty thousand men. We should not he surprised if even a couple of landwehr divisions had been sent to take the field on the Saar; there are 210,000 men of the landwehr now quite ready, and 180,000 men in the fourth battalions, &c., of the line nearly ready, and some of these might be spared for the first decisive blow. Let no one suppose that these men exist, to any extent, on paper only. The mobilization of 1866 is there to prove that the thing has been done, and the present mobilization has again proved that there are more drilled men ready to march out than are wanted. The numbers look incredible; but even they do not exhaust the military strength of Germany.

Thus, at the end of the present week, the Emperor a finds himself face to face with a numerically superior force. And if he was willing but unable to move forward last week, he may be both unable and unwilling to advance now. That he is not unaware of the strength of his opponents is hinted at by the report from Paris that 250,000 Prussians are massed between Saarlouis and Neuenkirchen. What there is between Neuenkirchen and Kaiserslautern the Parisian telleth not. It is therefore possible that the inactivity of the French army up to Thursday has been partly caused by a change in the plan of campaign; that instead of attacking, the French intend to remain on the defensive, and to take advantage of the greatly increased strength which breech-loaders and rifled artillery give to an army awaiting an attack in an entrenched position. But if this be resolved upon, it will be a very disappointing commencement of the campaign for the French. To sacrifice half Lorraine and Alsace without a pitched battle — and we doubt that any good position for such a large army can be found nearer the frontier than about Metz — is a serious undertaking for the Emperor.

Against such a move of the French the Germans would develop the plan explained before. They would attempt to entangle their opponents into a great battle before Metz could be reached; they would push forward between Saarlouis and Metz. They would try in all cases to outflank the French entrenched position, and to interrupt its communications towards the rear.

An army of 300,000 men requires a great deal of feeding, and could not afford to have its lines of supply interrupted even for a few days. Thus it might be forced to come out and fight in the open, and then the advantage of position would be lost. Whatever may be done, we may be certain that something must be done soon. Three-quarters of a million of men cannot long remain concentrated on a space of fifty miles square. The impossibility of feeding such bodies of men will compel either one side or the other to move.

To conclude. We repeat that we start from the supposition that both French and Germans have brought up every available man to the front to take part in the first great battle. In that case, our opinion still is that the Germans will have a numerical superiority sufficient to ensure them the victory-barring great mistakes on their part. We are confirmed in this supposition by all reports, public and private. But it is manifest that all this does not amount to absolute certainty. We have to infer from indications which may be deceptive. We do not know what dispositions may be taken even while we are writing; and it is impossible to forecast what blunders or what strokes of genius may be displayed by the commanders on either side.

Our last observations to-day shall be upon the storming of the lines of Wissembourg in Alsace by the Germans. The troops engaged on their side belonged to the Prussian 5th and 11th, and Bavarian 2nd corps. We have thus direct confirmation not only of the 11th Corps but of all the main forces of the Crown Prince being in the Palatinate. The regiment mentioned in the report as “the King’s Grenadier Guards” is the 7th or 2nd West Prussian regiment of grenadiers, which, as well as the 58th regiment, belongs to the 5th Corps. The Prussian system is always to engage the whole of an army corps before troops from another corps are brought up. Now, here, troops from three corps, Prussians and Bavarians, are employed for a piece of work which one corps, at most, could have performed. This looks as if the presence of three corps menacing Alsace was to be impressed upon the French. Moreover, an attack up the valley of the Rhine would be stopped by Strasbourg, and a flank march through the Vosges would find the passes blocked by Bitche, Phalsbourg, Petite Pierre, little fortresses sufficient to stop the high roads. We expect that while three or four brigades of the three German corps attacked Wissembourg, the mass of these corps would be marching by Landau and Pirmasens to Zweibrücken, while, if the first were successful, a couple of MacMahon’s divisions would be marching in the opposite direction towards the Rhine. There they would be perfectly harmless, as any invasion of the Palatinate, in the plain, would be arrested by Landau and Germersheim.

This affair at Wissembourg was evidently conducted with such a superiority of numbers as made success almost certain. Its moral effect, as the first serious engagement of the war, must necessarily be great, especially as the storming of an entrenched position is always considered a difficult matter. That the Germans should have driven the French out of entrenched lines, at the point of the bayonet, in spite of rifled artillery, mitrailleurs, and Chassepots, will tell on both armies. It is undoubtedly the first instance where the bayonet has been successful against the breech-loader, and on this account the action will remain memorable.

For this very reason it will derange Napoleon’s plans. This is a piece of news which cannot be given to the French army even in a highly diluted form, unless accompanied by reports of success in other quarters. And it cannot be kept secret for more than twelve hours at most. We may expect, therefore, the Emperor will set his columns in motion to look out for this success, and it will be wonderful if we do not soon have some account of French victories. But at the same time, probably, the Germans will move, and we shall have the heads of the opposite columns coming into contact at more places than one. To-day, or at latest to-morrow, ought to bring on the first general engagement.

The Prussian Victories, August 08, 1870

The rapid action of the German Third Army throws more and more light upon Moltke’s plans. The concentration of this army in the Palatinate must have taken place by the bridges of Mannheim and Germersheim, and perhaps by intermediate military pontoon bridges. Before entering upon the roads across the Hardt from Landau and Neustadt westwards, the troops massed in the Rhine valley were available for an attack on the French right wing. Such an attack, with the superior forces in hand, and with Landau close to the rear, was perfectly safe, and might lead to great results. If it succeeded in drawing a considerable body of French troops away from their main body into the Rhine valley, in defeating it and driving it up the valley towards Strasbourg, these forces would be out of the way for the general battle, while the German Third Army would still be in a position to take part in it, being so much nearer to the main body of the French. At any rate, an attack upon the French right would mislead them if the chief German attack, as we still believe, in spite of the contrary opinion of a host of military and unmilitary quidnuncs, were intended to be made on the French left.

The sudden and successful attack upon Wissembourg shows that the Germans possessed information as to the positions of the French which encouraged such a manoeuvre. The French, in their haste for a revanche, ran headlong into the trap. Marshal MacMahon immediately concentrated his corps towards Wissembourg, and to complete this manoeuvre he is reported to have required two days. But the Crown Prince was not likely to give him that time. He followed up his advantage at once, and attacked him on Saturday near Woerth on the Sauer, about fifteen miles south-west of Wissembourg. MacMahon’s position is described by himself as a strong one. Nevertheless, by five o'clock in the afternoon he was driven out of it, and was supposed by the Crown Prince to be in full retreat upon Bitche. By this means he would have saved himself from being driven excentrically upon Strasbourg, and maintained his communications with the mass of the army. By later French telegrams, however, it appears that he has really retreated towards Nancy, and that his head-quarters are now at Saverne.

The two French corps sent to resist this German advance consisted of seven divisions of infantry, of whom we suppose at least five to have been engaged. It is possible that the whole of them may have come up successively during the fight, but were no more able to restore the balance than the successive Austrian brigades as they appeared on the battle-field of Magenta? At any rate, we may safely assume that from one-fifth to one-fourth of the total strength of the French was here defeated. The troops on the other side were probably the same whose advanced guard had won Wissembourg — the Second Bavarian, the Fifth and Eleventh North German corps. Of these, the fifth consists of two Posen, five Silesian and one Westphalian regiments, the Eleventh of one Pomeranian, four Hesse-Cassel and Nassau, and three Thuringian regiments, so that troops of the most varied parts of Germany were engaged.

What surprises us most in these passages of arms is the strategical and tactical part played by each army. It is the very reverse of what, from tradition, might have been expected. The Germans attack; the French defend themselves. The Germans act rapidly and in large masses, and they handle them with ease; the French own to having their troops, after a fortnight’s concentration, in such a dispersed state that they require two days to bring together two army corps. Consequently they are beaten in detail. They might be Austrians, to judge from the way they move their troops. How is this to be accounted for? Simply by the necessities of the Second Empire. The sting of Wissembourg was enough to arouse all Paris, and, no doubt, to disturb the equanimity of the army too. A revanche must be had: MacMahon is sent off at once with two corps to effect it; the movement is palpably false, but, no matter, it must be made, and it is made — with what effect we have seen. If Marshal MacMahon cannot be strengthened so as to face the Crown Prince again, the latter, by a march of some fifteen miles to the southward, may seize the rail from Strasbourg to Nancy and push on to Nancy, turning by this move any line the French could hope to hold in advance of Metz. It is the dread of this, no doubt, that leads the French to abandon the Sarre district. Or, leaving the pursuit of MacMahon to his advanced guard, he may file off to his right by the hills at once towards Pirmasens and Zweibrücken, to effect a formal junction with the left of Prince Frederick Charles, who has all the while been somewhere between Mayence and Saarbrücken, while the French persisted in sending him to Trèves. How the defeat of General Frossard’s corps at Forbach, followed, as it seems, by the advance of the Prussians to St. Avold yesterday, will affect his course we cannot determine.

If the Second Empire absolutely required a victory after Wissembourg, it now requires one, in a much higher degree, after Woerth and Forbach. If Wissembourg was enough to disarrange all previous plans with regard to the right wing, the battles of Saturday necessarily upset all arrangements made for the whole army. The French army has lost all initiative. Its movements are dictated less by military considerations than by political necessities. Here are 300,000 men almost within sight of the enemy. If their movements are to be ruled, not by what is done in the enemy’s camp, but by what happens or may happen in Paris, they are half beaten already. Nobody, of course, can foretell with certainty the result of the general battle which is now impending if not going on; but this much we may say, that another week of such strategy as Napoleon III has shown since Thursday is alone sufficient to destroy the best and largest army in the world.

The impression gained from the Prussian accounts of these battles will only be deepened by the telegrams from the Emperor Napoleon. At midnight on Saturday he sent off the bare facts: —

“Marshal MacMahon has lost a battle. General Frossard has been compelled to fall back.”

Three hours later came the news that his communications with Marshal MacMahon were interrupted a At six on Sunday morning the serious meaning of General Frossard’s defeat was virtually acknowledged by the confession that it was sustained as far west of Saarbrücken as Forbach, and the impossibility of immediately arresting the Prussian advance was further conceded in the announcement “the troops, which had found themselves divided, are concentrated on Metz.” The next telegram is hard to interpret.

“The retreat will be effected in good order"?

What retreat? Not Marshal MacMahon’s, for the communications with him were still interrupted. Not General Frossard’s, for the Emperor goes on to say, “There is no news from General Frossard.” And if at 8.25 A.M. the Emperor could only speak in the future tense of a retreat to be effected by troops of whose position he knew nothing, what value must be assigned to the telegram of eight hours’ earlier, in which he says, in the present tense, “the retreat is being effected in good order.” All these later messages prolong the note struck in the “Tout peut se rétablir,” of the first. The victories of the Prussians were too serious to allow of a resort to the tactics which the Emperor would naturally have adopted. He could not venture to conceal the truth in the prospect of being able to efface the effect of it by a contemporaneous account of a later battle with a different result. It was impossible to spare the pride of the French people by disguising from them that two of their armies had been worsted, and therefore the only resource left was to throw himself on the passionate desire to retrieve their losses which the news of similar disasters has before now generated in French hearts. Private telegrams no doubt sketched out for the Empress and the Ministers the line their public utterances were to take, or more probably the actual text of their respective proclamations was supplied to them from Metz. From both these we gather that whatever may be the temper of the French people, every one in authority, from the Emperor

downward, is deeply dispirited, than which of itself nothing could be more significant. Paris has been declared in a state of siege — an indisputable indication of what may follow upon another Prussian victory, and the Ministerial proclamation ends,

“Let us fight with vigour, and the country will be saved.”

Saved, Frenchmen may perhaps ask themselves, from what? From an invasion undertaken by the Prussians in order to avert a French invasion of Germany. If the Prussians had been defeated and a similar exhortation had come from Berlin, its meaning would have been clear, since every fresh victory of French arms would have meant a fresh annexation of German territory to France. But if the Prussian Government are well advised a French defeat will only mean that the attempt to prevent Prussia from pursuing her German policy undisturbed has failed, and we can hardly believe that the levy en masse, upon which the French Ministers are said to be deliberating, will be available for the renewal of an offensive war.

Notes on the War.-V, August 09, 1870

Saturday, the 6th of August, was the critical day for the first phase of the campaign. The first despatches from the German side, by their extreme modesty, rather hid than exposed the importance of the results gained on that day. It is only through the later and fuller accounts, and by some rather awkward admissions in the French reports, that we are enabled to judge of the total change in the military situation accomplished on Saturday.

While MacMahon was defeated on the eastern slope of the Vosges, Frossard’s three divisions, and at least one regiment of Bazaine’s corps, the 69th, in all forty-two battalions, were driven from the heights south of Saarbrücken and on beyond Forbach, by Kameke’s division of the 7th (Westphalian), and the two divisions of Barnekow and Stülpnagel, of the 8th (Rhenish) Corps, in all thirty-seven battalions. As the German battalions are stronger, the numbers engaged appear to have been pretty equal, but the French had the advantage of position. There were to the left of Frossard the seven infantry divisions of Bazaine and Ladmirault, and to his rear the two divisions of the Guards. With the exception of one regiment, as above stated, not a man of all these came up to support the unlucky Frossard. He had to fall back after a smart defeat, and is now in full retreat upon Metz; and so are Bazaine, Ladmirault, and the Guards. The Germans are in pursuit and were on Sunday in St. Avold, with all Lorraine open to them as far as Metz.

MacMahon, De Failly, and Canrobert, in the meantime, are retreating, not upon Bitche, as was at first stated, but upon Nancy; and MacMahon’s headquarters were on Sunday at Saverne. These three corps, therefore, are not only defeated, but also driven back in a direction divergent from the line of retreat of the rest of the army. The strategical advantage aimed at in the attack of the Crown Prince, and explained by us yesterday, appears thus to have been attained, at least partially. While the Emperor retires due west, MacMahon goes much more towards the south, and will scarcely have reached Lunéville at the time the other four corps will be massed under the shelter of Metz. But from Sarreguemines to Lunéville is only a few miles farther than from Saverne to Lunéville. And it is not to be expected that, while Steinmetz follows up the Emperor and the Crown Prince tries to hold fast MacMahon in the defiles of the Vosges, Prince Frederick Charles, who was on Sunday at Blieskastel, with his advanced guard somewhere near Sarreguemines, should look on quietly. The whole of Northern Lorraine is a splendid cavalry country, and Lunéville in time of peace was always the head-quarters of a large portion of the French cavalry quartered in that neighbourhood. With the great superiority, both as to quantity and quality, in cavalry on the side of the Germans, it is difficult to suppose that they will not at once launch large masses of that arm towards Lunéville, intending to intercept the communications between MacMahon and the Emperor, destroy the railway bridges on the Strasbourg-Nancy line, and, if possible, the bridges of the Meurthe. It is even possible that they may succeed in interposing a body of infantry between the two separated bodies of the French army, compel MacMahon to retreat still farther south, and to take a still more circuitous route to restore his connection with the rest of the army. That something of that sort has already been done seems clear from the Emperor’s admission that on Saturday his communications with MacMahon were interrupted; and the fear of more serious consequences is ominously expressed in the report of a removal of the French head-quarters to Châlons being contemplated.

Four of the eight corps of the French army have thus been more or less completely defeated, and always in detail, while of one of them, the Seventh (Félix Douay), the whereabouts is quite unknown. The strategy which rendered possible such blunders is worthy of the Austrians in their most helpless times. It is not Napoleon, it is Beaulieu, Mack, Gyulay, and the like of them, we are reminded of. Imagine Frossard having to fight at Forbach all day, while to his left, and not more than ten miles or so from the line of the Saar, seven divisions were looking on! This would be unaccountable, unless we suppose that there were facing them German forces sufficient to prevent them from either supporting Frossard or assisting him by an independent attack. And this, the only possible exculpation, is admissible only if, as we have always said, the decisive attack of the Germans was intended to be made by their extreme right. The hasty retreat upon Metz again confirms this view; it looks uncommonly like a timely attempt to withdraw from a position where the communications with Metz were already threatened. What German troops there may have been facing, and perhaps outflanking, Ladmirault and Bazaine, we do not know; but we must not forget that of Steinmetz’s seven or more divisions only three have been engaged.

In the meantime another North German corps has turned up — the Sixth or Upper Silesian. It passed through Cologne last Thursday, and will now be either with Steinmetz or Frederick Charles, whom The Times persists in placing on the extreme right, at Trèves, in the same number which contains the telegram that he has moved from Homburg to Blieskastel. The superiority of the Germans, both as to numbers, morale, and strategical position, must now be such that, for a time, they may with impunity do almost anything they like. If the Emperor intends to keep his four army corps in the entrenched camp at Metz — and he has but the choice between that and an uninterrupted retreat upon Paris — that need not stop the advance of the Germans any more than the attempt of Benedek, in 1866, to reassemble his army under shelter of Olmutz arrested the Prussian advance upon Vienna. Benedek!

What a comparison for the conqueror of Magenta and Solferino! And yet it is more to the point than any other. Like Benedek, the Emperor had his troops massed in a position from which he could move in any direction, and that a full fortnight before the enemy was concentrated. Like Benedek, Louis Napoleon managed to have corps after corps beaten in detail by superior numbers or superior generalship. But here, we are afraid, the likeness ceases. Benedek had, after a week of daily defeats, strength enough left him for the supreme effort of Sadowa. To all appearances Napoleon has his troops separated, almost hopelessly, after two days’ engagements, and cannot even afford to try a general action.

There will now, we suppose, be an end to the intended expedition of troops to the Baltic, if that was ever more than a feint. Every battalion will be wanted on the eastern frontier. Out of the 376 battalions of the French army, 300 were in the six corps of the line and one of Guards which we know stood between Metz and Strasbourg. The seventh corps of the line (Douay) might have been sent either to the Baltic or to join the main army, which accounts for forty more. The rest, thirty-six battalions, can hardly have been sufficient for Algeria and various other duties in the interior. What resources has the Emperor to draw upon for reinforcements? The 100 fourth battalions now in formation and the Garde Mobile. But both of these consist, the first mostly, the second altogether, of raw recruits. By what time the fourth battalions may be ready to march we do not know; they will have to march whether ready or not. What the Garde Mobile is at present we saw last week in the camp of Châlons. Both are good material for soldiers, no doubt, but not soldiers yet; not yet troops to withstand the shock of men who are becoming used to the taking of mitrailleurs. On the other hand, in about ten days, the Germans will have 190,000 to 200,000 of the fourth battalions, &c., to draw upon the flower of their army, besides at least an equal number of landwehr, all fit for duty in the field.

Notes on the War.-VI, August 11, 1870

There is no doubt now that scarcely ever was there a war undertaken with such an utter disregard of the ordinary rules of prudence as the Napoleonic “military promenade” to Berlin. A war for the Rhine was Napoleon’s last and most telling card; but at the same time its failure implied the downfall of the Second Empire. This was well understood in Germany. The constant expectation of a French war was one of the chief considerations which made very many Germans acquiesce in the changes effected in 1866. If Germany had been dismembered in one sense, it had been strengthened in another; the military organization of North Germany gave a far greater guarantee of safety than that of the larger but sleepy old Confederation. This new military organization was calculated to place under arms, in organized battalions, squadrons, and batteries, in eleven days, 552,000 men of the line and 205,000 of the landwehr; and in a fortnight or three weeks more another 187,000 men of the reserve (Ersatztruppen) fully fit to take the field. There was no mystery about this. The whole plan, showing the distribution of this force in the various corps, the districts from which each battalion, &c., was to be raised, had often been published. Moreover, the mobilization of 1866 had shown that this was not an organization existing on paper only. Every man was duly registered; and it was well known that in the office of every district commander of the landwehr the orders for calling out each man were ready, and awaited but the filling up of the date. For the French Emperor, however, these enormous forces existed on paper only. The whole force he brought together to open the campaign with were, at the outside, 360,000 men of the Army of the Rhine, and 30,000 to 40,000 more for the Baltic expedition, say 400,000 men in all. With such a disproportion of numbers, and with the long time it takes to get the French new formations (fourth battalions) ready for the field, his only hope of success was a sudden attack, while the Germans were still in the midst of their mobilization. We have seen how this opportunity slipped away; how even the second chance, that of a push forward to the Rhine, was neglected; and we shall now point out another blunder.

The disposition of the French about the time of the declaration of war was excellent. It was evidently part and parcel of a long-considered plan of campaign. Three corps at Thionville, St. Avold, and Bitche in the first line, immediately on the frontier; two corps at Metz and Strasbourg, in a second line; two corps in reserve about Nancy, and an eighth corps at Belfort. With the aid of the railways, all these troops could be massed in a few days for an attack either across the Saar from Lorraine, or across the Rhine from Alsace striking either north or east as might be required. But this disposition was essentially one for attack. For defence it was absolutely faulty. The very first condition of a disposition of an army of defence is this: to have your advanced troops so far in front of your main body that you receive the news of the enemy’s attack in time to concentrate your troops before he arrives upon you. Suppose it takes you one day’s march to get your wings to close on your centre, then your advanced guard should be at least one day’s march in front of your centre. Now, here, the three corps of Ladmirault, Frossard, and De Failly, and afterwards a portion of MacMahon’s too, were close upon the frontier, and yet spread upon a line from Wissembourg to Sierck — at least ninety miles. To draw in the wings on the centre would have required fully two days’ march; and yet, even when the Germans were known to be within a few miles in front, no steps were taken either to shorten the length of front, or to push forward advanced guards to such a distance as would secure timely advice of an impending attack. Is it to be wondered at that the several corps were defeated by piecemeal?

Then came the blunder of posting one division of MacMahon’s east of the Vosges, at Wissembourg, in a position inviting an attack with superior forces. Douay’s defeat brought on MacMahon’s next blunder in trying to retrieve the fight east of the Vosges, thereby separating the right wing still more from the centre, and laying open his line of communications with it. While the right wing (MacMahon’s, and portions at least of Failly’s and Canrobert’s corps) was crushed at Woerth, the centre (Frossard, and two divisions of Bazaine, as it now appears) were severely beaten before Saarbrücken. The rest of the troops were too far away to come up to assistance. Ladmirault was still near Bouzonville, the rest of Bazaine’s men and the Guards were about Boulay, the mass of Canrobert’s troops turned up at Nancy, part of De Failly’s were lost sight of completely, and FéIix Douay, we now find, on the 1st of August was at Altkirch, in the extreme south of Alsace, nearly 120 miles from the battle-field of Woerth, and probably with but imperfect means of railway conveyance. The whole arrangement indicates nothing but hesitation, indecision, vacillation, and that in the most decisive moment of the campaign.

And what idea were the soldiers allowed to have of their opponents? It was all very well for the Emperor at the last moment to tell his men that they would have to face “one of the best armies of Europe;” but that went for nothing after the lessons of contempt for the Prussians which had been driven into them for years. We cannot show this better than by the evidence of Captain Jeannerod, of the Temps, whom we have quoted before, and who left the army but three years ago. He was taken prisoner by the Prussians at the “baptism of fire” affair, and spent two days among them, during which time he saw the greater portion of their Eighth Army Corps. He was astounded to find such a difference between his idea of them and the reality. This is his first impression on being brought to their camp: —

Once in the forest, there was a complete change. There were outposts under the trees, battalions massed along the roads; and let nobody try to deceive the public in a manner unworthy of our country and of our present circumstances: from the first step I had recognized the characters which announce an excellent army (une belle et bonne armée) as well as a nation powerfully organized for war. In what consisted these characteristics? In everything. The demeanour of the men, the subordination of their smallest movements to chiefs protected by a discipline far stronger than ours, the gaiety of some, the serious and determined look of others, the patriotism to which most of them gave vent, the thorough and constant zeal of the officers, and, above all, the moral worth — of which we may envy them — of the non-commissioned officers; that is what struck me at once, and what has never been from under my eyes from the two days I passed in the midst of that army and in that country where signboards placed from distance to distance, with the numbers of the local battalions of the landwehr, recall the effort of which it is capable in a moment of danger and of ambition.

On the German side it was quite different. The military qualities of the French were certainly not underrated. The concentration of German troops took place rapidly but cautiously. Every available man was brought to the front; and now, the First North German Army Corps having turned up at Saarbrücken in Prince Frederick Charles’s army, it is certain that every man, horse, and gun of the 550,000 troops of the line has been brought to the front, there to be joined by the South Germans. And the effect of such an enormous numerical superiority has been, so far, increased by superior generalship.

Notes on the War.-VII, August 13,1870

The public have been waiting all this week for that great battle before Metz which a French bulletin described as impending; and yet not one of our military critics has thought fit to explain that this impending battle was nothing but a tub thrown out to that unruly whale, the people of Paris, to play with. A battle before Metz! Why should the French desire it? They have collected under shelter of that fortress four corps; they are trying to draw towards it some of Canrobert’s four divisions; they may hope soon to learn that the remaining three corps, of MacMahon, De Failly, and Douay, have reached the Moselle at Nancy and found shelter behind it. Why should they court a pitched battle before all their army is united again, when the forts of Metz protect them from an attack? And why should the Germans break their heads in an unprepared assault against these forts? If the whole French army was united under the ramparts of Metz, then the French might be expected to sally forth east of the Moselle and offer battle in front of their stronghold, but not till then. But that has yet to be accomplished, and it is still doubtful whether it ever will be.

On Sunday lastc MacMahon was compelled to leave Saverne, which was occupied the same night by the Germans. He had with him the remnants of his own corps, of one division (Conseil-Dumesnil’s) of Douay’s corps, and, besides, one division of De Failly’s, which had covered his retreat. On the same evening the German First and Second armies were in advance of Forbach and nearly in St. Avold. Both these places are nearer to Nancy than Saverne: they are considerably nearer than Saverne to Pont-à-Mousson and Dieulouard, places on the Moselle between Nancy and Metz. Now, when the Germans must, as soon as possible, secure or construct a passage across that river, and that above Metz (for various pretty evident reasons); when they are nearer to the river than MacMahon, and thus by hurrying on may prevent his reunion with Bazaine; when they have troops enough and to spare — is it not almost evident that they will attempt something of the sort? Their cavalry, as we predicted it would, is already scouring the whole of Northern Lorraine, and must have ere now come into contact with MacMahon’s right; it had passed, on Wednesday, Gros-Tenquin, which is only about twenty-five miles from the direct road between Saverne and Nancy. They will, therefore, know perfectly where he is and operate accordingly, and we shall soon learn at what point between Nancy (or, rather, Frouard) and Metz they have struck the Moselle.

This is the reason why we have not heard of any fights since last Saturday’s. The soldiers’ legs are doing all the work just now; it is a race between MacMahon and Frederick Charles, which of them shall first get across the river. And if Frederick Charles should win this race, then we may expect the French to issue from Metz, not to offer battle in sight of its ramparts, but to defend the passage of the Moselle; which, indeed, may be done by an attack either on the right or the left bank. The two pontoon trains captured at Forbach may have to do duty very soon.

Of De Failly we hear nothing definite. It is, indeed, stated in a Metz bulletin that he has rejoined the army. But which? Bazaine’s or MacMahon’s? Evidently the latter, if there be any truth in the whole report; for between Bazaine and him were the heads of the German columns ever since he got lost. Douay’s remaining two divisions — he was still on the Swiss frontier, near Basel, on the 4th of August — must, by the German advance upon Strasbourg, be cut off from the rest of the army for the present; they can only rejoin it by Vesoul. Of Canrobert’s troops we find, all at once, at least one division (Martimprey’s) in Paris, facing, not the Germans, but the Republicans. The 25th, 26th, and 28th regiments, which belong to it, are mentioned as having been employed on Tuesday among the troops protecting the Corps Législatif. The rest should now be in Metz, raising the army there to fifteen divisions (infantry), three of which, however, are completely shattered by their defeat at Spicheren.

As to Spicheren, it is wrong to say that the French were in that engagement crushed by superior numbers. We have now a tolerably full report of Generals Steinmetz a and Alvensleben which shows pretty clearly what troops were engaged on the German side. The attack was made by the 14th division, supported by our old friends, the 40th regiment — in all fifteen battalions. They alone, of infantry, fought for six hours against the three divisions, or thirty-nine battalions, which Frossard brought up successively. When they were nearly crushed, but still held the heights of Spicheren, which they had stormed in the beginning of the fight, the 5th division of the 3rd or Brandenburg Corps came up, and at least three out of its four regiments took part in the fight — all in all, either twenty-four or twenty-seven battalions of Germans. They drove the French from their position, and it was only after the retreat had commenced that the head of the 13th division, which had turned the French right by the valley of the Rossel, reached the field of battle, fell upon Forbach, and turned an orderly retreat into a rout by cutting off the direct road to Metz. The Germans at the close of the fight had another division (the 6th) ready to engage, and, indeed, slightly engaged; but at the same time two French divisions, Montaudon’s and Castagny’s (both of Bazaine’s), had come up, and the 69th regiment, which forms part of the latter, had suffered severely. Thus, if at Wissembourg and Woerth the French were crushed by superior masses, they were beaten by inferior numbers at Spicheren. As to their common report that they were outnumbered, it is not to be forgotten that individual soldiers in a battle cannot possibly judge of numbers, and that it is the common assertion of all beaten armies. Besides, it should not be forgotten that the solid qualities of the German army are only now beginning to be recognized. We have it officially from the French head-quarters that the German fire is much superior in steadiness and precision to the French, and MacMahon insists that the French have no chance against the Germans in woods, because these latter know so much better how to take advantage of shelter. As to the cavalry, here is what Jeannerod says in Thursday’s Temps: —

“Their cavalry is much superior to ours, the privates are better mounted than many officers in our army, and they ride better. ... I have seen one of their Cuirassier regiments which was something splendid.... Their horses, moreover, are far less weighted than ours. The Cuirassiers I saw carried less weight on their big steeds than we do on our small Arabs and South of France horses.”

He also praises the great knowledge the officers have of the ground, not only in their own country, but also in France. But no wonder. Every lieutenant is provided with excellent copies of the French ordnance maps, while the French officers are supplied only with a ridiculous map (une carte dérisoire) of the seat of war. And so forth. It would have been good for the French army if only one such sincere reporter had been sent to Germany before the war.

Notes on the War.-VIII, August 15, 1870

Where is MacMahon? The German horse, in their raid up to the gates of Lunéville and Nancy, appear not to have met with him; otherwise we should have heard of encounters. On the other hand, if he had arrived in safety at Nancy, and thus restored his communications with the army at Metz, such a consoling fact would certainly have been announced at once from the French head-quarters. The only conclusion we can draw from this absolute silence regarding him is this, that he has thought it too dangerous to follow the direct road from Saverne to Lunéville and Nancy; and that, in order not to expose his right flank to the enemy, he has taken a more circuitous route, farther south, passing the Moselle at Bayon or even higher up. If this surmise be correct, there would be very little chance of his ever reaching Metz; and, in that case, it must have been a question for the Emperor or whoever commands at Metz, whether the army had not better at once retreat to Châlons-sur-Marne, the nearest point where a ]unction with MacMahon may be effected. We are therefore disposed to accept the report of a general retreat of the French line in that direction.

In the meantime, we hear of tremendous reinforcements for the French army. The new Minister of War assures the Chamber that in four days two army corps, 35,000 men each, are to be sent to the front. Where are they? We know that the eight corps of the Army of the Rhine, and the troops intended for the Baltic, with the garrison of Algeria, fully accounted for every battalion of the French army, including the marines. We know that 40,000 men, from Canrobert’s corps and from the Baltic expedition, are in Paris. We know from General Dejean’s speech in the Chamber that the fourth battalions, so far from being ready, required filling up, and that this was to be done by drafting into them men from the Garde Mobile. Where, then, are these 70,000 men to come from? especially if, as is but likely, General Montauban de Palikao will not part with the 40,000 men in Paris as long as he can help it. Yet, if there is any meaning in what he said, these two corps must mean the troops at Paris and Canrobert’s corps, which hitherto has always been counted as part of the Army of the Rhine; and in that case, the only real reinforcement being the garrison of Paris, the grand total in the field will be raised from twenty-five to twenty-eight divisions, seven at least of which have suffered severely.

Then we hear that General Trochu is named chief of the 12th Corps forming at Paris, and General Vendez (?) chief of the 13th Corps forming at Lyons. The army consisted hitherto of the Guards, and corps Nos. 1 to 7. Of Nos. 8, 9, 10, and 11 we have never heard; now we are suddenly treated to Nos. 12 and 13. We have seen that there are no troops existing out of which any of these corps could be formed; always excepting No. 12, if that means the garrison of Paris. It seems a poor trick to raise public confidence by creating on paper imaginary armies; yet there is no other interpretation than this to be put on the alleged establishment of five army corps, four of which have been hitherto non-existent.

No doubt attempts are being made to organize a fresh army; but what materials are there for it? There is, firstly, the gendarmerie, out of which a regiment of horse and one of foot can be formed; excellent troops, but they will not exceed 3,000 men, and will have to be brought together from all parts of France. So will the douaniers, who are expected to furnish the stuff for four-and-twenty battalions; we doubt whether they will complete half that number. Then come the old soldiers of the classes of 1858 to 1863, the unmarried men amongst whom have been called out again by special law. These may furnish a contingent of 200,000 men, and will form the most valuable addition to the army. With less than one half of these the fourth battalions may be filled up, and the rest formed into new battalions. But here begins the difficulty — where are the officers to come from? They will have to be taken from the fighting army, and although this may be effected by a considerable promotion of sergeants to sub-lieutenants, it must weaken the corps from which they are taken. The whole of these three classes will give, at most, an. increase of 220,000 to 230,000 men, and it will take under favourable circumstances at least fourteen to twenty days before even a portion of them can be ready to join the active army. But, unfortunately for them, circumstances are not favourable. It is now admitted that not merely the commissariat, but the whole of the French army administration was utterly ineffective, even to supply the army on the frontier. What, then, will be the state of forwardness of accoutrements and equipments for these reserves which nobody ever expected to be wanted in the field? It is very doubtful, indeed, whether, beyond the fourth battalions, any new formations will be ready before a couple of months. Then it is not to be forgotten that not one of these men ever handled a breech-loader, and that they are, all of them, totally ignorant of the new tactics inaugurated by that arm. And if the present French line, as is now admitted by themselves, fire hastily and at random, and squander their ammunition, what will these newly formed battalions do in the presence of an enemy whose steadiness and precision of fire appear to be very little affected by the din of battle?

There remain the Garde Mobile, the levy of all unmarried men up to thirty years, and the sedentary National Guard. As to the Garde Mobile, what little of it ever had any formal organization appears to have broken down as soon as it was sent to Châlons. Discipline. there was none, and the officers, most of them totally unacquainted with their duties, seem to have lost in authority every day; there were not even arms for the men, and now the whole thing appears to be in complete dissolution. General Dejean indirectly acknowledged this by the proposal to fill up the ranks of the fourth battalions from the Garde Mobile. And if this, the apparently organized portion of the levy en masse be utterly useless, what is to become of the rest of it? Even if there were officers, accoutrements, and arms for them, how long would it take to make them into soldiers? But there is nothing provided for the emergency. Every officer fit for his post is already employed; the French have not that almost inexhaustible reserve of officers furnished by the “one year’s volunteers,” about 7,000 of whom enter the German armies every year, and almost every one of whom leaves the service quite fit to undertake an officer’s duties. Accoutrements and arms appear to be equally absent; it is even said that the old flint-locks will have to be brought out of store. And under these circumstances, what are these 200,000 of men worth to France? It is all very well for the French to point to the Convention, to Carnot, with his frontier armies created out of nothing, and so forth. But while we are far from saying that France is irretrievably beaten, let us not forget that in the successes of the Convention the allied armies bore a significant part. At that time the armies which attacked France numbered on an average 40,000 men each; there were three or four of them, each acting out of reach of the other, the one on the Schelde, the other on the Moselle, the third in Alsace, &c. To each of these small armies the Convention opposed immense numbers of more or less raw levies which, by acting upon the flanks and rear of the enemy, then entirely dependent upon his magazines, compelled him upon the whole to keep pretty close to the frontier; and, having been formed into real soldiers by five years’ campaigning, finally succeeded in driving him across the Rhine. But is it for a moment to be supposed that similar tactics will avail against the present immense army of invasion, which, though formed in three distinct bodies, has always managed to keep together within supporting distance, or that this army will leave the French time to develop their now dormant resources? And to develop them to any extent is possible only in case the French are prepared to do what they never have done before, to abandon Paris and its garrison to their fate, and to continue the struggle with the line of the Loire for their base of operations. It may never come to that, but unless France is prepared to face it, she had better not talk about a levy en masse.

Notes on the War.-X, August 19, 1870

Undoubtedly, if General Moltke be old, his plans have all the energy of youth. Not satisfied with having once already pushed his compact army between one wing of the French and the rest of their troops, he now repeats the same manoeuvre over again, and apparently with equal success. Had he continued his straight march on to the Marne, and merely harassed the right flank and rear of the French during their parallel march towards the same goal, he would, in the opinion of most military critics, have done quite enough. But it was hardly to be expected that he would have used the legs of his soldiers with such terrible vigour as he now appears to have done. What we took for mere attacks of detached corps upon the exposed flanks and rear of that long marching column which moved from Metz towards Verdun appears now to have been the reconnaissances preceding an attack in force upon it. Three or four German army corps had marched in a semicircle round on the southern side of Metz; their advanced troops reached the French line of march on Tuesday morning, and at once fell upon it. The French army began its retreat from Metz on Sunday; the engagements between Pange and Fort Bellecroix on the evening of that day may have retarded that movement, still it was continued on Monday and had not been completed on Tuesday. It took place at least by two different columns, following the two roads which separate, five miles west of Metz, at Gravelotte; the northernmost of these roads passes Doncourt and Etain, the southernmost Vionville, Mars-la-Tour, and Fresnes, and both unite again at Verdun. It was near Mars-la-Tour that the German attack took place; the fight lasted all day, and ended, according to the German account, in the defeat of the French, who lost two eagles, seven cannon, and 2,000 prisoners, and were driven back to Metz. On the other hand, Bazaine too claims the victory. He says his troops repelled the Germans, and passed the night on the position won. But there are two very ominous statements in his telegram of Wednesday evening. There he says he fought all day on Tuesday between Doncourt and Vionville; that is to say, he fought with his front extending from Doncourt to Vionville, facing west, the Germans barring the way to Verdun on both roads. Whatever success he claims, he does not pretend to say that he cleared the roads to Verdun, or only one of them. Had he done so, his evident duty would have been to continue his retreat during the night as fast as he could, as the enemy would almost certainly be reinforced in the morning. But he stops and passes the night “on the position won,” whatever that may mean. Not satisfied with that, he stays there till four o'clock on Wednesday afternoon, and even then announces, not his intention of moving, but of delaying his further movements for a few hours longer, in order to largely increase his ammunition. Thus we may be certain that the night to Thursday was also passed at the same spot; and as the only place whence he could increase his ammunition was Metz, we shall be fully entitled to conclude that the “positions conquered” were positions to the rear, that the retreat to Verdun was and remained cut off, and that by this time Marshal Bazaine will have either gone back to Metz, or attempted to escape by a route farther north.

If this view be correct — and we do not see how the evidence before us can be made to justify any other — a portion of the French army is again cut off from the rest. We do not know what troops may have passed towards Verdun on Monday, and on Tuesday morning before the Germans came up. But the portion driven back to Metz is evidently considerable, and whatever its importance may be, by so much will be reduced the great army which it was attempted to concentrate at Châlons. There is, indeed, a loophole left by which Bazaine might try to escape. A railway runs, close to the Belgian frontier, from Thionville to Longuyon, Montmédy, and Mézierès, where it meets a cross line to Reims and Châlons; but any troops using this border line, or merely marching towards it, might be driven by a pursuing enemy up to the frontier, and compelled either to surrender or to cross it and be disarmed by the Belgians. Moreover, it is not likely that there will be rolling stock enough on this out-of-the-way line to take up a considerable body of troops; and, lastly, we have reports from Verdun that Prussians, who must have passed the Moselle between Metz and Thionville, were on Wednesday at Briey, on the direct road from Metz towards the available portion of that railway. Should Bazaine attempt to save his beaten troops in that direction he would, in the best of cases, have the whole of them reduced to utter dissolution. A long retreat, with the enemy on the direct line of communication of the beaten troops, is a most disastrous proceeding. Witness MacMahon’s troops, some driblets of which have continued to arrive by train at Châlons. On the 12th some 5,000 dropped in; in what state let the Siècle tell. They consisted of men of all arms and regiments mixed up, without arms, without cartridges, without knapsacks; the cavalry had no horses, the gunners no guns; a motley, disorganized, demoralized crew whom it would take weeks to form into battalions, squadrons, and batteries again. It is enough that correspondents decline to describe the state of the troops of the line at Châlons for fear to divulge matters which might be useful to the enemy.

That grand army which was destined to concentrate at Châlons may never meet there. After Canrobert’s troops had been drawn, partly to Paris and partly to Metz, there remained but the eighteen battalions of Mobiles there; not worth mentioning in a war like this. Since then some marine infantry from Paris has been sent to Châlons; Douay’s two remaining divisions, if there is any common sense left in Bazaine’s dispositions, will have arrived by this time; perhaps a few fourth battalions, certainly not many. The newly formed regiments of gendarmes and douaniers may, some of them, arrive in the course of a few days. A few small bodies of francs-tireurs may also come in; but, leaving all raw levies out of account, the chief portion of that grand army which can be concentrated there before the Germans arrive would, under all circumstances, consist of the troops retiring from Metz. And what these now may be, after Tuesday’s fights, we shall have to learn.

The nomination of General Trochu to the command of the army destined to defend Paris, so closely following upon his appointment to the command of the 12th Corps “forming at Paris,” proves that it is not intended to send the mass of the troops now in Paris to the front. Paris must be kept down. And yet, who will be able to keep it down when the truth about last Tuesday’s battle becomes known there?

The Crisis of the War, August 20, 1870

The Emperor has left the army, but his evil genius has remained with it — that evil genius which hurried on, in hot impatience, the declaration of war and — that accomplished — was henceforth unable to make up its mind to anything. The army was to be ready to march by the 20th of July at latest. The 20th of July came and nothing had been done. On the 29th Napoleon III took the supreme command at Metz, there was still time for an almost unresisted advance up to the Rhine: yet the army did not stir. Hesitation even appears to have gone so far that the Emperor could not determine whether to attack at all, or to take up a position for defence. The heads of the German columns were already converging from all directions towards the Palatinate, and every day they might be expected to attack. Yet the French remained in their positions on the frontier-positions designed for an attack which was never made, and altogether unfit for the defence which was so soon to be their only choice. The hesitation which lasted from the 29th of July to the 5th of August has been characteristic of the whole campaign. The French army, being placed close to the frontier, was without advanced guards at the proper distances in front of the main body, and there were but two ways in which this defect could have been remedied. The advanced guards might have been pushed forward into the enemy’s territory; or they might have been left in their actual positions on the border, and the main bodies drawn nearer together a day’s march to the rear. But the first plan would have brought on collisions with the enemy under circumstances beyond the control of the Emperor; while the second would have involved the political impossibility of a retreat before the first battle. Thus, hesitation continued, and nothing at all was done; as if the enemy would be caught by the infection, and equally refrain from moving. But the enemy did move. The very day before the whole of his troops had arrived at the front, on the 4th of August, it was resolved to take advantage of the faulty disposition of the French. The battle of Wissembourg drew the whole of MacMahon’s and Failly’s corps still more away from the centre of the French position; and on the 6th, the Germans being now fully ready, their Third Army defeated MacMahon’s six divisions at Woerth, and drove him, along with De Failly’s remaining two divisions, by Saverne towards Lunéville, while the advanced bodies of their First and Second armies beat Frossard’s and part of Bazaine’s troops at Spicheren, and drove the whole centre and left of the French back upon Metz. Thus, all Lorraine lay between the two retreating French armies, and into this wide gap poured the German cavalry and, behind it, the infantry, in order to make the most of the advantage gained. The Crown Prince has been blamed for not having followed up MacMahon’s beaten army to and beyond Saverne. But after Woerth the pursuit was carried out in the most correct manner. As soon as the beaten troops were driven. so far south that they could regain the rest of the French army only by a circuitous route, the pursuers, marching straight on towards Nancy, kept continually between the two; and that this mode of pursuit (the same as Napoleon’s after Jena is at least as telling as a direct march in the rear of the fugitives is now shown by the results. Whatever there is still in existence of these eight divisions is either cut off from the main body or has joined it in a state of total disorganization.

Thus much for the consequences of the hesitation which marked the beginning of the campaign. It might surely have been expected that the same mistake would not again have been committed. The Emperor had resigned his command into the hands of Marshal Bazaine, and Marshal Bazaine might certainly have known that, whether he did or did not, the enemy would not allow the grass to grow under his feet.

The distance from Forbach to Metz is not quite fifty miles. Most of the corps had less than thirty miles to march. Three days would have brought all of them safely under shelter at Metz; and on the fourth the retreat towards Verdun and Châlons might have been begun. For there could no longer be any doubt as to the necessity of that retreat. Marshal MacMahon’s eight divisions and General Douay’s remaining two divisions — more than one-third of the army — could not possibly rejoin Bazaine at any nearer point than Châlons. Bazaine had twelve divisions, including the Imperial Guard; so that even after he had been joined by three of Canrobert’s divisions, he cannot have had, with cavalry and artillery, above 180,000 men — a force quite insufficient to meet his opponents in the field. Unless, therefore, he intended to abandon the whole of France to the invaders, and to allow himself to be shut up in a place where famine would soon compel him to surrender or to fight on terms dictated by the enemy, it seems as though he could not have had a moment’s doubt about retreating from Metz at once. Yet he does not stir. On the 1 1th, the German cavalry is at Lunéville; still he gives no sign of moving. On the 12th they are across the Moselle, they make requisitions in Nancy, they tear up the railway between Metz and Frouard, they show themselves in Pont-à-Mousson. On the 13th their infantry occupy Pont-à-Mousson, and are thenceforth masters of both banks of the Moselle. At last, on Sunday, the 14th, Bazaine begins moving his men to the left bank of the river; the engagement at Pange is drawn on, by which the retreat is confessedly again retarded; and we may suppose that on Monday the actual retreat towards Châlons was commenced by sending off the heavy trains and artillery. But on that Monday the German cavalry were across the Meuse at Commercy, and within ten miles of the French line of retreat at Vigneulles. How many troops got away on Monday and early on Tuesday morning we cannot tell, but it appears certain that the main body was still behind when the German Third Corps and the reserve cavalry attacked the marching columns near Mars-la-Tour about nine in the morning on Tuesday, the 16th of August. The result is known: Bazaine’s retreat was effectually stopped; on the 17th, his own telegrams show that he had at the most only maintained the position it was his one desire to leave behind him.

On Wednesday, the 17th, the two armies seem to have taken breath, but on Thursday any hopes that Bazaine might still have entertained of making good his retreat were fatally stricken down. The Prussians attacked him on that morning, and after nine hours’ fighting On that evening or on the following day the Army of the Rhine must have re-entered the fortress it had left at the beginning of the week. Once cooped up there it will be easy for the Germans to cut off all supplies; the more so, as the country is already thoroughly drained of everything by the prolonged presence of the troops, and as the investing army is sure to require for its own use everything that can be got together. Thus, famine must soon compel Bazaine to move; but in what direction it is difficult to tell. A move to the west is sure to be resisted by overwhelming forces; one to the north is extremely dangerous; one to the south-east might perhaps partially succeed, but it would be wholly barren of immediate results. Even if he reached Belfort or Besançon with a disorganized army, he could not exercise any appreciable influence upon the fate of the campaign. This is the situation to which hesitation in the second phase of the campaign has brought the French army. No doubt it is accurately known to the Government in Paris. The recall of the Mobile Guard from Châlons to Paris proves it. From the moment Bazaine’s main forces are cut off, the position of Châlons, which was a mere place of rendezvous, and nothing else, has lost all importance. The nearest place of rendezvous now for all forces is Paris, and thither everything must now move. There is no force whatever which could oppose in the field the Third German Army, now probably moving upon the capital. Before long the French will find out, by a practical trial, whether or not the fortifications of Paris are worth their cost.

Though this crowning catastrophe has been impending for days, it is hardly possible as yet to realize that it has actually come to pass. No expectations went the length of this reality. A fortnight ago Englishmen were speculating on the possible consequences of the French army winning the first great battle. The danger to which their fears most pointed was that Napoleon III might make such an initial success the occasion of a hasty peace at the expense of Belgium. Upon this point they were speedily reassured. The battles of Woerth and Forbach showed that no theatrical-triumph was in store for the French arms. The demonstration that Germany had nothing to fear from France seemed to promise well for the speedy ending of the war. The time must soon come, it was thought, when the French would acknowledge that the attempt to control the consolidation of Germany under Prussia had failed, and that, consequently, they had nothing left to fight for, while the Germans would hardly care to go on waging a chequered and doubtful war, when the admission it was designed to extort had been already conceded. The first five days of this week have again changed the whole face of affairs. The military power of France has to all appearance been utterly overthrown, and for the time being there seems to be no limit to German ambition except the doubtful barrier of German moderation. We cannot attempt as yet to estimate the political results of this tremendous reverse. We can only look on in wonder at its magnitude and its suddenness, and in admiration at the manner in which it has been sustained by the French troops. That after four days of almost constant fighting under the most discouraging conditions possible they should on the fifth have resisted the attack of greatly superior numbers for nine hours reflects infinite credit upon their courage and resolution. Never in its most triumphant campaigns has the French army won more real glory than in its disastrous retreat from Metz.

Notes on the War.-XI, August 24, 1870

Although still without full details of the three terrible battles fought last week around Metz, we have learned enough about them to be able now to give an intelligible account of what actually occurred.

The battle of Sunday, the 14th of August, was commenced by the Germans, with the intention of delaying the retreat of the French towards Verdun. The remnant of Frossard’s corps was observed to cross the Moselle towards Longeville on Sunday afternoon; signs of moving were visible among the troops encamped cast of Metz. The First (East Prussian) and Seventh (Westphalian and Hanoverian) army corps were ordered to attack. They drove the French in until they themselves got within range of the forts; but the French, foreseeing such a movement, had massed large bodies in sheltered positions in the valley of the Moselle, and in a narrow clough, through which a brook runs east and west, joining the main river to the north of Metz. These masses suddenly fell upon the right flank of the Germans, already suffering from the fire of the forts, and are said to have driven them back in confusion; after which the French must have retired again, for it is certain that the Germans remained in possession of that part of the battle-field which is out of range of the forts, and that they retired to their former bivouacs after daybreak only. We know this both from private letters written by men engaged in the battle, and from a correspondent’s letter from Metz in Monday’s Manchester Guardian, who visited the battle-field on Monday morning, and found it in the occupation of the Prussians, by whom the French wounded, then still remaining there, were being attended to. Both parties, in a certain sense, may claim to have attained the object for which the contest was engaged: the French enticed the Germans into a trap and made them suffer severely; the Germans delayed the French retreat until Prince Frederick Charles could gain the line by which this retreat was to be effected. On the German side there were two corps, or four divisions, engaged; on the French side, Decaen’s and Ladmirault’s corps, and part of the Guards, or above seven divisions. The French in this battle were thus in a great numerical superiority. Their position is also said to have been greatly strengthened by rifle pits and trenches, from which they fired with more coolness than usual.

The retreat of the Army of the Rhine towards Verdun was not commenced in force before Tuesday, the 16th. At that time the heads of Prince Frederick Charles’s columns — the 3rd Army Corps (Brandenburgers) — were just reaching the neighbourhood of Mars-la-Tour. They attacked at once, and for six hours held the French army at bay. Reinforced later on by the 10th Army Corps (Hanoverians and Westphalians), and portions of the 8th (Rhinelanders) and 9th (Schleswig-Holsteiners and Mecklenburgers), they not only maintained their position, but drove back the enemy, took two eagles, seven cannon, and above 2,000 prisoners. The forces against them consisted of Decaen’s, Ladmirault’s, Frossard’s, and part at least of Canrobert’s corps (they had reached Metz from Châlons during the last days the railway viâ Frouard was still open), and the Guards, or, in all, from fourteen to fifteen divisions. The eight German divisions were thus again faced by superior numbers, even if, as is likely, not all Bazaine’s troops were engaged. It is well to keep this in mind, while the French accounts continue to explain all reverses by their being constantly outnumbered. That the French were effectively stop ped in their retrograde movement is clear from the fact that they themselves speak of rearguard engagements having taken place on the 17th near Gravelotte, more than five miles to the rear of their own position of the 16th. At the same time, the fact that only four German corps could be brought up on Tuesday shows that the success they obtained was incomplete. Captain Jeannerod, who came on the 17th from Briey to Conflans, found there two cavalry regiments of the French Guard much cut up and taking flight at the bare cry, “The Prussians are coming!” This proves that though the road by Etain, on the evening of the 16th, might not be actually in the possession of the Germans, they were so near as to render impossible any retreat by it without another battle. Bazaine, however, seems to have given up all thought of that, for he entrenched himself in a very strong position near Gravelotte, and there awaited the attack of the Germans, which took place on the 18th.

The plateau, over which runs the road from Mars-la-Tour by Gravelotte to Metz, is intersected by a series of deep ravines, formed by brooks running from north to south towards the Moselle. There is one of these ravines immediately in front (west) of Gravelotte; two others run, in parallel lines, to the rear of the first. Each of these forms a strong defensive position, which had been reinforced by earthworks, and by the barricading and loopholing of such farmyards and villages as occupied places of tactical importance. To receive in this strong entrenched position the enemy, to let them break their heads against it, to hurl them back finally by a mighty “retour offensif,” and thus clear the road to Verdun — this was evidently the only hope left to Bazaine. But the attack was made with such forces and with such energy that position after position was taken, and the Army of the Rhine driven back close under the guns of Metz. Against fourteen or fifteen French divisions twelve German divisions were actually engaged, and four more in reserve. The numbers engaged on both sides would be not far from equal; on the whole somewhat in favour of the Germans, four of their six corps having been nearly intact; but this slight numerical superiority would by no means make up for the strength of the French position.

French opinion still hesitates to accept the full reality of the position created for Bazaine and his army, a position the counterpart of that into which General Bonaparte drove Wurmser at Mantua, 1796, and Mack at Ulm, 1805. That the brilliant Army of the Rhine, the hope and strength of France, should after fourteen days’ campaigning be reduced to the choice either to attempt to force its passage through the enemy under disastrous circumstances, or to capitulate, is more than the French can bring themselves to believe. They look for all possible explanations. One theory is that Bazaine is, so to say, sacrificing himself in order to gain time for MacMahon and Paris. While Bazaine retains two of the three German armies before Metz, Paris can organize her defences, and MacMahon will have time to create a fresh army. Bazaine thus remains at Metz, not because he cannot help it, but because it is in the interest of France he should be there. But where, it may be asked, are the elements of MacMahon’s new army? His own corps, now numbering at most 15,000 men; De Failly’s remaining troops, disorganized and scattered by a long circuitous retreat — he is said to have arrived at Vitry-le-Francois with but 7,000 or 8,000 men; perhaps one division of Canrobert’s; the two divisions of FéIix Douay’s, the whereabouts of which nobody seems to know: about 40,000 men, including the marines of the intended Baltic expedition. These include every battalion and squadron which is left to France of its old army outside of Metz. To these would come the fourth battalions. They appear now to be arriving in Paris in pretty good numbers, but filled up to a great extent with recruits. The whole of these troops may r ach something like 130,000 to 150,000 men; but this new army is not to be compared in quality to the old Army of the Rhine. The old regiments in it cannot but have suffered greatly from demoralization. The new battalions have been formed in a hurry, contain many recruits, and cannot be as well officered as the old army. The proportion of cavalry and artillery must be very small indeed; the mass of the cavalry is in Metz, and the stores necessary for the equipment of new batteries, harness, &c., appear in some instances to exist on paper only. Jeannerod quotes an example in Sunday’s Temps. As to the Mobile Guard, after having been brought back from Châlons to Saint Maur, near Paris, it appears to have dispersed altogether, for want of provisions. And it is to gain time for forces like these that the whole of the best army which France possesses should be sacrificed. And sacrificed it is, if it is true that it is shut up in Metz. If Bazaine had got his army into its present position advisedly, he would have committed a blunder compared to which all previous blunders of the war would sink into nothing. In regard to Bazaine’s rumoured retreat from Metz and junction with MacMahon at Montmédy, the refutation of the story to which The Standard yesterday gave circulation has been sufficiently accomplished by the writer of the military review in the same journal this morning. Even if any detachments of Bazaine’s force have escaped to. the north after or in the course of the recent engagements round Mars-la-Tour, the bulk of his army is still locked up in Metz.

Notes on the War.-XII, August 26, 1870

The two latest facts of the war are these — that the Crown Prince is pushing on beyond Châlons, and that MacMahon has moved his whole army from Reims, whither is not exactly known. MacMahon, according to French reports, finds the war getting on too slowly; in order to hasten its decision he is now said to be marching from Reims to the relief of Bazaine. This would indeed be hurrying on matters to an almost final crisis.

In our Wednesday’s publication we estimated MacMahon’s force at from 130,000 to 150,000 men on the assumption that all the troops from Paris had joined him. We were right in supposing that he had at Châlons the remnants of his own and of De Failly’s troops; also that Douay’s two divisions were at Châlons, whither we know now they went by a circuitous railway journey viâ Paris; also that the marines and other portions of the Baltic corps were there. But we now learn that there are still troops of the line in the forts round Paris; that a portion of MacMahon’s and Frossard’s men, especially cavalry, have gone back to Paris to be reorganized, and that MacMahon has only about 80,000 regular troops in camp. We may, therefore, reduce our estimate by fully 25,000 men, and set down 110,000 to 120,000 men as the maximum of MacMahon’s forces, one-third of which would consist of raw levies. And with this army he is said to have set out to relieve Bazaine at Metz.

Now, MacMahon’s next and more immediate opponent is the army of the Crown Prince. It occupied on the 24th with its outposts the former camp of Châlons, which fact is telegraphed to us from Bar-le-Duc. From this we may conclude that at that town were then the head-quarters. MacMahon’s nearest road to Metz is by Verdun. From Reims to Verdun by an almost straight country road there is fully seventy miles; by the high road, viâ St. Ménehould, it is above eighty miles. This latter road, moreover, leads through the camp of Châlons — that is to say, through the German lines. From Bar-le-Duc to Verdun the distance is less than forty miles.

Thus not only can the army of the Crown Prince fall upon the flank of MacMahon’s march if he use either of the above roads to Verdun, but it can get behind the Meuse and join the remaining two German armies between Verdun and Metz, long before MacMahon can debouch from Verdun on the right bank of the Meuse. And all this would remain unaltered, even if the Crown Prince had advanced as far as Vitry-le-François, or required an extra day to concentrate his troops from their extended front of march; so great is the difference of distance in his favour.

Under these circumstances it may be doubted whether MacMahon will use either of the roads indicated; whether he will not at once withdraw from the immediate sphere of action of the Crown Prince, and choose the road from Reims by Vouziers, Grandpré, and Varennes, to Verdun, or by Vouziers to Stenay, where he would pass the Meuse, and then march south-east upon Metz. But that would only be to secure a momentary advantage in order to make final defeat doubly certain. Both these routes are still more circuitous, and would allow still more time to the Crown Prince to unite his forces with those before Metz, and thus to oppose to both MacMahon and Bazaine a crushing superiority of numbers.

Thus, whichever way MacMahon chooses to get near Metz, he cannot shake off the Crown Prince, who, moreover, cannot be denied the choice of fighting him either singly or in conjunction with the other German armies. From this it is evident that MacMahon’s move to the relief of Bazaine would be a gross mistake, so long as he has not completely disposed of the Crown Prince. To get to Metz, his shortest, quickest, and safest road is right across the Third German Army. If he were to march straight upon it, attack it wherever he finds it, defeat it, and drive it for a few days in a south-easterly direction, so as to interpose his victorious army like a wedge between it and the other two German armies — in the same way as the Crown Prince has shown him how to do it — then, and not till then, would he have a chance to get to Metz and set Bazaine free. But if he felt himself strong enough to do this, we may be sure he would have done it at once. Thus, the withdrawal from Reims assumes a different aspect. It is not so much a move towards the relief of Bazaine from Steinmetz and Frederick Charles as a move for the relief of MacMahon from the Crown Prince. And from this point of view it is the worst that could be made. It abandons all direct communications with Paris to the mercy of the enemy. It draws off the last available forces of France away from the centre towards the periphery, and places them intentionally farther away from the centre than the enemy is already. Such a move might be excusable if undertaken with largely superior numbers; but here it is undertaken with hopelessly inferior numbers and in the face of the almost certainty of defeat. And what will that defeat bring? Wherever it occurs it will push the remnants of the beaten army away from Paris towards the northern frontier, where they may be driven upon neutral ground or forced to capitulate. MacMahon, if he really has undertaken the move in question, is deliberately placing his army in exactly the same position in which Napoleon’s flank march round the southern end of the Thuringian forest in 1806 placed the Prussian army at Jena. A numerically and morally weaker army is deliberately placed in a position where, after a defeat, its only line of retreat is through a narrow strip of territory leading towards neutral territory or the sea. Napoleon forced the Prussians to capitulate by reaching Stettin before them. MacMahon’s troops may have to surrender in that little strip of French territory jutting out into Belgium between Mézierès and Charlemont-Givet. In the very best of cases they may escape to the northern fortresses Lille, &c., where, at all events, they will be harmless. And then France will be at the mercy of the invader.

The whole plan seems so wild that it can only be explained as having arisen from political necessities. It looks more like a coup de désespoir than anything else. It looks as if anything must be done, anything risked, before Paris be allowed fully to understand the actual situation. It is the plan not of a strategist, but of an “Algérien,” used to fight irregulars; the plan not of a soldier, but of a political and military adventurer, such as have had it all their own way in France these last nineteen years. The language ascribed to MacMahon in justifying this resolve is quite in keeping with this. “What would they say” if he did not march to the aid of Bazaine? Yes, but “what would they say” if he got himself into a worse position than Bazaine has got himself into? It is the Second Empire all over. To keep up appearances, to hide defeat, is the thing most required. Napoleon staked all upon one card, and lost it; and now MacMahon is again going to play va banque, when the odds are ten to one against him. The sooner France is freed from these men the better for her. It is her only hope.

Notes on the War.-XIII, August 27, 1870

Yesterday a piece of news was telegraphed which caused great sensation among our contemporaries. It came from Berlin, and was to this effect, that the King’s head-quarters had been moved to Bar-le-Duc, that corps of the First and Second Armies remained facing Bazaine’s army, and that the remainder of the German forces “had resolutely entered upon their march to Paris.”

Hitherto the movements of the German armies have been kept secret during their execution. It was only when the move had been completed, when the blow had been struck, that we learned whither the troops had been going. It seems strange that this system should be reversed all at once; that taciturn Moltke should, without any visible occasion for it, all of a sudden proclaim to the world that he is marching upon Paris, and “resolutely” too.

At the same time we hear that the advanced troops of the Crown Prince are pushed nearer and nearer to Paris, and that his cavalry spread more and more towards the south. Even in Château-Thierry, almost half way between Châlons and Paris, the dreaded Uhlans are said to have been seen.

Might there not be a special reason, not quite evident at the first glance, why this announcement of the intentions of the King of Prussia should be made just now, and why, at the same time, the German cavalry should redouble their activity?

Let us compare dates. On the evening of Monday, the 22nd, MacMahon commenced his movements through Reims on the road to Rethel, and for more than fourteen hours the columns passed continually through the town. By the evening of Wednesday, if not before, the news of this march might have reached the German head-quarters. There could be but one meaning in it: the intention to set free Bazaine from the trap in which he is shut up. The more MacMahon advanced in the direction he had taken the more would he endanger his communications with Paris and his line of retreat, the more would he place himself between the German army and the Belgian frontier. Let him once get beyond the Meuse, which he is said to intend passing at Laneuville, opposite Stenay, and his retreat may easily be cut off. Now, what could more encourage MacMahon to persist in his dangerous manoeuvre than the news that, while he was hurrying to the relief of Bazaine, the Germans had left only a comparatively small portion of their forces before Metz, and were marching “resolutely” upon Paris with the great body of their troops? Thus on Wednesday night this same piece of news is telegraphed from Pont-à-Mousson to Berlin, from Berlin to London, from London to Paris and Reims, whence no doubt MacMahon has at once been favoured with the information; and while he marches on towards Stenay, Longuyon, and Briey, the army of the Crown Prince, leaving a corps or two in Champagne, where now nothing opposes them, would draw off the rest towards St. Mihiel, pass the Meuse there, and try to gain by Fresnes a position threatening the communications of MacMahon’s army with the Meuse, and yet within supporting distance of the German troops before Metz. If this were to succeed, and if MacMahon were to be defeated under these circumstances, his army would have either to pass into neutral territory or to surrender to the Germans.

There can be no doubt that MacMahon’s movements are perfectly well known at the German head-quarters. From the moment the battle of Rezonville (or Gravelotte, as it is to be officially called) had settled the fact that Bazaine was shut up in Metz, from that moment MacMahon’s army was the next object, not only of the army of the Crown Prince, but also of all other troops which could be spared from before Metz. In 1814, indeed, the Allies, after the junction of Blücher and Schwarzenberg between Arcis-sur-Aube and Châlons, marched upon Paris, entirely disregarding Napoleon’s march towards the Rhine and this march decided the campaign. But at that time Napoleon had been defeated at Arcis and was unable to stand against the allied army; there was no French army shut up by allied troops in a border fortress which he might relieve; and, above all things, Paris was not fortified. Now, on the contrary, whatever may be the military value, numerically and morally, represented by MacMahon’s army, there is no doubt that it is quite sufficient to raise the investment of Metz, if that investment be carried out by no more troops than are necessary to hold Bazaine in check. And, on the other hand, whatever may be thought of the fortifications of Paris, nobody will be foolhardy enough to expect that they will fall like the walls of Jericho, before the first trumpet blast of the invaders. They will at least compel either a lengthy investment to starve out the defence, or a beginning, if not more, of a regular siege. Thus, while the Germans were “resolutely” arriving before Paris, and brought to a dead stop by the forts, MacMahon would defeat the German troops before Metz, unite with Bazaine, and then France would have an army upon the communications and lines of supply of the Germans strong enough to compel them to retreat more “resolutely “ than they had advanced.

If MacMahon’s army, then, be too strong to be neglected by the Germans under the circumstances, we must come to the conclusion that the intelligence of the resolute march of King William to Paris, which most of our contemporaries consider of the highest importance, either is a piece of false news thrown out intentionally to mislead the enemy, or, if it be really an indiscreet publication of correct news, represents a resolution come to before MacMahon’s latest move was known, in which case it will be speedily reversed. In either case, a corps or two may continue to advance towards Paris, but the mass of all available troops will be marched north-east to reap to the full those advantages which MacMahon almost throws at their feet.

Notes on the War.-XIV, August 31, 1870

The Germans have again been too quick for MacMahon. The Fourth Army, under the Crown Prince Albert of Saxony, comprising at least two corps (the Prussian Guards and the 12th or Royal Saxon Corps), if not more, have pushed at once up to the Meuse, secured passages somewhere between Stenay and Verdun, and sent their cavalry across. The defiles of the Argonnes are in their power. At St. Ménehould last Thursday they took 800 Gardes Mobiles prisoners, and at Buzancy on Saturday they defeated a French cavalry brigade. On their road they pushed a strong reconnaissance against Verdun last Thursday, but, finding the place in condition to receive them, they did not persist in an attack by main force.

MacMahon, who in the meantime had left Reims on the 22nd and 23rd with an army, according to French reports, of 150,000 men, well equipped, well provided with artillery, ammunition, and provisions, had not, on the evening of the 25th, got farther than Rethel, about twenty-three miles beyond Reims. How long he continued there, and when he left it, we do not know for certain. But the cavalry engagement at Buzancy, which is on the road to Stenay, some twenty miles farther on, proves that even on Saturday his infantry had not yet arrived there. This slowness of movement contrasts vividly with the activity of the Germans. No doubt, to a great extent it is caused by the composition of his army, which contains either more or less demoralized troops, or new formations in which young recruits are predominating; some of them are even mere volunteer corps with numbers of non-professional officers. It is evident that this army can neither have the discipline nor the cohesion of the old “Army of the Rhine,” and that it will be almost impossible to move from 120,000 to 150,000 men of this sort both rapidly and with order. Then there are the trains. The great mass of the heavy trains of the Army of the Rhine did certainly escape from Metz on the 14th and 15th, but it may be imagined that they were not in the very best of conditions; it may be assumed that their supply of ammunition and the state of their horses are not all that is to be desired. And finally, we may take it for granted that the French Intendance has not mended since the beginning of the war, and that consequently the provisioning of a large army in an extremely poor country will be no easy matter. But even if we allow very liberally for all these obstacles, we shall still be compelled to see besides in MacMahon’s dilatoriness a distinct symptom of indecision. His nearest way to the relief of Bazaine, the direct road by Verdun once given up, was that by Stenay, and in that direction he struck. But before he got farther than Rethel he must have known that the Germans had seized upon the passages of the Meuse, and that the right flank of his columns on the road to Stenay was not safe. This rapidity of the German advance appears to have disconcerted his plans. We are told that on Friday he was still at Rethel, where he received fresh reinforcements from Paris, and that he intended to move to Mézierès next day. As we have had no authentic news of important engagements, this appears very probable. It would imply an almost complete abandonment of his plan to relieve Bazaine; for a movement through the narrow strip of French territory on the right bank of the Meuse, between Mézierès and Stenay, would have its great difficulties and dangers, cause fresh delay, and give his opponents ample time to envelop him from all sides. For there can be no doubt now that quite sufficient forces have been sent northwards for this purpose from the army of the Crown Prince. Whatever we hear of the whereabouts of the Third Army points to a northward movement by the three great routes most handy for the purpose — Epernay, Reims, Rethel; Châlons, Vouziers; and Bar-le-Duc, Varennes, Grandpré. The fact of the engagement at Saint Ménehould being telegraphed from Bar-le-duc renders it even possible that it was part of the Third Army which there defeated the Mobiles and occupied the town.

But what can be MacMahon’s intention if he really moves upon Mézierès? We doubt whether he has any very clear idea himself of what he intends doing. We now know that his march northwards was, to a certain extent at least, forced upon him by the insubordination of his men, who grumbled at the “retreat” from the camp of Châlons to Reims, and rather strongly demanded to be led against the enemy. The march to relieve Bazaine was then entered upon. By the end of the week MacMahon may have been pretty well convinced that his army had not the mobility necessary for a direct march upon Stenay, and that he had better take the, for the moment, safer road by Mézierès. This would certainly postpone and might render impracticable the intended relief of Bazaine; but had MacMahon ever any very decided faith in his ability to effect that? We doubt it. And then the move on Mézierès would, at all events, delay the enemy’s march upon Paris, give the Parisians more time to complete their defence, gain time for the organization of the armies of reserve behind the Loire and at Lyons; and in case of need might he not retire along the northern frontier upon the threefold belt of fortresses, and try whether there was not some “quadrilateral” among them? Some such more or less indefinite ideas may have induced MacMahon, who certainly does not seem to be anything of a strategist, to make a second false move after once having entangled himself in a first one; and thus we see the last army which France has, and probably will have, in the field during this war march deliberately to its ruin, from which only the grossest blunders of the enemy can save it; and that enemy has not made one mistake yet.

We say the last army which France probably will have in the field during this war. Bazaine has to be given up, unless MacMahon can relieve him, and that is more than doubtful. MacMahon’s army, in the best of cases, will get scattered among the fortresses on the northern frontier. where it will be harmless. The reserve armies that are now spoken about will be raw levies, mingled with a certain number of old soldiers, and unavoidably commanded by chiefly unprofessional officers; they will be armed with all sorts of arms; they will be totally unused to the breech-loaders. which is tantamount to saying that their ammunition will be spent before it is really wanted — in one word, they will be unfit for the field, fit for nothing but the defence of fortifications. While the Germans have not only brought their battalions and squadrons to their full complement again, but keep sending division after division of landwehr to France, the French fourth battalions are not complete yet. Only sixty-six of them have been formed into “régiments de marche” and sent either to Paris or to MacMahon; the remaining thirty-four were not ready to march out a few days ago. The army organization fails everywhere; and a noble and gallant nation finds all its efforts for self-defence unavailing, because it has for twenty years suffered its destinies to be guided by a set of adventurers who turned administration, government, army, navy — in fact, all France — into a source of pecuniary profit to themselves.

Notes on the War.-XV, September 02, 1870

On the 26th of August, when the whole of our contemporaries, with scarcely one exception, were far too busy descanting upon the immense importance of the Crown Prince’s “resolute” march upon Paris to have any time left for MacMahon, we ventured to point out that the really important movement of the day was that which the latter general was reported to be making for the relief of Metz. We said that in case of defeat “MacMahon’s troops may have to surrender in that little strip of French territory jutting out into Belgium between Mézierès and Charlemont-Givet.”

What we presumed then is now almost accomplished. MacMahon has with him the 1st (his own), 5th (formerly De Failly’s. now Wimpffen’s), 7th (Douay’s), and 12th (Lebrun’s) corps, with such troops as could be spared from Paris up to the 29th, including even those rebellious Mobiles of Saint Maur; and, besides, the cavalry of Canrobert’s corps, which was left at Châlons. The whole force will represent, perhaps, 150,000 men, barely one half of which are troops of the old army; the rest, fourth battalions and Mobiles, in about equal proportions. It is said to be well provided with artillery, but of this a great portion must consist of newly-formed batteries, and it is notoriously very weak in cavalry. Even if this army should be numerically stronger than we estimate it, this excess must consist of new levies, and will not add to its strength, which we can scarcely deem to be equivalent to a force of 100,000 good soldiers.

MacMahon left Reims for Rethel and the Meuse on the evening of the 22nd, but the 13th Corps was despatched from Paris on the 28th and 29th only; and as by that time the direct railway to Rethel, viâ Reims, was menaced by the enemy, these troops had to be sent round by the Northern of France Railway, by St. Quentin, Avesnes, and Hirson. They could not complete their journey before the 30th or 31st, and then fighting had already begun in earnest; so that the troops for which MacMahon had waited were not there after all when wanted. For, while he kept losing time between Rethel, Mézierès, and Stenay, the Germans came marching on from all sides. On the 27th a brigade of his advanced cavalry was defeated at Buzancy. On the 28th, Vouziers, an important crossing of roads in the Argonnes, was in German hands, and two of their squadrons charged and took Vrizy, a village occupied by infantry, who had to surrender — a feat, by-the-by, of which there is but one previous example — the taking of Dembe Wielkie by Polish cavalry, from Russian infantry and cavalry, in 1831. On the 29th no engagements are reported from any trustworthy source. But on the 30th (Tuesday) the Germans, having concentrated sufficient forces, fell upon MacMahon and defeated him. The German accounts speak of a battle near Beaumont, and of an engagement near Nouart (on the road from Stenay to Buzancy) but Belgian reports refer to fighting on the right bank of the Meuse, between Mouzon and Carignan. The two can be easily reconciled, and supposing the Belgian telegrams to be substantially correct, the German Fourth Army (4th, 12th, and Guards corps) appear to have had the 4th and 12th corps on the left bank of the Moselle, where they were joined by the First Bavarian Corps, the first instalment of the Third Army arriving from the South. They met MacMahon’s main forces at Beaumont, marching evidently in the direction of Mézierès to Stenay; they attacked them, a portion, probably the Bavarians, falling upon and overlapping their right flank, and pushing them away from their direct line of retreat towards the Meuse at Mouzon, where the difficulty and delay of the passage over the bridge would account for their great losses of prisoners, artillery, and stores. While this was going on, the advanced guard of the 12th German Corps, which appears to have been sent off in a different direction, met the 5th French Corps (Wimpffen’s) marching, to all appearances, by way of Le Chene Populeux, the valley of the Bar, and Buzancy, towards the flank of the Germans. The encounter took place at Nouart, about seven miles south of Beaumont, and was successful for the Germans; that is to say, they succeeded in stopping Wimpffen’s flank movement while the fighting was going on at Beaumont. A third portion of MacMahon’s forces, according to the Belgian reports, must have advanced on the right bank of the Meuse, where it is said to have encamped the previous night at Vaux, between Carignan and Mouzon; but this corps, too, was attacked by the Germans (probably the Guards) and completely defeated, with the loss, as is alleged, of four mitrailleurs.

The ensemble of these three engagements (always supposing the Belgian accounts to be substantially correct) would constitute that complete defeat of MacMahon which we have repeatedly predicted. The four corps opposed to him would now number about 100,000 men, but it is questionable whether they were all engaged. MacMahon’s troops, as we have said, would be equivalent to about that number of good soldiers. That their resistance was nothing like that of the old Army of the Rhine is implied in the remark of a German official telegram, that “out losses are moderate,” and the number of prisoners taken. It is too early yet to attempt to criticise MacMahon’s tactical arrangements for and during this battle, as we know scarcely anything about them. But his strategy cannot be too strongly condemned. He has thrown away every fair chance of escape. His position between Rethel and Mézierès rendered it possible for him to fight so as to have his retreat open to Laon and Soissons, and thereby the means of again reaching Paris or western France. Instead of this, lie fought as if his only line of retreat was to Mézierès, and as if Belgium belonged to him. He is said to be at Sedan, the victorious Germans will by this time have lined the left bank of the Meuse, not only before that fortress, but also before Mézierès, whence their left will, in another day or so, extend to the Belgian frontier near Rocroi, and then MacMahon will be shut up in that little strip of territory upon which we placed our finger six days ago.

Once there, he has but little choice left to him. He has four fortresses around him — Sedan, Mézierès, Rocroi, and Charlemont; but upon twelve square miles of territory, with an overpowering army in front, and a neutral country in the rear, he cannot play at quadrilaterals. He will be starved out or fought out; he will be compelled to surrender either to the Prussians or to the Belgians. But there is one other course open to him. We said just now he had acted as if Belgium belonged to him. What if he really thought so? What if the whole mystery at the bottom of this inexplicable strategy was a settled determination to use Belgian territory as if it belonged to France? From Charlemont there is a straight road through Belgium, by Philippeville, to French territory, near Maubeuge. This road is but one half of the distance from Mézierès to Maubeuge through French territory. What if MacMahon intended to use that road for escape, in case he was reduced to the last extremity? The Belgians, he may think, will not be in a condition to effectually resist an army as strong as his; and if the Germans, as is very likely, follow MacMahon into Belgian territory, in case the Belgians cannot stop him, why, then there arise new political complications which may better, but cannot render much worse, the present situation of France. Moreover, if MacMahon should succeed in driving but one Gerinan patrol upon Belgian ground, the breach of neutrality would be established, and form an excuse for his subsequent violation of Belgium. Such ideas may have passed through the head of this old Algerian; they are in keeping with African warfare, and, indeed, they are almost the only ones by which such strategy as he has shown can be excused. But even that chance may be cut off from him; if the Crown Prince acts with his usual quickness, he may possibly reach Monthermé and the junction of the rivers Semois and Meuse before MacMahon, and then MacMahon would be pent up between Semois and Sedan on about as much ground as his men require for a camp, and without any hope of a short cut through neutral ground.

The French Defeats, September 03, 1870

A large army, when driven into a corner, dies hard. It took first of all three battles to teach Bazaine’s troops that they were really shut up in Metz, and then thirty-six hours’ desperate fighting through day and night on Wednesday and Thursday last to convince them — if even then convinced — that there was no opening for escape through the toils in which the Prussians had caught them. Nor was the battle of Tuesday enough to compel MacMahon to give in. A fresh battle — apparently the greatest and most bloody of all the series — had to be fought on Thursday, and he himself wounded, before he was brought to a sense of his real position. The first account of the fighting near Beaumont and Carignanc appears to have been substantially correct, with this exception, that the line of retreat of the French corps engaged at Beaumont, which ran on the left bank of the Meuse to Sedan, was not cut off entirely. Some portion of these troops seem to have escaped on the left bank to Sedan — at least there was fighting again on that same bank on Thursday. Then there appears to be some doubt as to the date of the engagement of Nouart, which the staff in Berlin are disposed to think took place on Monday. This would certainly make the German telegrams agree better, and, if so, the turning movement which was ascribed to the French Fifth Corps would equally fall to the ground.

The result of the fighting on Tuesday was disastrous to the French corps engaged. Above twenty cannon, eleven mitrailleurs, and 7,000 prisoners are results almost equivalent to those of Woerth, but conquered much more easily, and with much smaller sacrifices. The French were driven back on both banks of the Meuse to the immediate neighbourhood of Sedan. On the left bank their position after the battle appears to have been defined to the west by the River Bar and the Canal des Ardennes, both of which run along the same valley, and enter the Meuse at Villers, between Sedan and Mézierès; on the east, by the ravine and brook running from Raucourt to the Meuse at Remilly. Having thus both flanks secured, their main body would occupy the intervening plateau, ready to meet an attack from any side. On the right bank, the river Chiers, which Joins the Meuse about four miles above Sedan, opposite Remilly, must have been crossed by the French after Tuesday’s battle. There are three parallel ravines, running north and south from the Belgian frontier, the first and second towards the Chiers, the third and largest immediately in front of Sedan, towards the Meuse. On the second of these, near its highest point, is the village of Cernay; on the third, above, where it is crossed by the road to Bouillon in Belgium, Givonne; and lower down, where the road to Stenay and Montmédy crosses the ravine, is Bazeilles. These three ravines in Thursday’s battle must have formed as many successive defensive positions for the French, who naturally would hold the last and strongest with the greatest tenacity. This part of the battle-field is something like that of Gravelotte; but, while there the ravines could be and actually were turned by the plateau whence they sprang, here the proximity of the Belgian frontier rendered an attempt at turning them very risky, and almost compelled a direct front attack.

While the French established themselves in this position, and drew towards them such troops as had not taken part in Tuesday’s battle (among others, probably, the 12th Corps, including the Mobiles from Paris), the Germans had a day’s time to concentrate their army; and when they attacked on Thursday they had on the spot the whole of the Fourth Army (Guards, 4th and 12th corps) and three corps (5th, 11th, and one Bavarian) of the Third; a force morally if not numerically superior to that of MacMahon. The fighting began at half-past seven in the morning, and at a quarter past four, when the King of Prussia telegraphed, it was still going on, the Germans gaining ground on all sides. According to the Belgian reports, the villages of Bazeilles, Remilly, Villers, and Cernay were in flames, and the chapel of Givonne was in the hands of the Germans. This would indicate that on the left bank of the Meuse the two villages which supported, in case of a retreat, the French wings had been either taken or rendered untenable; while on the right bank the first and second lines of defence had been conquered, and the third, between Bazeilles and Givonne, was at least on the point of being abandoned by the French. Under these circumstances there can be no doubt that nightfall would see the Germans victorious and the French driven back to Sedan. This, indeed, is confirmed by telegrams from Belgium announcing the fact that MacMahon was completely hemmed in, and that thousands of French troops were crossing the frontier and being disarmed.

Under these circumstances there. were only two alternatives open to MacMahon — capitulation or a dash across Belgian territory. The defeated army, shut up in and about Sedan — that is, in a district not larger, at best, than it would require for its encampment — could not possibly maintain itself; and even if it had been able to keep open its communication with Mézierès, which is about ten miles to the west, it would still be hemmed in in a very confined strip of territory, and unable to hold out. Thus MacMahon, unable to fray a road through his enemies, must either pass on Belgian territory or surrender. As it happened, MacMahon, disabled by his wounds, was spared the pain of a decision. It fell to General De Wimpffen to announce the surrender of the French army. This conclusion can hardly fail to have been hastened by the news, supposing news could reach them, of Bazaine’s decisive repulse in his efforts to get away from Metz. The Germans had foreseen his intention, and were prepared to meet him at all points. Not only Steinmetz but Prince Frederick Charles (as appears from the corps mentioned, 1st and 9th’), were on the watch, and careful entrenchments further strengthened the barrier encircling Metz.

Notes on the War.-XVI, September 07, 1870

The capitulation of Sedan settles the fate of the last French army in the field. It settles at the same time the fate of Metz and Bazaine’s army; relief being now out of the question, they will have to capitulate too, perhaps this week, almost certainly not later than next week.

There remains the colossal entrenched camp of Paris, the last hope of France. The fortifications of Paris form the hugest complex of military engineering works ever constructed; they have never yet been put to the test, and consequently opinions as to their value are not only divided, but absolutely contradictory. By examining the actual facts of the case, we shall gain a safe basis upon which to found our conclusions.

Montalembert, a French cavalry officer, but a military engineer of uncommon and, perhaps, unparalleled genius, was the first to propose and work out during the latter half of the eighteenth century the plan of surrounding fortresses by detached forts at such a distance as to shelter the place Itself from bombardment. Before him the outworks — citadels, lunettes, &c. — were more or less attached to the enceinte or rampart of the place, scarcely ever farther distant from it than the foot of the glacis. He proposed forts large and strong enough to hold out a separate siege, and distant from the ramparts of the town from six hundred to twelve hundred yards, and even more. The new theory was for years treated with contempt in France, while it found willing pupils in Germany when, after 1815, the line of the Rhine had to be fortified. Cologne, Coblenz, Mayence, and later on Ulm, Rastatt, and Germersheim, were surrounded with detached forts; the proposals of Montalembert were modified by Aster and others, and a new system of fortifications thus arose, known under the name of the German school. By-and-by the French began to see the utility of detached forts, and, when Paris was fortified, it was at once evident that the immense line of ramparts round that city would not be worth constructing unless covered by detached forts, otherwise a breach effected in one place of the rampart would bring on the fall of the whole.

Modern warfare has shown in more than one instance the value of such entrenched camps, formed by a circle of detached forts, with the main fortress for its nucleus. Mantua, by its position, was an entrenched camp, so was Dantzic, more or less, in 1807, and these two were the only fortresses which ever arrested Napoleon I. Again, in 1813, Dantzic was enabled by its detached forts — field works for the most part — to offer a prolonged resistance. The whole of Radetzky’s campaign in 1849 in Lombardy hinged on the entrenched camp of Verona, itself the nucleus of the celebrated Quadrilateral, so did the whole of the Crimean war depend on the fate of the entrenched camp of Sebastopol, which held out so long merely because the Allies were unable to invest it on all sides, and cut off supplies and reinforcements from the besieged.

The case of Sebastopol is, for our purpose, most in point, because the extent of the fortified place was larger than in any previous instance. But Paris is much larger even than Sebastopol. The circuit of the forts measures about twenty-four miles. Will the strength of the place be increased in proportion?

The works of themselves are models of their kind. They are of the utmost simplicity; a plain enceinte of bastions, without even a single demi-lune before the curtains, the forts, mostly bastioned quadrangles or pentagons, without any demi-lunes or other outworks; here and there a horn-work or crown-work to cover an outlying space of high ground. They are constructed not so much for passive as for active defence. The garrison of Paris is expected to come out into the open, to use the forts as supporting points for its flanks, and by constant sallies on a large scale to render impossible a regular siege of any two or three forts. Thus, whilst the forts protect the garrison of the town from a too near approach of the enemy, the garrison will have to protect the forts from siege batteries; it will have constantly to destroy the besiegers’ works. Let us add that the distance of the forts from the ramparts precludes the possibility of an effective bombardment of the town until two or three at least of the forts shall have been taken. Let us further add that the position, at the junction of the Seine and Marne, both with extremely winding courses, and with a strong range of hills on the most exposed, the north-eastern front, offers great natural advantages, which have been made the best of in the planning of the works.

If these conditions can be fulfilled, and the two million people inside can be regularly fed, Paris is undoubtedly an extremely strong place. To procure provisions for the inhabitants is not a very difficult matter, if taken in hand in time, and carried out systematically. Whether that has been done in the present instance is very doubtful. What has been done by the late Government looks like spasmodic and even thoughtless work. The accumulation of live cattle without provender for them was a perfect piece of absurdity. We may presume that, if the Germans act with their usual decision, they will find Paris but poorly provisioned for a long siege.

But how about that chief condition, the active defence, the garrison which goes out to attack the enemy, instead of striking behind the ramparts? To show the full strength of Its works, and to prevent the enemy from taking advantage of its weakness, the absence of protecting outworks in the main ditches, Paris requires to count among its defenders a regular army. And that was the fundamental idea with the men who planned the works; that a defeated French army, its inability to hold the field being once established, should fall back upon Paris, and participate in the defence of the capital; either directly, as a garrison strong enough to prevent, by constant attacks, a regular siege and even a complete investment, or indirectly, by taking up a position behind the Loire, there recruiting its strength, and then falling, as opportunities might offer, upon such weak points as the besiegers, in their immense investing line, could not avoid presenting.

Now, the whole conduct of the French commanders in this war has contributed to deprive Paris of this one essential condition of its defence. There are of all the French army but the troops which remained in Paris and the corps of General Vinoy (the 13th, originally Trochu’s); together, perhaps, 50,000 men, almost all, if not indeed all of them, fourth battalions and Mobile Guards. To these may be added perhaps 20,000 or 30,000 men more of fourth battalions, and an indefinite number of Mobile Guards of the provinces, raw levies totally unfit for the field. We have seen at Sedan what little use such troops are in a battle. They, no doubt, will be more trustworthy when they have forts to fall back upon, and a few weeks’ drill, discipline, and fighting will certainly improve them. But the active defence of a large place like Paris implies movements of large masses in the open, regular battles at a distance in front of the sheltering forts, attempts to break through the line of investment or to prevent its completion. And for that, for attacks on a superior enemy, where surprise and dash are required, and where the troops must be kept perfectly in hand for that purpose, the present garrison of Paris will be scarcely available.

We suppose the united Third and Fourth German armies, fully 180,000 strong, will appear before Paris in the course of next week, surround it with flying columns of cavalry, destroy the railway communications, and thereby all chance of extensive supplies, and prepare the regular investment, which will be completed on the arrival of the First and Second armies after the fall of Metz, leaving plenty of men to be sent beyond the Loire to scour the country, and prevent any attempt at the formation of a new French army. Should Paris not surrender, then the regular siege will have to begin, and, in the absence of an active defence, must proceed comparatively rapidly. This would be the regular course of things if there were none but military considerations; but affairs have now come to a point when these may be set aside by political events, to prognosticate which does not belong to our province here.

Notes on the War.-XVII, September 09, 1870

The time it will take the German armies to march to Paris and there open a new phase of the war gives us leisure to look back upon what has been going on behind the front of the troops in the field, before the fortresses.

Leaving out of the question Sedan, which was included as a corollary in the capitulation of MacMahon’s army, the Germans have taken four fortresses — La Petite Pierre and Vitry, without a blow; Lichtenberg and Marsal, after a short bombardment. They have merely blockaded Bitche; they are besieging Strasbourg; they have bombarded, so far without result, Phalsbourg, Toul, Montmédy; and they intend to begin in a few days the regular sieges of Toul and Metz.

With the exception of Metz, which is protected by detached forts far in advance of the town, all other fortresses which resisted have been subjected to bombardment. This proceeding has, at all times, formed a part of the operations of a regular siege; at first, it was principally intended to destroy the stores of provisions and ammunition of the besieged, but since it has become the custom to secure these in bomb-proof vaults, constructed for the purpose, the bombardment has more and more been used to set fire to and destroy as many buildings as possible inside the fortress. The destruction of the property and provisions of the inhabitants of the place became a means of pressure upon them, and, through them, upon the garrison and commander. In cases where the garrison was weak, ill-disciplined, and demoralized, and where the commander was without energy, a bombardment alone often effected the surrender of a fortress. This was the case especially in 1815 after Waterloo, when a whole series of fortresses, garrisoned chiefly by National Guards, surrendered to a short bombardment without awaiting a regular siege. Avesnes, Guise, Maubeuge, Landrecies, Marienbourg, Philippeville, &c., all fell after a few hours’, at best a few days’, shelling. It was no doubt the recollection of these successes, and the knowledge that most of the frontier places were garrisoned chiefly by Mobile and sedentary National Guards, which induced the Germans to try the same plan again. Moreover, the introduction of rifled artillery having made shells the almost exclusive projectiles even of field artillery, it is now comparatively easy to bombard a place and set fire to its buildings with the ordinary field guns of an army corps, without awaiting, as formerly, the arrival of mortars and heavy siege howitzers.

Although recognized in modern warfare, it is not to be forgotten that the bombardment of the private houses in a fortress is always a very harsh and cruel measure, which ought not to be had recourse to without at least a reasonable hope of compelling surrender, and without a certain degree of necessity. If places like Phalsbourg, Lichtenberg, and Toul are bombarded, this may be justified on the ground that they stop mountain passes and railways, the immediate possession of which is of the greatest importance to the invader, and might reasonably be expected to follow as the result of a few days’ shelling. If two of these places have so far held out, this redounds so much more to the credit of the garrison and the inhabitants. But as to the bombardment of Strasbourg, which preceded the regular siege, the case is quite different.

Strasbourg, a city of above 80,000 inhabitants, surrounded by fortifications in the antiquated manner of the sixteenth century, was strengthened by Vauban, who built a citadel outside the town, nearer the Rhine, and connected it with the ramparts of the town by the continuous lines of what was then called an entrenched camp. The citadel commanding the town, and being capable of independent defence after the town has capitulated, the simplest way to take both would be to attack the citadel at once, so as not to have to go through two successive sieges; but then, the works of the citadel are so much stronger, and its situation in the swampy lowlands near the Rhine renders the throwing up of trenches so much more difficult, that circumstances may, and generally will, advise a previous attack on the town, with the fall of which a further defence of the citadel alone would, in the eyes of a weak commander, lose much of its purpose; except in so far as it might secure better conditions of surrender. But, at all events, ‘I the town alone be taken, the citadel remains to be reduced, and an obstinate commander may continue to hold out, and keep the town and the besieger’s establishments in it under fire.

Under these circumstances what could be the use of a bombardment of the town? If all went well, the inhabitants might demoralize the greater part of the garrison, and compel the commander to abandon the town and throw himself, with the élite of his soldiers, 3,000 to 5,000 men, into the citadel, and there continue the defence and hold the town under his fire. And the character of General Uhrich (for that, and not Ulrich, is the name of the gallant old soldier) was known well enough to prevent anybody from supposing that he would allow himself to be intimidated into a surrender, both of town and citadel, by any amount of shells thrown into them. To bombard a place which has an independent citadel commanding it is in itself an absurdity and a useless cruelty. Certainly, stray shells or the slow shelling of a siege will always do damage in a besieged town; but that is nothing compared to the destruction and sacrifice of civilian life during a regular, systematic six days’ bombardment such as has been inflicted upon the unfortunate city.

The Germans say they must have the town soon, for political reasons. They intend to keep it at the peace. If that be so, the bombardment, the severity of which is unparalleled, was not only a crime, it was also a blunder. An excellent way, indeed, to obtain the sympathies of a town which is doomed to annexation, by setting it on fire and killing numbers of the inhabitants by exploding shells! And has the bombardment advanced the surrender by one single day? Not that we can see. If the Germans want to annex the town and break the French sympathies of the inhabitants, their plan would have been to take the town by as short a regular siege as possible, then besiege the citadel, and place the commander on the horns of the dilemma, either to neglect some of the means of defence at his disposal or to fire on the town.

As it is, the immense quantities of shell thrown into Strasbourg have not superseded the necessity for a regular siege. On the 29th of August the first parallel had to be opened on the north-western side of the fortress, near Schiltigheim, running at a distance of from 500 to 650 yards from the works. On the 3rd of September the second parallel (some correspondents call it by mistake the third) was opened at 330 yards; the useless bombardment has been stopped by order of the King of Prussia, and it may take till about the 17th or 20th before a practicable breach can be made in the ramparts. But all estimates in this case are hazardous. It is the first instance of a siege in which the percussion shells of modern rifled artillery are used against masonry. In their trials during the dismantling of Jülich the Prussians obtained extraordinary results; masonry was breached and blockhouses were demolished at great distances, and by indirect fire (that is, from batteries where the object fired at could not be seen); but this was merely a peace experiment and will have to be confirmed in actual war. Strasbourg will serve to give us a pretty good idea of the effect of the modern heavy rifled artillery in siege operations, and on this account its siege deserves to be watched with peculiar interest.

The Rise and Fall of Armies, September 10, 1870

When Louis Napoleon founded the Empire “which was peace,” on the votes of the peasants and on the bayonets of their sons, the soldiers of the army, that army did not occupy a particularly prominent rank in Europe, except, perhaps, by tradition. There had been peace since 1815 — peace interrupted, for some armies, by the events of 1848 and 1849. The Austrians had gone through a successful campaign in Italy and a disastrous one in Hungary; neither Russia in Hungary nor Prussia in South Germany had gathered any laurels worth speaking of; Russia had her permanent war in the Caucasus and France in Algeria. But none of the great armies had met another on the field of battle since 1815. Louis Philippe had left the French army in a condition of anything but efficiency; the Algerian troops, and especially the pet corps founded more or less for African warfare — Chasseurs-à-Pied, Zouaves, Turcos, Chasseurs d'Afrique — were indeed the objects of much attention; but the mass of the infantry, the cavalry, and the Matériel in France were much neglected. The Republic did not improve the state of the army. But the Empire came which was peace, and — “si vis pacem, para bellum” — to it the army at once became the chief object of attention. At that time France possessed a great many comparatively young officers who had served, in high positions, in Africa at the time when there was still some serious fighting there. She possessed, in the Algerian special corps, troops who undoubtedly were superior to any others in Europe. She had, in the numerous substitutes, a greater number of professional soldiers who had seen service, real veterans, than any other continental Power. The one thing necessary was to elevate as much as possible the mass of the troops to the level of the special corps. This was done to a great extent. The “pas gymnastique” (the “double” of the English), hitherto practised by the special corps only, was extended to the whole infantry, and thus a rapidity of manoeuvring was obtained previously unknown to armies. The cavalry was mounted, as far as possible, with better horses; the Matériel of the whole army was looked to and completed; and, finally, the Crimean war was commenced. The organization of the French army showed to great advantage beside that of the English; the numerical proportions of the Allied armies naturally gave the principal part of the glory — whatever there was of it — to the French; the character of the war, circling entirely round one grand siege, brought out to the best advantage the peculiarly mathematical genius of the French as applied by their engineers; and altogether the Crimean war again elevated the French army to the rank of the first army in Europe.

Then came the period of the rifle and the rifled gun. The incomparable superiority of the fire of the rifled over the smooth-bore musket led to the abolition, or in some cases to the general rifling, of the latter. Prussia had her old muskets converted into rifles in less than one year; England gradually gave the Enfield, Austria an excellent small-bore rifle (Lorentz), to the whole infantry. France alone retained the old smooth-bore musket, the rifle being confined, as before, to the special corps alone. But while the mass of her artillery retained the short twelve-pounder, a pet invention of the Emperor, but of inferior efficiency to the old artillery on account of the reduced charge — a number of rifled four-pounder batteries — were equipped and held in readiness for a war. Their construction was faulty, being the first rifled guns made since the fifteenth century; but their efficiency was much superior to that of any smooth-bore field gun in existence.

Under these circumstances the Italian war broke out. The Austrian army had rather easy-going ways; extraordinary efforts had seldom been its forte; in fact, it was respectable, and nothing more. Its commanders counted some of the best and a great many of the worst generals of the age. Court influence brought the mass of the latter into high command. The blunders of the Austrian generals, the greater ambition of the French soldiers, gave the French army a rather hard-fought victory. Magenta brought no trophies at all; Solferino only a few; and politics dropped the curtain before the real difficulty of the war, the contest for the Quadrilateral, could come off.

After this campaign the French was the model army of Europe. If after the Crimean war the French Chasseur-a-Pied had already become the beau idéal of a foot soldier, this admiration was now extended to the whole of the French army. Its institutions were studied; its camps became instructing schools for officers of all nations. The invincibility of the French became almost a European article of faith. In the meantime France rifled all her old muskets, and armed all her artillery with rifled cannon.

But the same campaign which elevated the French army to the first rank in Europe gave rise to efforts which ended in procuring for it, first a rival, then a conqueror. The Prussian army from 1815 to 1850 had undergone the same process of rusting as all other European hosts. But for Prussia this rust of peace became a greater clog in her fighting machinery than anywhere else. The Prussian system at that time united a line and a landwehr regiment in every brigade, so that one half of the field troops had to be formed anew on mobilization. The material for the line and landwehr had become utterly deficient; there was a great deal of petty pilfering among the responsible men. Altogether, when the conflict of 1850 with Austria compelled a mobilization, the whole thing broke down miserably, and Prussia had to pass through the Caudine Forks. The Matériel was immediately replaced at great cost, and the whole organization revised, but in its details only. When the Italian war of 1859 compelled another mobilization, the Matériel was in better order, but not even then complete; and the spirit of the landwehr, excellent for a national war, showed itself completely unmanageable during a military demonstration which might lead to a war with either one or the other of the belligerents. The reorganization of the army was resolved upon.

This reorganization, carried out behind the back of the Parliament, kept the whole of the thirty-two landwehr regiments of infantry under arms, gradually filling up the ranks by an increased levy of recruits, and finally forming them into line regiments, increasing their number from forty to seventy-two. The artillery was increased in the same proportion, the cavalry in a much smaller one. This increase of the army was about proportional to that of the population of Prussia from 1815 to 1860, from 10 1/2 to 18 1/2 millions. In spite of the opposition of the Second Chamber, it remained practically in force. The army was, besides, made more efficient in every respect. It had been the first to supply the whole of the infantry with rifles. Now the needle-gun breech-loader, which had hitherto been supplied to a fraction of the infantry only, was given to all, and a reserve stock prepared. The experiments with rifled artillery, carried on for some years, were brought to a close, and the adopted models gradually replaced the smooth-bores. The excessive parade drill, inherited from stiff old Frederick William III, made room more and more for a better system of training, in which outpost duty and skirmishing were chiefly practised, and the models in both branches were to a great extent the Algerian French. For the detached battalions the company column was adopted as the chief fighting formation. Target-shooting was paid great attention to, and capital results were obtained. The cavalry was likewise much improved. The breed of horses, especially in East Prussia, the great horse-breeding country, had been attended to for years, much Arab blood having been introduced, and the fruits now began to become available. The East Prussian horse, inferior in size and speed to the English trooper, is a far superior war horse, and will stand five times as much campaigning. The professional education of the officers, which had been much neglected for a long time, was again screwed up to the prescribed very high level, and altogether the Prussian army was undergoing a complete change. The Danish war 14 was sufficient to show to any one who would see that this was ‘the case; but people would not see. Then came the thunderclap of 1866, and people could not help seeing. Next, there was an extension of the Prussian system to the North German army, and in its fundamental essentials to the South German armies too; and how easily it can be introduced the result has shown. And then came 1870.

But in 1870 the French army was no longer that of 1859. The peculation, jobbery, and general misuse of public duty for private interest which formed the essential base of the system of the Second Empire, had seized the army. If Haussmann and his crew made millions out of the immense Paris job, if the whole Department of Public Works, if every Government contract, every civil office, was shamelessly and openly turned into a means of robbing the public, was the army alone to remain virtuous — the army to which Louis Napoleon owed everything — the army, commanded by men who were quite as fond of wealth as the more fortunate civilian hangers-on of the Court? And when it came to be known that the Government was in the habit of receiving the money for substitutes without providing these substitutes — a thing necessarily known to every regimental officer; when those other peculations in stores &c., commenced which were to supply the funds secretly paid over to the Emperor by the Ministry of War; when the highest places had to be held by men who were in the secret and could not be dismissed whatever they did or neglected — then the demoralization spread to the regimental officers. We are far from saying that peculation at the public expense became common among them; but contempt for their superiors, neglect of duty, and decay of discipline were the necessary consequences. If the chiefs had commanded respect, would the officers have dared, as was the rule, to drive in coaches on the march? The whole thing had become rotten; the atmosphere of corruption in which the Second Empire lived had at last taken effect upon the main prop of that Empire, the army; in the hour of trial, there was nothing but the glorious traditions of the service and the innate bravery of the soldiers to oppose the enemy, and these are not alone sufficient to keep an army in the foremost rank.

Notes on the War.-XVIII, September 15, 1870

There still appears to exist great misapprehension with regard to the siege operations now going on in France. Some of our contemporaries, The Times for instance, incline towards the opinion that the Germans, excellent though they be in the field, do not understand how to carry on a siege; others suppose that the siege of Strasbourg is carried on for the purpose not so much of getting hold of the town as of making experiments and exercising the German engineers and artillerists. And all this because neither Strasbourg, nor Toul, nor Metz, nor PhaIsbourg has as yet surrendered. It appears to be completely forgotten that the last siege carried on previous to this war, that of Sebastopol, required eleven months of open trenches before the place was reduced.

To rectify such crude notions, which could not be put forth but by people unacquainted with military matters, it will be necessary to recall to them what sort of a proceeding a siege really is. The rampart of most fortresses is bastioned — that is to say, it has at its angles pentagonal projections called bastions, which protect by their fire both the space in front of the works and the ditch lying immediately at their foot. In this ditch, between every two bastions, there is a detached triangular work called the demi-lune, which covers part of the bastions, and the curtain — that is, the portion of rampart between them; the ditch extends round this demi-lune. Outside this main ditch there is the covered way, a broad road protected by the edge of the glacis, an elevation of ground about seven feet high, and gently sloping down externally. In many cases there are other works added to complicate the difficulties of the attack. The ramparts of all these works are lined at the bottom with masonry or protected by water in the ditches, so as to render an assault on the intact works impossible; and the works are so arranged that the outer ones are always commanded — that is, looked down upon — by the inner ones, while they themselves command the field by the height of their ramparts.

To attack such a fortress the method perfected by Vauban is still the one made use of, although the rifled artillery of the besieged may compel variations if the ground before the fortress be perfectly level to a great distance. But as almost all these fortresses were constructed under the reign of smooth-bore artillery, the ground beyond 800 yards from the works is generally left out of the calculation, and in almost every case will give the besiegers a sheltered approach up to that distance without regular trenches. The first thing, then, is to invest the place, drive in its outposts and other detachments, reconnoitre the works, get the siege guns, ammunition, and other stores to the front, and organize the depôts. In the present war a first bombardment by field guns also belonged to this preliminary period, which may last a considerable time. Strasbourg was loosely invested on the 10th of August, closely about the 20th, bombarded from the 23rd to the 28th, and yet the regular siege began on the 29th only. This regular siege dates from the opening of the first parallel, a trench with the earth thrown up on the side towards the fortress, so as to hide and shelter the men passing through it. This first parallel generally encircles the works at a distance of from 600 to 700 yards. In it are established the enfilading batteries; they are placed in the prolongation of all the faces — that is, those lines of rampart whose fire commands the field; and this is done upon all that part of the fortress which is subjected to attack. Their object is to fire along these faces, and thus to destroy the guns and kill the gunners placed upon them. There must be at least twenty such batteries, with from two to three guns each; say fifty heavy guns in all. There were also usually placed in the first parallel a number of mortars to bombard the town or the bombproof magazines of the garrison; they will, with our present artillery, be required only for the latter purpose, rifled guns being now sufficient for the former.

From the first parallel, trenches are pushed in advance in lines, the prolongation of which does not touch the works of the fortress, so that none of the works can enfilade them; they advance in zigzag until they arrive within about 350 yards from the works, where the second parallel is then traced — a trench similar to the first, but shorter in length. This is generally done the fourth or fifth night after the opening of the trenches. In the second parallel are established the counter-batteries, one against each of the attacked faces, and nearly parallel to them; they are to demolish the guns and ramparts face to face, and cross their fire with the enfilading batteries. They will contain in all about sixty guns of heavy calibre. Then, again, the besiegers advance by new zigzags, which become shorter and closer together the nearer they come to the fortress. At about 150 yards from the works the half-parallel is dug out for mortar batteries, and at the foot of the glacis, about sixty yards from the works, the third parallel is placed, which again contains mortar batteries. This may be completed on the ninth or tenth night of open trenches.

In this proximity to the works the real difficulty begins. The artillery fire of the besieged, as far as it commands the open, will by this time have been pretty nearly silenced, but the musketry from the ramparts is now more effective than ever, and will retard the work in the trenches very much. The approaches now have to be made with much greater caution and upon a different plan, which we cannot explain here in detail. The eleventh night may bring the besieger to the salient angles of the covered way, in front of the salient points of the bastions and demi-lunes; and by the sixteenth night he may have completed the crowning of the glacis — that is to say, carried along his trenches behind the crest of the glacis parallel to the covered way. Then only will he be in a position to establish batteries in order to break the masonry of the ramparts so as to effect a passage across the ditch into the fortress, and to silence the guns on the bastion flanks, which fire along the ditch and forbid its passage. These flanks and their guns may be destroyed and the breach effected on the seventeenth day. On the following night the descent into the ditch and a covered way across it to protect the storming party against flanking fire may be completed and the assault given.

We have in this sketch attempted to give an account of the course of siege operations against one of the weakest and simplest classes of fortress (a Vauban’s hexagon), and to fix the time necessary for the various stages of the siege — if undisturbed by successful sallies — on the supposition that the defence does not display extraordinary activity, courage, or resources. Yet, even under these favourable circumstances, we see it will take at least seventeen days before the main ramparts can be breached, and thereby the place opened to an assault. If the garrison be sufficient in number and well supplied, there is no military reason whatever why they should surrender before; from a merely military point of view it is nothing but their duty that they should hold out at least so long. And then people complain that Strasbourg, which has been subjected to but fourteen days of open trenches, and which possesses outworks on the front of attack, enabling it to hold out at least five days longer than the average — that Strasbourg has not yet been taken. They complain that Metz, Toul, PhaIsbourg have not yet surrendered. But we do not yet know whether a single trench has been opened against Toul, and of the other fortresses we know that they are not yet regularly besieged at all. As to Metz, there seems at present no intention to besiege it regularly; the starving out of Bazaine’s army appears the most effective way of taking it. These impatient writers ought to know that there are but very few commanders of fortresses who will surrender to a patrol of four Lancers, or even to a bombardment, if they have anything like sufficient garrisons and stores at their command. If Stettin surrendered in 1807 to a regiment of cavalry, if the French border fortresses in 1815 capitulated under the effect, or even the fear, of a short bombardment, we must not forget that Woerth and Spicheren 14 together amounted neither to a Jena 35 nor to a Waterloo 56; and, moreover, it would be preposterous to doubt that there are plenty of officers in the French army who can hold out a regular siege even with a garrison of Gardes Mobiles.

How to Fight the Prussians, September 17, 1870

After the Italian war of 1859, when the French military power was at its height, Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia, the same who is now investing Bazaine’s army in Metz, wrote a pamphlet, “How to Fight the French.” At the present day, when the immense military strength of Germany, organized upon the Prussian system, is carrying everything before it, people begin to ask themselves who is in future, and how, to fight the Prussians. And when a war in which Germany, at the beginning, merely defended her own against French chauvinisme appears to be changing gradually, but surely, into a war in the interests of a new German chauvinisme, it is worth while to consider that question.

“Providence always is on the side of the big battalions” was a favourite way of the Napoleon’s to explain how battles were won and lost. It is upon this principle that Prussia has acted. She took care to have the “big battalions.” When, in 1807, Napoleon forbade her to have an army of more than 40,000 men, she dismissed her recruits after six months’ drill, and put fresh men in their places; and in 1813 she was able to bring into the field 250,000 soldiers out of a population of four-and-a-half millions. Afterwards, this same principle of short service with the regiment and long liability for service in the reserve was more fully developed, and, besides, brought into harmony with the necessities of an absolute monarchy. The men were kept from two to three years with the regiments, so as not only to drill them well, but also to break them in completely to habits of unconditional obedience.

Now, here is the weak point in the Prussian system. It has to reconcile two different and finally incompatible objects. On the one hand, it pretends to make every able-bodied man a soldier; to have a standing army for no other object than to be a school in which the citizens learn the use of arms, and a nucleus round which they rally in time of attack from abroad. So far the system is purely defensive. But, on the other hand, this same army is to be the armed support, the mainstay, of a quasi-absolute Government; and for this purpose the school of arms for the citizens has to be changed into a school of absolute obedience to superiors, and of royalist sentiments. This can he done by length of service only. Here the incompatibility comes out. Foreign defensive policy requires the drilling of many men for a short period, so as to have in the reserve large numbers in case of foreign attack; and home policy requires the breaking in of a limited number of men for a longer period, so as to have a trustworthy army in case of internal revolt. The quasi-absolute monarchy chose an intermediate way. It kept the men full three years under arms, and limited the number of recruits according to its financial means. The boasted universal liability to military service does not in reality exist. It is changed into a conscription distinguished from that of other countries merely by being more oppressive. It costs more money, it takes more men, and it extends their liability to be called out to a far longer period than is the case anywhere else. And, at the same time, what originally was a people armed for their own defence now becomes changed into a ready and handy army of attack, into an instrument of Cabinet policy.

In 1861 Prussia had a population of rather more than eighteen millions, and every year 227,000 young men became liable to military service by attaining the age of twenty. Out of these, fully one-half were bodily fit for service — if not there and then, at least a couple of years afterwards. Well, instead of 114,000 recruits, not more than 63,000 were annually placed in the ranks; so that very near one-half of the able-bodied male population were excluded from instruction in the use of arms. Whoever has been in Prussia during a war must have been struck by the enormous number of strong hearty fellows between twenty and thirty-two who remained quietly at home. The state of “suspended animation” which special correspondents have noticed in Prussia during the war exists in their own imagination only.

Since 1866 the number of annual recruits in the North-German Confederation has not exceeded 93,000, on a population of 30,000,000. If the full complement of able-bodied young men — even after the strictest medical scrutiny — were taken, it would amount to at least 170,000. Dynastic necessities on the one side, financial necessities on the other, determined this limitation of the number of recruits. The army remained a handy instrument for absolutist purposes at home, for Cabinet wars abroad; but as to the full strength of the nation for defence, that was not nearly made available.

Still this system maintained an immense superiority over the old-fashioned cadre system of the other great continental armies. As compared to them, Prussia drew twice the number of soldiers from the same number of population. And she has managed to make them good soldiers too, thanks to a system which exhausted her resources, and which would never have been endured by the people had it not been for Louis Napoleon’s constant feelers for the Rhine frontier, and for the aspirations towards German unity of which this army was instinctively felt to be the necessary instrument. The Rhine and the unity of Germany once secure, that army system must become intolerable.

Here we have the answer to the question, How to fight the Prussians. If a nation equally populous, equally intelligent, equally brave, equally civilized were to carry out in reality that which in Prussia is done on paper only, to make a soldier of every able-bodied citizen; if that nation limited the actual time of service in peace and for drill to what is really required for the purpose and no more; if it kept up the organization for the war establishment in the same effective way as Prussia has lately done — then, we say, that nation would possess the same immense advantage over Prussianized Germany that Prussianized Germany has proved herself to possess over France in this present war. According to first-rate Prussian authorities (including General von Roon, the Minister of War) two years’ service is quite sufficient to turn a lout into a good soldier. With the permission of her Majesty’s martinets, we should even be inclined to say that for the mass of the recruits eighteen months — two summers and one winter — would suffice. But the exact length of service is a secondary question. The Prussians, as we have seen, obtained excellent results after six months’ service, and with men who had but just ceased to be serfs. The main point is, that the principle of universal liability to service be really carried out.

And if the war be continued to that bitter end for which the German Philistines are now shouting, the dismemberment of France, we may depend upon it that the French will adopt that principle. They have been so far a warlike but not a military nation. They have hated service in that army of theirs which was established on the cadre system, with long service and few drilled reserves. They will be quite willing to serve in an army with short service and long liability on the reserve, and they will do even more, if that will enable them to wipe out the insult and restore the integrity of France. And then, the “big battalions” will be on the side of France, and the effect they produce will be the same as in this war, unless Germany adopt the same system. But there will be this difference. As the Prussian landwehr system was progress compared with the French cadre system, because it reduced the time of service and increased the number of men capable to defend their country, so will this new system of really universal liability to serve be an advance upon the Prussian system. Armaments for war will become more colossal, but peace — armies will become smaller; the citizens of a country will, every one of them, have to fight out the quarrels of their rulers in person and no longer by substitute; defence will become stronger, and attack will become more difficult; and the very extension of armies will finally turn out to be a reduction of expense and a guarantee of peace.

Notes on the War.-XIX, September 27, 1870

The fortifications of Paris have shown their value already. To them alone it is owing that the Germans have not been in possession of the town for more than a week. In 1814 half a day’s fighting about the heights of Montmartre compelled the city to capitulate. In 1815, a range of earthworks, constructed from the beginning of the campaign, created some delay; but their resistance would have been very short had it not been for the absolute certainty on the part of the Allies that the city would be handed over to them without fighting. In this present war, whatever the Germans may have expected from diplomacy has not been allowed to interfere with their military action. And this same military action, short, sharp, and decisive up to the middle of September, became slow, hesitating, tatonnante from the day the German columns got within the sphere of operation of that immense fortified camp, Paris. And naturally so. The mere investment of such a vast place requires time and caution, even if you approach it with 200,000 or 250,000 men. A force so large as that will be hardly sufficient to invest it properly on all sides, though, as in this present case, the town contains no army fit to take the field and to fight pitched battles. That there is no such army in Paris the pitiable results of General Ducrot’s sally near Meudon have most decisively proved. Here the troops of the line behaved positively worse than the Garde Mobile; they, actually “bolted,” the renowned Zouaves leading the way. The thing is easily explained. The old soldiers — mostly men of MacMahon’s, De Failly’s, and FéIix Douay’s corps, who had fought at Woerth — were completely demoralized by two disastrous retreats and six weeks of constant ill-success; and it is but natural that such causes will tell most severely upon mercenaries, for the Zouaves, consisting mostly of substitutes, deserve no other name. And these were the men who were expected to steady the raw recruits with which the thinned battalions of the line had been filled up. After this affair there may be small raids, successful here and there, but there will scarcely be any more battles in the open.

Another point: The Germans say that Paris is commanded by their guns from the heights near Sceaux; but this assertion is to be taken with a considerable grain of salt. The nearest heights on which they can have placed any batteries above Fontenay-aux-Roses, about 1,500 metres from the fort of Vanves, are fully 8,000 metres, or 8,700 yards, from the centre of the town. The Germans have no heavier field artillery than the so-called rifled 6-pounder (weight of projectile about 15lb.), but even if they had rifled 12-pounders, with projectiles of 32lb., ready to hand, the extreme range of these guns, at the angles of elevation for which their limbers are constructed, would not exceed 4,500 or 5,000 metres. Thus this boast need not frighten the Parisians. Unless two more forts are taken, Paris need not fear a bombardment; and even then the shells would spread themselves so much over the enormous surface that the damage must be comparatively small and the moral effect almost nothing. Look at the enormous mass of artillery brought to bear upon Strasbourg: how much more will be required for reducing Paris, even if we keep in mind that the regular attack by parallels will naturally be confined to a small portion of the works! And until the Germans can bring together under the walls of Paris all this artillery, with ammunition and all other appliances, Paris is safe. From the moment the siege Matériel is ready, from that moment alone does the real danger begin.

We see now clearly what great Intrinsic strength there is in the fortifications of Paris. If to this passive strength, this mere power of resistance, were added the active strength, the power of attack of a real army, the value of the former would be immediately increased. While the investing force is unavoidably divided, by the rivers Seine and Marne, into at least three separate portions, which cannot communicate with each other except by bridges constructed to the rear of their fighting positions — that is to say, by roundabout roads and with loss of time only — the great mass of the army in Paris could attack with superior forces any one of these three portions at its choice, inflict losses upon it, destroy any works commenced, and retire under shelter of the forts before the besiegers’ supports had time to come up. In case this army in Paris were not too weak compared with the besiegers’ forces, it might render the complete investment of the place impossible, or break through it at any time. And how necessary it is to completely invest a besieged place so long as reinforcements from without are not completely out of the question has been shown in the case of Sebastopol, where the siege was protracted entirely by the constant arrival of Russian reinforcements in the northern half of the fortress, access to which could be cut off at the very last moment only. The more events will develop themselves before Paris, the more evident will become the perfect absurdity of the Imperialist generalship during this war, by which two armies were sacrificed and Paris left without its chief arm of defence, the power of retaliating attack for attack.

As to the provisioning such a large town, the difficulties appear to us even less than in the case of a smaller place. A capital like Paris is not only provided with a perfect commercial organization for provisioning itself at all times; it is at the same time the chief market and storehouse where the agricultural produce of an extensive district is collected and exchanged. An active Government could easily take measures to provide, by using these facilities, ample stores for the duration of an average siege. Whether this has been done we have no means of judging; but why it might not have been done, and rapidly too. we cannot see.

Anyhow, if the fighting goes on “to the bitter end,” as we now hear it will, resistance will probably not be very long from the day the trenches are opened. The masonry of the scarps is rather exposed, and the absence of demi-lunes before the curtains favours the advance of the besieger and the breaching of the walls. The confined space of the forts admits of a limited number of defenders only; their resistance to an assault, unless seconded by an advance of troops through the intervals of the forts, cannot be serious. But if the trenches can be carried up the glacis of the forts without being destroyed by such sallies of the army in Paris, this very fact proves that that army is too weak — in numbers, organization, or morale — to sally forth with a chance of success on the night of the assault.

A couple of forts once taken, it is to be hoped the town will desist from a hopeless struggle. If not, the operation of a siege will have to be repeated, a couple of breaches effected, and the town again summoned to surrender. And if that be again rejected, then may come the equally chanceless struggle on the barricades. Let us hope that such useless sacrifices will be spared.

The Story of the Negotiations, October 01, 1870

The story we laid before our readers yesterday according to the version of M. Jules Favre we have no difficulty in accepting as correct; always excepting little errors, such as when Bismarck is said to intend the annexation of Metz, Château-Salins, and “Soissons.” M. Favre evidently is ignorant of the geographical whereabouts of Soissons. The Count said Sarrebourg, which town has long been singled out as falling within the new strategical border line, while Soissons is as much outside of it as Paris or Troyes. In his rendering of the terms of the conversation M. Favre may not be quite exact; but where he asserts facts contested by the officious Prussian press, neutral Europe will be generally disposed to go by his statement. Thus, If at Berlin what M. Favre says about the surrender of Mont Valérien being proposed at one time is disputed, there will be few to believe that M. Favre either invented this or totally misunderstood Count Bismarck’s meaning.

His own report shows but too clearly how little M. Favre understood the actual situation, or how confused and indistinct was his view of it. He came to treat about an armistice which was to lead to peace. His supposition that France still has the power of compelling her opponents to abandon all claim to territorial cession we readily excuse; but on what terms he expected to obtain a cessation of hostilities it is hard to say. The points finally insisted upon were the surrender of Strasbourg, Toul, and Verdun — their garrisons to become prisoners of war. Toul and Verdun appear to have been more or less conceded. But Strasbourg? The demand was taken by M. Favre simply as an insult and as nothing else.

“You forget that you are speaking to a Frenchman, M. le Comte. To thus sacrifice an heroic garrison whose behaviour has been admired universally, and more particularly by us, would be cowardice, and 1 promise not to say that you have offered us such a condition.”

In this reply we find little consideration of the facts of the case — nothing but an outburst of patriotic sentiment. Since this sentiment operated very powerfully in Paris, it was not, of course, to be set aside at such a moment; but it might have been as well to have pondered the facts of the case too. Strasbourg had been regularly besieged long enough to make its early fall a matter of positive certainty. A fortress regularly besieged can resist a given time; it may even prolong its defence for a few days by extraordinary efforts; but, unless there arrive an army to relieve it, it is mathematically certain that fall it must. Trochu and the engineering staff in Paris are perfectly aware of this; they know that there is no army anywhere to come to the relief of Strasbourg; and yet Trochu’s colleague in the Government, Jules Favre, appears to have put all this out of his reckoning. The only thing he saw in the demand to surrender Strasbourg was an insult to himself, to the garrison of Strasbourg, to the French nation. But the chief parties interested, General Uhrich and his garrison, had certainly done enough for their own honour. To spare them the last few days of a perfectly hopeless struggle, if thereby the feeble chances of salvation for France could be improved, would not have been an insult to them, but a well-merited reward. General Uhrich must necessarily have preferred to surrender to an order from the Government, and for an equivalent, rather than to the threat of an assault and for no return whatsoever.

In the meantime, Toul and Strasbourg have fallen, and Verdun, so long as Metz holds out, is of no earthly military use to the Germans, who thus have got, without conceding the armistice, almost everything Bismarck was bargaining for with Jules Favre. It would, then, appear that never was there an armistice offered on cheaper and more generous terms by the conqueror; never one more foolishly refused by the vanquished. Jules Favre’s intelligence certainly does not shine in the transaction, though his instincts were probably right enough; whereas Bismarck appears in the new character of the generous conqueror. The offer, as M. Favre understood it, was uncommonly cheap; and, had it been only what he thought, it was one to be accepted at once. But then the proposal was something more than he perceived it to be.

Between two armies in the field an armistice is a matter easily settled. A line of demarcation — perhaps a belt of neutral country between the two belligerents — is established, and the thing is arranged. But here there is only one army in the field; the other, as far as it still exists, is shut up in fortresses more or less invested. What is to become of all these places? What is to be their status during the armistice? Bismarck takes care not to say a word about all this. If the fortnight’s armistice be concluded, and nothing said therein relating to these towns, the status quo is maintained as a matter of course, except as regards actual hostilities against the garrisons and works. Thus Bitche, Metz, Phalsbourg, Paris, and we know not how many other fortified places, would remain invested and cut off from all supplies and communications; the people inside them would eat up their provisions just as if there was no armistice; and thus the armistice would do for the besiegers almost as much as continued fighting would have done. Nay, it might even occur that in the midst of the armistice one or more of these places would completely exhaust their stores, and might have to surrender to the blockaders there and then, in order to avoid absolute starvation. From this it appears that Count Bismarck, astute as ever, saw his way to making the armistice reduce the enemy’s fortresses. Of course, if the negotiations had continued far enough to lead to a draft agreement, the French staff would have found this out, and would necessarily have made such demands, relatively to the invested towns, that the whole thing probably would have fallen through. But it was M. Jules Favre’s business to probe Bismarck’s proposals to the bottom, and to draw out what the latter had an interest to hide. If he had inquired what was to be the status of the blockaded towns during the armistice, he would not have given Count Bismarck the opportunity of displaying before the world an apparent magnanimity, which was too deep for M. Favre though it was but skin deep. Instead of that, he fires up at the demand for Strasbourg, with its garrison as prisoners of war, in a way which makes it clear to all the world that even after the severe lessons of the last two months, the spokesman of the French Government was incapable of appreciating the actual facts of the situation because he was still sous la domination de la phrase.

Notes on the War.-XX, October 03, 1870

It is a surprising fact, even after the inconceivable blunders which have led to the practical annihilation of the French armies, that France should be virtually at the mercy of a conqueror who holds possession of barely one-eighth of her territory. The country actually occupied by the Germans is bounded by a line drawn from Strasbourg to Versailles, and another from Versailles to Sedan. Within this narrow strip the French still hold the fortresses of Paris, Metz, Montmédy, Verdun, Thionville, Bitche, and Phalsbourg. The observation, blockade, or siege of these fortresses employ nearly all the forces that have so far been sent into France. There may be plenty of cavalry left to scour the country round Paris as far as Orléans, Rouen, and Amiens, and even farther; but a serious occupation of any extensive district is not to be thought of at present. There is certainly a force of some 40,000 or 50,000 landwehr now in Alsace south of Strasbourg, and this army may be raised to double its strength by the greater portion of the besieging corps from Strasbourg. These troops are intended, it appears, for an excursion towards the southern portions of France: it is stated that they are to march upon Belfort, Besançon, and Lyons. Now, every one of these three fortresses is a large entrenched camp, with detached forts at a fair distance from the main rampart; and a siege, or even a serious blockade, of all these three places at once would take more than the forces of this army. We take it therefore for granted that this assertion is a mere blind, and that the new German army will take no more notice of these

fortresses than it can help; that it will march into and eat up the valley of the Saône, the richest part of Burgundy, and then advance towards the Loire, to open communications with the army round Paris, and to be employed according to circumstances. But even this strong body of troops, while it has no direct communications with the army before Paris, so as to enable it to dispense with direct and independent communications with the Rhine, even this strong body of troops is employed on a mere raid, and unable to hold in subjection an extensive territory. Thus its operations for a couple of weeks to come will not increase the actual hold the Germans have upon French soil, which remains limited to barely one-eighth of the whole extent of France; and yet France, though she will not own to it, is virtually conquered. How is this possible?

The main cause is the excessive centralization of all administration in France, and especially of military administration. Up to a very recent time France was divided, for military purposes, into twenty-three districts, each containing, as much as possible, the garrisons composing one division of infantry, along with cavalry and artillery. Between the commanders of these divisions and the Ministry of War there was no intermediate link. These divisions, moreover, were merely administrative, not military organizations. The regiments composing them were not expected to be brigaded in war; they were merely in time of peace under the disciplinary control of the same general. As soon as a war was imminent they might be sent to quite different army corps, divisions, or brigades. As to a divisional staff other than administrative, or personally attached to the general in command, such a thing did not exist. Under Louis Napoleon, these twenty-three divisions were united in six army corps, each under a marshal of France. But these army corps were no more permanent organizations for war than the divisions. They were organized for political, not for military ends. They had no regular staff. They were the very reverse of the Prussian army corps, each of which is permanently organized for war, with its quota of infantry, cavalry, artillery, and engineers, with its military, medical, judicial, and administrative staff ready for a campaign. In France the administrative portion of the army (Intendance and so forth) received their orders, not from the marshal or general in command, but from Paris direct. If under these circumstances Paris becomes paralyzed, if communication with it be cut off, there is no nucleus of organization left in the provinces; they are equally paralyzed, and even more so, inasmuch as the time-honoured dependency of the provinces on Paris and its initiative has by long habit become part and parcel of the national creed, to rebel against which is not merely a crime but a sacrilege.

Next to this chief cause, however, there is another, a secondary one but scarcely less important in this case; which is that, in consequence of the internal historical development of France, her centre is placed in dangerous proximity to her north-eastern frontier. This was the case to a far greater extent three hundred years ago. Paris then lay at one extremity of the country. To cover Paris by a greater extent of conquered territory towards the east and north-east was the aim of the almost uninterrupted series of wars against Germany and Spain while the latter possessed Belgium. From the time Henry II seized upon the three bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun (1552) to the Revolution, Artois, parts of Flanders and Hainaut, Lorraine, Alsace, and Montbéliard were thus conquered and annexed to France to serve as buffers to receive the first shock of invasion against Paris. We must admit that nearly all these provinces were predestined by race, language, and habits to become part and parcel of France, and that France has understood — principally by the revolution of 1789-98 — how to thoroughly assimilate the rest. But even now Paris is dangerously exposed. From Bayonne to Perpignan, from Antibes to Geneva, the land frontiers of the country are at a great distance from Paris. From Geneva by Bale to Lauterbourg in Alsace the distance remains the same; it forms an arc described from the centre, Paris, with one and the same radius of 250 miles. But at Lauterbourg the frontier leaves the arc, and forms a chord inside it, which at one point is but 120 miles from Paris. “Là où le Rhin nous quitte, le danger commence,” said Lavallée in his chauvinistic work on the frontiers of France. But if we continue the arc from Lauterbourg in a northerly direction, we shall find that it follows almost exactly the course of the Rhine to the sea. Here, then, we have the real cause of the French clamour for the whole of the left bank of that Rhine. It is after the acquisition of that boundary alone that Paris is covered, on its most exposed side, by equidistant frontiers, and with a river for the boundary line into the bargain. And if the military safety of Paris were the leading principle of European politics France would certainly be entitled to have it. Fortunately, that is not the case; and if France chooses to have Paris for a capital she must put up with the drawbacks attached to Paris as well as with the advantages, one of which drawbacks is that an occupation of a small portion of France, including Paris, will paralyze her national action. But if this be the case; if France acquire no right to the Rhine by the accident of having her capital in an exposed situation, Germany ought to remember that military considerations of a similar sort give her no better claim upon French territory.

Notes on the War.-XXI, October 06, 1870

If we are to believe the reports sent by balloon from Paris, that city is defended by forces innumerable. There are between one and two hundred thousand Gardes Mobiles from the provinces; there are 250 battalions of Parisian National Guards, numbering 1,500, some say 1,800 or 1,900 men each — that is, at the most moderate computation, 375,000 men; there are at least 50,000 troops of the line, besides marine infantry, sailors, francs-tireurs, and so forth. And — so runs the latest information — if these be all disabled, there are still 500,000 citizens behind them fit to bear arms, ready in case of need to take their places.

Outside Paris there is a German army composed of six North German Army Corps (4th, 5th, 6th, 11th, 12th, and Guards), two Bavarian corps, and the Württemberg division; in all, eight corps and a half, numbering somewhere between 200,000 and 230,000 men — certainly not more. Yet this German army, although extended on a line of investment of at least eighty miles, notoriously keeps in check that innumerable force inside the town, cuts off its supplies, guards all roads and pathways leading outwards from Paris, and so far has victoriously repulsed all sallies made by the garrison. How is this possible?

First, there can be little doubt that the accounts given of the immense number of armed men in Paris are fanciful. If the 600,000 men under arms of whom we hear so much be reduced to 350,000 or 400,000, we shall be nearer the truth. Still it cannot be denied that there are far more armed men in Paris to defend it than outside to attack it.

Secondly, the quality of the defenders of Paris is of the most motley kind. Among the whole of them, we should consider none as really trustworthy troops but the marines and sailors who now man the outer forts. The line — the dregs of MacMahon’s army reinforced by reserve men, most of them raw recruits — have shown in the affair of the 19th of September, near Meudon, that they are demoralized. The Mobiles, good material in themselves, are but just now passing through recruit-drill; they are badly officered, and armed with three different kinds of rifle — the Chassepot, the converted Minié, and the unconverted Minié. No efforts, no amount of skirmishing with the enemy, can give them, in the short time allowed, that steadiness which alone will enable them to do that which is most required — to meet and defeat the enemy in the open field. It is the original fault of their organization, the want of trained teachers, officers and sergeants, which prevents them from becoming good soldiers. Still, they appear the best element in the defence of Paris; they are at least likely to submit to discipline. The sedentary National Guard is a very mixed body. The battalions from the faubourgs, consisting of working men, are willing and determined enough to fight; they will be obedient, and show a kind of instinctive discipline if led by men possessing personally and politically their confidence; towards all other leaders they will be rebellious. Moreover, they are undrilled and without trained officers; and unless there be actually a final struggle behind barricades, their best fighting qualities will not be put to the test. But the mass of the National Guards, those armed by Palikao, consist of the bourgeoisie, especially the small shopkeeping class, and these men object to fighting on principle. Their business under arms is to guard their shops and their houses; and if these are attacked by the shells of an enemy firing from a distance their martial enthusiasm will probably dwindle away. They are, moreover, a force organized less against a foreign than against a domestic enemy. All their traditions point that way, and nine out of every ten of them are convinced that such a domestic enemy is, at this very moment, lurking in the very heart of Paris, and only waiting his opportunity to fall upon them. They are mostly married men, unused to hardship and exposure, and indeed, they are grumbling already at the severity of the duty which makes them spend one night out of three in the open air on the ramparts of the city. Among such a body you may find companies and even battalions which, under peculiar circumstances, will behave gallantly; but, as a body, and especially for a regular and tiresome course of duty, they cannot be relied on.

With such a force inside Paris it is no wonder that the far less numerous and widely dispersed Germans outside feel tranquil as to any attacks from that quarter. Indeed, all engagements that have so far taken place show the Army of Paris (if we may call it so) to be incompetent to act in the field. The first great attack on the blockading troops, on the 19th, was characteristic enough. General Ducrot’s corps of some 30,000 or 40,000 men was arrested for an hour and a half by two Prussian regiments (the 7th and 47th), until two Bavarian regiments came to their assistance, and another Bavarian brigade fell upon the flank of the French; when the latter retreated in confusion, leaving in the hands of the enemy a redoubt armed with eight guns, and numerous prisoners. The number of the Germans engaged on this occasion could not exceed 15,000. Since then, the sorties of the French have been conducted quite differently. They have given up all intention of delivering pitched battles; they send out smaller parties to surprise outposts and other small detachments; and if a brigade, a division, or more advance beyond the line of the forts, they are satisfied with a mere demonstration. These fights aim less at the infliction of damage upon the enemy than at the breaking-in of the French levies to the practice of warfare. They will, no doubt, improve them gradually, but only a small proportion of the unwieldy mass of men in Paris can benefit by practice on such a small scale.

That General Trochu, after the fight of the 19th, was perfectly aware of the character of the force under his command his proclamation of the 30th of September clearly shows. He certainly lays the blame almost exclusively on the line, and rather pats the Mobiles on the back; but this merely proves that he considers these (and rightly so) as the best portion of the men under him. Both the proclamation and the change of tactics adopted since prove distinctly that he is under no delusion as to the unfitness of his men for operations in the open field. And he must, moreover, know that whatever other forces may remain to France under the name of Army of Lyons, Army of the Loire, and so forth, are of exactly the same composition as his own men; and that therefore he need not expect to have the blockade or siege of Paris raised by relieving army. It is therefore remarkable that we should receive report according to which Trochu had opposed, in a council of Ministers, the proposal to treat for peace. The report certainly comes from Berlin, not a good quarter for impartial information as to what is going on inside Paris. Be that as it may, we cannot believe that Trochu is hopeful of success. His views of army organization in 1867 were strongly in favour of fully four years’ service with the regiment and three years’ liability in the reserve, such as had been the rule under Louis Philippe; he even considered the time of service of the Prussians — two or three years — totally inadequate to form good soldiers. The irony of history now places him in a position where he carries on a war with completely raw — almost undrilled and undisciplined — men against these very same Prussians, whom he but yesterday qualified as but half-formed soldiers; and that after these Prussians have disposed in a month of the whole regular army of France.

The Rationale of the Prussian Army System, October 08, 1870

A few weeks ago we pointed out that the Prussian system of recruiting the army was anything but perfect. It professes to make every citizen a soldier. The army is, in the official Prussian words, nothing but “the school in which the whole nation is educated for war,” and yet a very small percentage only of the population passes through that school. We now return to this subject, in order to illustrate it by a few exact figures.

According to the tables of the Prussian Statistical Bureau, there were actually levied for the army on the average of the years 1831 to 1854, 9.84 per cent. per annum of the young men liable to service; there remained available every year 8.28 per cent.; there were totally unfit for service from bodily infirmities 6.40 per cent.; there were temporarily unfit, to be re-examined in a future year, 53.28 per cent.; the rest were absent, or comprised under headings too insignificant to be here noticed. Thus, during these four-and-twenty years, not one-tenth of the young citizens were admitted into the national war-school; and that is called a nation in arms.

In 1861 the figures were as follows: — Young men of twenty, class 1861, 217,438; young men of previous classes, still to be disposed of, 348,364; total, 565,802. Of these there were absent 148,946, or 26.32 per cent.; totally unfit, 17,727, or 3.05 per cent.; placed in the Ersatz Reserve — that is to say, liberated from service in time of peace, with liability to be called on in time of war — 76,590, or 13.50 per cent.; sent home for future reexamination on account of temporary unfitness, 230,236 or 40.79 per cent.; disposed of on other grounds, 22,369, or 3.98 per cent.; remained available for the army, 69,934 men, or 12.36 per cent.; and of these, 59,459 only, or 10.50 per cent., were actually placed in the ranks.

No doubt since 1866 the percentage of recruits draughted annually has been larger, but it cannot have been so to any considerable extent; and if at present 12 or 13 per cent. of the North German male population pass through the army, it will be much. This certainly does strongly contrast with the fervid descriptions of “special correspondents” during the mobilization in Germany. Every able-bodied man, according to them, then donned his uniform and shouldered his rifle, or bestrode his horse; all kind of business was at a standstill: factories were closed, shops shut up, crops left on the fields uncut; all production was stopped, all commerce abandoned — in fact, it was a case of “suspended animation,” a tremendous national effort, but which, if prolonged only a few months, must end in complete national exhaustion. The transformation of civilians into soldiers did certainly go on at a rate of which people out of Germany had no idea; but if the same writers will look at Germany now, after the withdrawal of above a million men from civil life, they will find the factories working, the crops housed, the shops and counting-houses open. Production, if stopped at all, is stopped for want of orders, not for want of hands; and there are plenty of stout fellows to be seen about the streets quite as fit to shoulder a rifle as those who have gone off to France.

The above figures explain all this. The men who have passed through the army do certainly not exceed 12 per cent. of the whole adult male population. More than 12 per cent. of them cannot, therefore, be called out on a mobilization, and there remains fully 88 per cent. of them at home; a portion of whom, of course, is called out as the war progresses to fill up the gaps caused by battles and disease. These may amount to two or three per cent. more in the course of half a year; but still the immense majority of the men is never called upon. The “nation in arms” is altogether a sham.

The cause of this we have before pointed out. It is the necessity under which the Prussian dynasty and Government are, as long as their hereditary policy is insisted upon, to have an army which is an obedient instrument of that policy. According to Prussian experience, three years’ service in the ranks is indispensable to break in the average civilian for that class of work. It has never been seriously maintained, even by the most obstinate martinets in Prussia, that an infantry soldier — and they constitute the vast mass of the army — cannot learn all his military duties in two years; but, as was said in the debates in the Chamber from 1861 to 1866, the true military spirit, the habit of unconditional obedience, is learned in the third year only. Now, with a given amount of money for the war budget, the longer the men serve, the fewer recruits can be turned into soldiers. At present, with three years’ service, 90,000 recruits annually enter the army; with two years, 135,000; with eighteen months, 180,000 men might be draughted into it and drilled every year. That there are plenty of able-bodied men to be had for the purpose is evident from the figures we have given, and shall be made more evident by-and-by. Thus we see that the phrase of the “nation in arms” hides the creation of a large army for purposes of Cabinet policy abroad and reaction at home. A “nation in arms” would not be the best instrument for Bismarck to work with.

The population of the North German Confederation is a trifle below 30,000,000. The war establishment of its army is in round numbers 1 men, or barely 3.17 per cent. of the population. The number of young men attaining the age of twenty is about 1.23 per cent. of the population in every year, say 360,000. Out of these, according to the experience of the secondary German States, fully one-half are — either there and then, or within two years afterwards — fit for service in the field; this would give 180.000 men. Of the rest, a goodly proportion is fit for garrison duty; but these we may leave out of the account for the present. The Prussian statistics seem to differ from this, but in Prussia these statistics must, for obvious reasons, be grouped in such a way as to make the result appear compatible with the delusion of the “nation in arms.” Still the truth leaks out there too. In 1861 we had, besides the 69,934 men available for the army, 76,590 men place in the Ersatz reserve, raising the total of men fit for service to 146,524, out of which but 59,459, or 40 per cent., were draughted into the ranks. At all events, we shall be perfectly safe in reckoning one-half of the young men as fit for the army. In that case, 180,000 recruits might enter the line every year, with twelve years’ liability to be called out, as at present. This would give a force of 2,160,000 drilled men — more than double the present establishment, even after ample allowance is made for all reductions by deaths and other casualties; and if the other half of the young men were again looked to when twenty-five years of age, there would be found the material for another 500,000 or 600,000 good garrison troops, or more. Six to eight per cent. of the population ready drilled and disciplined, to be called out in case of attack, the cadres for the whole of them being kept up in time of peace, as is now done — that would really be a “nation in arms;” but that would not be an army to be used for Cabinet wars, for conquest, or for a policy of reaction at home.

Still this would be merely the Prussian phrase turned into a reality. If the semblance of a nation in arms has had such a power, what would the reality be? And we may depend upon it if Prussia, by insisting on conquest, compels France to it, France will turn that semblance into reality — either in one form or another. She will organize herself into a nation of soldiers, and a few years hence may astonish Prussia as much by the crushing numbers of her soldiers as Prussia has astonished the world this summer. But cannot Prussia do the same? Certainly, but then she will cease to be the Prussia of to-day. She gains in power of defence, while she loses in power of attack; she will have more men, but not quite so handy for invasion in the beginning of a war; she will have to give up all idea of conquest, and as to her present home policy, that would be seriously jeopardized.

Notes on the War.-XXII, October 11, 1870

In one of our preceding Notes we called attention to the fact that even now, after the fall of Strasbourg, nearly the whole of the immense German army in France is fully employed, although not one-sixth of the territory of the country is held by the invaders. The subject is so very significant that we feel justified in returning to it.

Metz, with Bazaine’s army enclosed within its line of forts, finds occupation for eight army corps (the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, the division of Hessians, and General Kummer’s division of landwehr), in all sixteen divisions of infantry. Paris engages seventeen divisions of infantry (the Guards, 4th, 5th, 6th, 1 1th, 12th North German, 1st and 2nd Bavarian corps, and the Württemberg division). The newly-formed 13th and 14th corps, mostly landwehr, and some detachments from the corps already named, occupy the conquered country, and observe, blockade, or besiege the places which, within it, still belong to the French. The 15th Corps (the Baden division and at least one division of landwehr), set free by the capitulation of Strasbourg, is alone disposable for active operations. Fresh landwehr troops are to be joined to it, and then it is to undertake some operations, the character of which is still very indefinitely known, in a more southerly direction.

Now these forces comprise almost all the organized troops of which Germany disposes, with the very important exception of the fourth battalions of the line. Contrary to what was done in the Austrian war, when they were sent out against the enemy, these 114 battalions have this time been kept at home; in accordance with their original purpose, they serve as cadres for the drill and organization of the men intended to fill up the gaps which battles and disease may have caused in the ranks of their respective regiments. As soon as the thousand men forming the battalion are sufficiently broken in to do duty before the enemy, they are sent off to join the three field battalions of the regiment; this was done on a large scale after the severe fighting before Metz in the middle of September. But the officers and non-commissioned officers of the battalion remain at home, ready to receive and prepare for the field a fresh batch of 1,000 men, taken from the Ersatz Reserve or from the recruits called out in due. course. This measure was absolutely necessary in a war as bloody as the present one, and the end of which is not to be foreseen with certainty; but it deprives the Germans of the active services for the time being of 114 battalions, and a corresponding force of cavalry and artillery, representing in all fully 200,000 men. With the exception of these, the occupation of scarcely one-sixth of France and the reduction of the two large fortresses in this territory — Metz and Paris — keeps the whole of the German forces so fully employed that they have barely 60,000 men to spare for further operations beyond the territory already conquered. And this, while there is not anywhere a French army in the field to oppose serious resistance.

If ever there was needed a proof of the immense importance, in modern warfare, of large entrenched camps with a fortress for their nucleus, here that proof is furnished. The two entrenched camps in question have not at all been made use of to the best advantage, as we may show on some other occasion. Metz has for a garrison too many troops for its size and importance, and Paris has of real troops fit for the field scarcely any at all. Still, the first of these places at present holds at least 240,000, the second 250,000 enemies in check; and if France had only 200,000 real soldiers behind the Loire, the siege of Paris would be an impossibility. Unfortunately for France, these 200,000 men she does not possess; nor is there any probability of their ever being brought together, organized and disciplined in useful time. So that the reduction of the two great centres of defence is a mere question of weeks. The army in Metz has so far kept up its discipline and fighting qualities wonderfully well, but the constant repulses it has sustained must at length break down every hope of escape. French soldiers are capital defenders of fortresses, and can stand defeat during a siege far better than in the field; but if demoralization once begins among them, it spreads rapidly and irresistibly. As to Paris, we will not take M. Gambetta’s 400,000 National Guards, 100,000 Mobiles, and 60,000 troops of the line too literally, any more than the countless cannons and mitrailleurs that are being manufactured in Paris, or the great strength of the barricades. But there is no doubt that there are elements enough in Paris for a very respectable defence; though that defence, by being, from the character of the garrison, necessarily passive, will lack its strongest element — powerful attacks on the besiegers.

Anyhow, it must be evident that if there was a real national enthusiasm alive among the French, everything might still be gained. While the whole forces of the invader, all but 60,000 men and the cavalry which can raid but not subdue, are laid fast in the conquered territory, the remaining five-sixths of France might raise armed bands enough to harass the Germans on every point, to intercept their communications, destroy bridges and railways, provisions and ammunition in their rear, and compel them to detach from their two great armies such numbers of troops that Bazaine might find means to break out of Metz, and that the investment of Paris would become illusory. Already at present the movement of the armed bands is a source of great trouble, though not as yet of danger, to the Germans, and this will increase as the country round Paris becomes exhausted in food and other supplies, and as more distant districts have to be placed under requisition. The new German army now forming in Alsace will probably soon be called away from any expedition towards the South by the necessity of securing the German communications and of subjecting a greater tract of country round Paris. But what would be the fate of the Germans if the French people had been stirred up by the same national fanaticism as were the Spaniards in 1808 if every town and almost every village had been turned into a fortress, every peasant and citizen into a combatant? Even the 200,000 men of the fourth battalion would not suffice to hold down such a people. But such national fanaticism is not nowadays within the habits of civilized nations. It may be found among Mexicans and Turks; its sources have dried up in the moneymaking West of Europe, and the twenty years during which the incubus of the Second Empire has weighed upon France have anything but steeled the national character. Thus we see a great deal of talking and a minimum of work; a deal of show and an almost total neglect of organization; very little non-official resistance and a good deal of submission to the enemy; very few real soldiers and an immense number of francs-tireurs.

Notes on the War.-XXIII, October 13, 1870

The Prussian staff officers in Berlin seem to be getting impatient. Through the Times and Daily News correspondents in Berlin they inform us that the siege material has now been for some days ready before Paris, and that the siege will begin presently. We have our doubts about this readiness. Firstly, we know that several tunnels on the only available line of railway have been blown up by the retreating French near La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, and that they are not yet in working order; secondly, we also know that the Matériel for a regular and effective siege of such a vast place as Paris is so colossal that it will take a long time to get it together, even had the railway been always open; and thirdly, five or six days after this announcement from Berlin had been made, we have not yet heard of the opening of a first parallel. We must therefore conclude that by readiness to open the siege, or regular attack, we are to understand the readiness to open the irregular attack, the bombardment.

Still, a bombardment of Paris, with any chance of compelling a surrender, would require far more guns than a regular siege. In the latter you may confine your attack to one or two points of the line of defence; in the former, you must constantly scatter such a number of shells over the entire vast area of the town that more fires are made to break out everywhere than the population can extinguish, and that the very operation of extinguishing them becomes too dangerous to be attempted. Now we have seen that even Strasbourg, with 85,000 inhabitants, was perfectly able to hold out under a bombardment of almost unparalleled severity; that, with the exception of a few solitary and pretty well-defined districts, which had to be sacrificed, the fires could be well kept down. The cause of this is the comparatively great extent of the town. It is easy to shell a small place of five or ten thousand inhabitants into submission, unless there be plenty of bombproof shelter inside it; but a city of from 50,000 to 100,000 inhabitants can stand a great deal of shelling, especially if built, as most French towns are, of freestone, or with thick brick walls. Paris, within the fortifications, measures twelve kilometres by ten; within the old barrieres, which comprise the closely-built part of the town, nine kilometres by seven; that is to say, this part of the town comprises an area of about fifty millions of square metres or nearly sixty millions of square yards. To throw on an average one shell per hour into every one thousand square yards of that surface would require 60,000 shells per hour, or a million and a half of shells for every twenty-four hours, which would presuppose the employment of at least 2,000 heavy guns for the purpose. Yet one shell per hour for a space nearly one hundred feet long by one hundred feet broad would be a weak bombardment. Of course the fire might be concentrated temporarily upon one or more quarters until these were thoroughly destroyed, and then transferred to the neighbouring quarters; but this proceeding, to be effective, would last almost as long as or longer than a regular siege, while it would be necessarily less certain to compel the surrender of the place.

Moreover, Paris, while the forts are not reduced, is in fact out of reach of effective bombardment. The nearest heights outside the town now in the hands of the besiegers, those near Châtillon, are fully 8,000 metres=8,700 yards, or five miles from the Palais de Justice, which pretty nearly represents the centre of the town. On the whole of the southern side, this distance will be about the same. On the north-east, the line of forts is as far as 10,000 metres, or about 11,000 yards, from the centre of the town, so that any bombarding batteries in that quarter would have to be placed 2,000 yards farther off, or from seven to eight miles from the Palace of Justice. On the north-west, the bends of the Seine and Fort Mont Valérien protect the town so well that bombarding batteries could be erected in closed redoubts or regular parallels only; that is to say, not before the regular siege had begun, to which we here suppose the bombardment to be a preliminary.

Now there is no doubt that the Prussian heavy rifled guns, of calibres of five, six, seven, eight, and nine inches, throwing shells from twenty-five to above three hundred pounds’ weight, might be made to cover a distance of five miles. In 1864 the rifled twenty-four pounders on Gammelmark bombarded Sonderburg at a distance of 5,700 paces = 4,750 yards, or nearly three miles, although these guns were old bronze ones, and could not stand more than a 4lb. or 5lb. charge of powder to a shell weighing 68lb. The elevation was necessarily considerable, and had to be obtained by a peculiar adaptation of the gun-carriages, which would have broken down if stronger charges had been used. The present Prussian cast-steel guns can stand charges far heavier in proportion to the weights of their shells; but, to obtain a range of five miles, the elevation must still be very considerable, and the gun-carriages would have to be altered accordingly; and, being put to uses they were not constructed for, would soon be smashed. Nothing knocks up a gun-carriage sooner than firing at elevations even as low as five and six degrees with full charges; but in this case, the elevation would average at least fifteen degrees, and the gun-carriages would be knocked to pieces as fast as the houses in Paris. Leaving, however, this difficulty out of consideration, the bombardment of Paris by batteries five miles distant from the centre of the town, could be at best but a partial affair. There would be enough of destruction to exasperate, but not enough to terrify. The shells, at such ranges, could not be directed with sufficient certainty to any particular part of the town. Hospitals, museums, libraries, though ever so conspicuous from the heights where the batteries might be, could hardly be spared even if directions were given to avoid particular districts. Military buildings, arsenals, magazines, storehouses, even if visible to the besieger, could not be singled out for destruction with any surety; so that the common excuse for a bombardment — that it aimed at the destruction of the means of defence of the besieged — would fail. All this is said on the supposition that the besiegers have the means at hand for a really serious bombardment — that is to say, some two thousand rifled guns and mortars of heavy calibre. But if, as we suppose is the case, the German siege-park is composed of some four or five hundred guns, this will not suffice to produce any such impression on the city as to make its surrender probable.

The bombardment of a fortress, though still considered as a step permitted by the laws of war, yet is a measure implying such an amount of suffering to non-combatants that history will blame any one nowadays attempting it without reasonable chance of thereby extorting the surrender of the place. We smile at the chauvinisme of a Victor Hugo, who considers Paris a holy city — very holy! — and every attempt to attack it a sacrilege. We look upon Paris as upon any other fortified town, which, if it chooses to defend itself, must run all the risks of fair attack, of open trenches, siege batteries, and stray shots hitting non-military buildings. But if the mere bombardment of Paris cannot force the city into surrender, and if, nevertheless, such a bombardment should take place, it will be a military blunder such as few people would lay to the charge of Moltke’s staff. It will be said that Paris was bombarded not for military but for political reasons.

The Fate of Metz, October 17, 1870

If we are to believe the news from Berlin, the Prussian staff seem to anticipate that Paris will be conquered before Metz. But this opinion is evidently founded quite as much on political as on military reasoning. The troubles within Paris for which Count Bismarck has been waiting have not yet begun; but discord and civil war are expected to break out without fail as soon as the big. guns of the besiegers shall commence booming over the city. So far, the Parisians have, belied the opinion held of them in the German headquarters, and they may do so to the end. If so, the notion that Paris will be taken by the end of this month will almost certainly prove illusory, and Metz may have to surrender before Paris.

Metz, as a mere fortress, is infinitely stronger than Paris. The latter city is fortified on the supposition that the whole or at least the greater portion of the beaten French army will retire upon it and conduct the defence by constant attacks on the enemy, whose attempts to invest the place necessarily weaken him on every point of the long line he has to take up. The defensive strength of the works therefore is not very great, and very properly so. To provide for a case such as has now occurred by the blunders of Bonapartist strategy would have raised the cost of the fortifications to an immense sum; and the time by which the defence could thereby be prolonged would scarcely amount to a fortnight. Moreover, earthworks erected during or before the siege can be made to strengthen the works considerably. With Metz the case is very different. Metz was handed down to the present generation by Cormontaigne and other great engineers of the last century as a very strong fortress — strong in its defensive works. The Second Empire has added to these a circle of seven very large detached forts at distances of from two-and-a-half to three miles from the centre of the town, so as to secure it from bombardment even with rifled guns, and to transform the whole into a large entrenched camp second to Paris only. A siege of Metz, therefore, would be a very lengthy operation even if the town held but its normal war garrison. But a siege in the face of the 100,000 men who are now sheltered under its forts would be almost impossible. The sphere in which the French are still masters extends to fully two miles beyond the line of forts; to drive them back to the line of forts, so as to conquer the ground where the trenches would have to be dug, would necessitate a series of hand-to-hand fighting such as was only seen before Sebastopol; and supposing the garrison not to be demoralized by their constant fights or the besiegers not to be tired of such a sacrifice of life, the struggle might last many a month. The Germans have therefore never attempted a regular siege, but are trying to starve the place out. An army of 100,000 men, added to a population of nearly 60,000 and to the numbers of country people who have sought shelter behind the forts, must sooner or later exhaust the stock of provisions if the blockade be strictly enforced; and, even before this shall have taken place, the chances are that demoralization among the garrison will compel surrender. When once an army finds itself completely shut up, all attempts to break through the investing circle fruitless, all hope of relief from without cut off, even the best army will gradually lose its discipline and cohesion under sufferings, privations, labours, and dangers which do not appear to serve any other purpose but to uphold the honour of the flag.

For symptoms of this demoralization we have been watching for some time in vain. The stock of provisions inside the town has been much more considerable than was supposed, and thus the army of Metz has had a pretty good time of it. But the stores, if plentiful, must have been ill assorted; which is quite natural, as they were stray supplies for the army, accidentally left in the town and never intended for the purpose they have now to serve. The consequence is that the diet of the soldiers in the long run becomes not only different from what they are accustomed to, but positively abnormal, and produces sicknesses of various kinds and of daily increasing severity, the causes of this sickness operating stronger and stronger every day. This phase of the blockade appears to have now been reached. Among the articles of which Metz is short are bread, the chief ordinary food of the French peasantry, and salt. The latter is absolutely indispensable to maintain health; and, as bread is almost the only form in which the French partake of starch for fat-producing food, the same may in this case be said of the former. The necessity of feeding the men and inhabitants on meat principally has, it is said, produced dysentery and scurvy. Without trusting too much to reports from deserters, who generally say what they think will please their captors, we may still believe such to be the case, as it is just what must occur under the circumstances. That the chances of demoralization must thereby increase rapidly is a matter of course.

The very capable correspondent of The Daily News before Metz states, in his description of Bazaine’s sortie of the 7th of October, that after the French had established themselves in the villages to the north of Fort Saint-Eloy (north of Metz, in the valley of the Moselle) a mass of at least 30,000 of them was formed more to their right, close to the river, and advanced against the Germans. This column, or group of columns, was evidently intended to break through the circle of investment. This task required the utmost determination. They would have to march straight into a semicircle of troops and batteries concentrating their fire upon them; the severity of this fire would increase up to the point of actual contact with the enemy’s masses, when, if they succeeded in routing them, it would at once considerably diminish, while, if they had to retreat, they would have to undergo the same cross-fire a second time. This the men must have known; and, moreover, Bazaine would use for this supreme effort his very best troops. Yet we are told that they never even got within the rifle-fire of the German masses. Before they reached the critical point, the fire of the artillery and of the line of skirmishers had dissolved their cohesion: “the dense columns first staggered and then broke.”

This is the first time in this war that we hear such things of the men who could face cold steel and hot fire well enough at Vionville, Gravelotte, and the latter sorties. This inability even to attempt thoroughly the task which they were put to seems to show that the army of Metz is no longer what it was. It seems to indicate, not as yet demoralization, but discouragement and hopelessness — the feeling that it is no use trying. From that to positive demoralization there are not many steps, especially with French soldiers. And though it would be premature to predict from these indications the speedy fall of Metz, yet it will be surprising if we do not soon discover more symptoms announcing that the defence is on the wane.

The surrender of Metz would have a far less moral, but a far greater material influence upon the course of the war than the fall of Paris. If Paris be taken, France may give in, but she need not any more than now. For by far the greater portion of the troops now investing Paris would be required to hold the town and its environs, and it is more than doubtful whether men enough could be spared to advance as far as Bordeaux. But, if Metz capitulated, more than 200,000 Germans would be set at liberty, and such an army, in the present state of the French forces in the field, would be amply sufficient to go where it liked in the open country, and to do there what it liked. The progress of occupation, arrested by

the two great entrenched camps, would at once commence again, and any attempts at guerrilla warfare, which now might be very effective, would then soon be crushed.

Notes on the War.-XXIV, October 21, 1870

The investment of Paris has now lasted exactly one month. During this time two points relating to it have been practically settled in accordance with our predictions. The first is that Paris cannot hope to be relieved, in useful time, by any French army from without. The Army of the Loire is utterly deficient in cavalry and field artillery, while its infantry, with very trifling exceptions, consists of either young or demoralized old troops, badly officered and entirely wanting that cohesion which alone could render them fit to meet in the open old soldiers flushed with constant success such as von der Tann leads against them. Even were the Army of the Loire raised to 100,000 or 120,000 men, which it may be before Paris falls, it would not be able to raise the investment. By their great superiority in cavalry and field artillery, both of which can be spared to a great extent before Paris as soon as the siege train with its gunners has arrived, and by the superiority of their infantry, soldier for soldier, the Germans are enabled to meet such a force with one of inferior numbers without fear of the results. Besides, the troops now scouring the country east and north of Paris to distances of fifty and sixty miles could, in such a case, be sent temporarily to reinforce von der Tann, as well as a division or two from the investing army. As to the Army of Lyons, whatever of that possesses any tangible existence will find plenty of work with General Werder’s Fourteenth North German Corps, now in Epinal and Vesoul, and the Fifteenth Corps following in his rear or on his right flank. The Army of the North, with Bourbaki for commander, has as yet to be formed. From all we hear, the Mobiles about Normandy and Picardy are extremely deficient in officers and drill; and the sedentary National Guards, if not most of the Mobiles too, will be required to garrison the twenty-five or more fortresses encumbering the country between Mézierès and Havre. Thus efficient relief from this quarter is not very likely, and Paris will have to rely upon itself.

The second point settled is that the garrison of Paris is unfit to act on the offensive on a large scale. It consists of the same elements as the troops outside Paris, and it is equally deficient in cavalry and field artillery. The three sorties of the 19th and 30th of September and of the 13th of October have fully proved their inability to make any serious impression upon the investing forces. As these latter said, “They never were able to break through even our first line.” Although General Trochu states in public that his disinclination to attack the enemy in the field is caused by the deficiency in field artillery, and that he will not go out again until that is supplied he cannot help knowing that no field artillery in the world could prevent his first sortie en masse from ending in an utter rout. And by the time his field artillery can be ready, if that be more than a mere pretext, the fire of the German batteries against the forts and the closing in of their lines of investment, will have rendered its use in the open impossible.

Trochu and his staff appear to be perfectly aware of this. All their measures point to a mere passive defence, without any more great sorties than may be necessary to satisfy the clamour of an undisciplined garrison. The ramparts of the forts cannot long withstand the projectiles of the heavy German guns, of which more anon. It may be, as the staff in Berlin hopes, that two or three days will suffice to demolish the guns on the ramparts of the southern forts, to breach, from a distance and by indirect fire, the masonry revetment of their escarps in one or two places, and then to storm them while the fire of the batteries from the commanding heights prevents any efficient succour from the works to the rear. There is nothing in the construction of the forts nor in the configuration of the ground to prevent this. In all the forts round Paris, the escarp — that is, the inner side of the ditch, or the outer face of the rampart — is covered with masonry to the height of the horizon merely, which is generally considered insufficient to secure the work from escalade. This deviation from the general rule was justified on the supposition that Paris would always be actively defended by an army. In the present case it will even be an advantage inasmuch as this low masonry will be difficult to hit by indirect fire from batteries from which it cannot be seen. The breaching from a distance will thus be rendered more tiresome, unless the heights on which these batteries are constructed will admit of a really plunging fire; and this cannot be judged of except on the ground.

Under any circumstances, the resistance of these southern forts, commanded as they are by heights within the most effective range of heavy rifled artillery, need not be expected to be a long one. But immediately behind them, between the forts and the enceinte, the activity of the garrison has been chiefly displayed. Numerous earthworks have been everywhere constructed; and though, as a matter of course, we are kept in ignorance of all details, we may be sure that they will have been planned and executed with all that care, foresight, and science which have placed for more than two centuries the French engineering staff in the foremost rank. Here, then, evidently is the fighting ground chosen by the defence; a ground where ravines and hill-slopes, factories and villages, mostly built of stone, facilitate the work of the engineer and favour the resistance of young and but half-disciplined troops. Here, we expect, the Germans will find the toughest work cut out for them. We are, indeed, informed by The Daily News, from Berlin, that they will be satisfied with the conquest of some of the forts, and leave hunger to do the rest. But we presume that this choice will not be left to them, unless, indeed, they blow up the forts and retire again to their present mere investing positions; and if they do that the French can gradually by counter approaches recover the lost ground. We presume therefore that the Germans intend to keep whatever forts they may take, as efficient bombarding positions to frighten the inhabitants by occasional shells, or to use them for as complete a bombardment as they can carry out with the means at their command. And in that case they cannot decline the combat offered to them by the defence on the ground chosen and prepared for the purpose, for the forts will be under the close and effective fire of the new works. Here we shall perhaps witness the last struggle in this war offering any scientific interest; may be, the most interesting of all to military science. Here the defence will be enabled to act on the offensive again, though upon a smaller scale, and, thus restoring to a certain extent the balance of the contending forces, may prolong resistance until famine compels surrender. For we must keep in mind that of the stores of food provided for Paris one month’s stock has already been consumed, and nobody outside the town knows whether it is provisioned for more than another month.

There appears to be great confusion of ideas among “special correspondents” as to the German siege guns; and there may well be, considering that the nomenclature of the various calibres among German artillerists is founded upon principles at least as absurd and contradictory as those adopted in England. It may be worthwhile to clear this matter up a little now that these big guns may begin to speak any day. Of old-fashioned siege guns there were in use before Strasbourg, and have now been forwarded to Paris, twenty-five-pounder and fifty-pounder mortars — called so from the weight of a marble ball fitting their bore. Their calibres are about 8 ½ to 8 ¾ inches respectively, and the real weight of the spherical shells they throw is, for the first 64lb., and for the second 125lb. Then there was a rifled mortar, calibre 21 centimetres, or 8 ¼ inches, throwing an elongated shell of 20 inches in length and rather above 200lb. weight. These mortars have a tremendous effect, not only because the rifling gives their shells greater accuracy, but chiefly because the elongated percussion shell, always falling upon its heavy point, where the percussion fuze protrudes, secures the explosion of the charge at the very moment of penetration, thus combining in one and the same moment the effects of impact with that of explosion. Of rifled shell guns there were 12lb. and 24lb. guns, so called from the weight of the spherical solid iron ball they used to fire before being rifled. Their respective calibres are about four-and-a-half and five-and-a-half inches, and the weights of their shells 33lb. and 64lb. Besides these, there have been sent to Paris some of the heavy rifled guns intended for ironclad ships and for coast defence against such ships. The exact details of their construction have never been published, but their calibres are of about 7, 8 and 9 inches, and the corresponding shells of the weights of about 120, 200, and 300lb. respectively. The heaviest guns used either in or before Sebastopol were the English naval 68-pounder, the 8- and 10-inch shell guns, and the French 8 ¾ and 12-inch shell guns, the heaviest projectile of which, the 12-inch spherical shell, weighed about 180lb. Thus the siege of Paris will as much surpass Sebastopol as Sebastopol surpassed all former sieges by the weight and mass of the projectiles used. The German siege park, we may add, will contain the number of guns we guessed it would — namely, about four hundred.

Saragossa-Paris, October 22, 1870

To form an appropriate idea of such a colossal operation as the siege and defence of Paris, we shall do well to look out, in military history, for some previous siege on a large scale to serve, at least in some degree, as an example of what we may expect to witness. Sebastopol would be a case in point if the defence of Paris took place under normal conditions; that is to say, if there were an army in the field to come to the relief of Paris or to reinforce its garrison, such as was the case with Sebastopol. But Paris defends itself under quite abnormal conditions: it has neither a garrison fit for an active defence, for fighting in the open, nor any reasonable hope of relief from without. Thus the greatest siege on record, that of Sebastopol, inferior only to the one we are about to see opened, offers no correct image of what will be done before Paris; and it will be at later stages of the siege only, and principally by contrast, that the events of the Crimean war will come in for comparison.

Nor will the sieges of the American war 81 offer better examples. They occurred during a period of the struggle when not only the Southern army, but also, following in its wake, the troops of the North, had lost the character of raw levies and had come under the description of regular troops. In all these sieges the defence was extremely active. At Vicksburg as well as at Richmond there were long preliminary struggles for the mastery of the ground on which alone the siege batteries could be erected; and, with the exception of Grant’s last siege of Richmond, there were always attempts at relief too. But here, in Paris, we have a garrison of new levies feebly supported by scattered new levies outside the town, and attacked by a regular army with all the appliances of modern warfare. To find a case in point, we shall have to go back to the last war in which an armed people had to fight against a regular army, and actually did fight on a large scale — the Peninsular war. And here we find a celebrated example, which we shall see is in point in more than one respect: Saragossa.

Saragossa had but one-third of the diameter and one-ninth of the surface of Paris; but its fortifications, though erected in a hurry and without detached forts, would resemble those of Paris in their general defensive strength. The town was occupied by 25,000 Spanish soldiers, refugees from the defeat of Tudela, among them not more than 10,000 real soldiers of the line, the rest young levies; there were besides armed peasants and inhabitants, raising the garrison to 40,000 men. There were 160 guns in the town. Outside, a force of some 30,000 men had been raised in the neighbouring provinces to come to its succour. On the other hand, the French Marshal Suchet had no more than 26,000 men wherewith to invest the fortress on both sides of the river Ebro, and, besides, 9,000 men covering the siege at Calatayud. Thus, the numerical proportion of the forces was about the same as that of the armies now respectively in and before Paris: the besieged nearly twice as numerous as the besiegers. Yet the Saragossans could no more afford to go out and meet the besiegers in the open than the Parisians can now. Nor could the Spaniards outside at any time seriously interfere with the siege.

The investment of the town was completed on the 19th of December 1808; the first parallel could be opened as early as the 29th, only 350 yards from the main rampart. On the 2nd of January, 1809, the second parallel is opened 100 yards from the works; on the 11th the breaches are practicable and the whole of the attacked front is taken by assault. But here, where the resistance of an ordinary fortress garrisoned by regular troops would have ceased, the strength of a popular defence only commenced. The portion of the rampart which the French had stormed had been cut off from the rest of the town by new defences. Earthworks, defended by artillery, had been thrown up across all the streets leading to it, and were repeated at appropriate distances to the rear. The houses, built in the massive style of hot Southern Europe, with immensely thick walls, were loopholed and held in force by infantry. The bombardment by the French was incessant; but, as they were badly provided with heavy mortars, its effects were not decisive against the town. Still it was

continued for forty-one days without intermission. To reduce the town, to take house after house, the French had to use the slowest process of all, that of mining. At last, after one-third of the buildings of the town had been destroyed, and the rest rendered uninhabitable, Saragossa surrendered on the 20th of February. Out of 100,000 human beings present in the town at the beginning of the siege 54,000 had perished.

This defence is classical of its kind, and well merits the celebrity it has gained. But, after all, the town resisted only sixty-three days, all told. The investment took ten days; the siege of the fortress fourteen; the siege of the inner defences and the struggle for the houses thirty-nine. The sacrifices were out of all proportion to the length of the defence and the positive result obtained. Had Saragossa been defended by 20,000 good enterprising soldiers, Suchet, with his force, could not have carried on the siege in the face of their sallies, and the place might have remained in the hands of the Spaniards until after the Austrian war of 1809.

Now we certainly do not expect Paris to prove a second Saragossa. The houses in Paris, strong though they be, cannot bear any comparison as to massiveness with those of the Spanish city; nor have we any authority for supposing that the population will display the fanaticism of the Spaniards of 1809, or that one half of the inhabitants will patiently submit to be killed by fighting and disease. Still that phase of the struggle which came off in Saragossa after the storming of the rampart, in the streets, houses, and convents of the town, might to a certain extent repeat itself in the fortified villages and earthworks between the forts of Paris and the enceinte. There, as we said yesterday — in our twenty-fourth batch of Notes on the War. — appears to us to lie the centre of gravity of the defence. There the young Mobiles may meet their opponents, even in offensive movements, upon something like equal terms, and compel them to proceed in a more systematical way than the staff in Berlin seemed to imagine when, a short time ago, it expected to reduce the town in twelve or fourteen days from the opening of the siege batteries. There, too, the defence may cut out so much work for the mortars and shell-guns of the attack that even a partial bombardment of the town, at least upon a large scale, may be for the time being out of the question. The villages outside the enceinte will under all circumstances have to be sacrificed wherever they may happen to lie between the German front of attack and the French front of defence; and if therefore by sacrificing them the town can be spared so much the better for the defence.

How long this defence of the ground outside the enceinte can be made to last we cannot even guess at. It will depend upon the strength of the works themselves, upon the spirit with which the defence is conducted, upon the mode of attack. If the resistance become serious, the Germans will rely upon the fire of their artillery chiefly, in order to spare their troops. Anyhow, with the enormous artillery fire they will be able to concentrate upon any given point, it is not likely that it will take them more than a fortnight or three weeks before they arrive at the enceinte. To break and carry that will be the work of a few days. Even then there will be no absolute necessity to give up resistance; but it will be better to defer considering these eventualities until there shall be a greater probability of their actually occurring. Until then, too, we may be allowed to say nothing about the merits and demerits of M. Rochefort’s barricades. Upon the whole, we are of opinion that if the new works between the forts and the enceinte offer a really serious resistance, the attack will confine itself as much as possible — how far depends in a great measure upon the energy of the defence — to artillery fire, vertical and horizontal, and to the starving out of Paris.

Notes on the War.-XXV, October 27. 1870

While the negotiations for an armistice are pending, it will be as well to make out the positions of the different corps of the German armies, which do not appear to be generally understood. We say the German armies, for of the French there is very little to be said. What is not shut up in Metz consists almost exclusively of new levies, the organization of which has never been made public, and cannot but vary from day to day. Moreover, the character of these troops, who prove themselves in a engagements more or less unfit for the field, takes away a most all interest in either their organization or their numbers.

As to the Germans, we know that they marched out with thirteen army corps of North Germany (including the Guards), one division of Hessians, one of Badeners, one of Württembergers, and two army corps of Bavarians. The 17th division of the 9th North German Corps (one brigade of which consists of Mecklenburgers) remained on the coast while the French fleet was in the Baltic. In its stead the 25th, or Hessian division, was attached to the 9th Corps, and remains so up to the present day. There remained at home, with the 17th division, nine divisions of landwehr (one of the Guards, and one for each of the eight old provinces of Prussia 86; the time elapsed since 1866, when the Prussian system was introduced all over North Germany, having been barely sufficient to form the necessary number of reserve men, but not as yet any landwehr). When the recall of the French fleet and the completion of the fourth battalions of the line rendered these forces disposable, fresh army corps were formed out of them and sent to France. We shall scarcely know, before the end of the war, the details of formation of all these corps, but what has leaked out in the meantime gives us a pretty clear insight into the general character of the plan. Before Metz we have, under Prince Frederick Charles, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th corps, of which the 9th consists, for the time being, of the 18th and 25th divisions, besides two divisions of landwehr, one, the first (East Prussian), under General Kummer; the number of the other is not known — in all sixteen divisions of infantry.

Before Paris there are, under the Crown Prince, the 5th, 6th, and 11th North German, the two Bavarian corps, and the division of landwelir of the Guards; under the Crown Prince of Saxony, the 4th and 12th North German corps, and the Prussian Guards; under the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg, the 13th Corps and the Württemberg division. The 13th Corps is formed of the 17th division mentioned above, and of one division of landwelir. Of these troops, forming in all twenty divisions, there are four divisions sent on detached duty. Firstly, von der Tann with two Bavarian divisions and the 22nd North German division (of the 11th Corps) to the south and west, holding with the Bavarians Orleans and the line of the Loire; while the 22nd division (General Wittich’s) successively occupied Châteaudun and Chartres. Secondly, the 17th division is detached towards the north-east of Paris; it has occupied Laon, Soissons, Beauvais, St. Quentin, &c., while other troops — probably flying columns, chiefly composed of cavalry — have advanced almost to the gates of Rouen. If we set down these as equal to another division, we have in all five divisions detached from the army before Paris to scour the country, to collect cattle and provisions, to prevent the formation of armed bands, and to keep at a distance any new bodies of troops which the Government of Tours may be able to send up. This would leave for the actual investment fifteen divisions of infantry, or seven army corps and a half.

Besides the 13th Corps, the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg commands the whole of the detached troops in Champagne and the other occupied districts west of Lorraine, the garrisons of Sedan, Reims, Epernay, Châlons, Vitry, and the troops besieging Verdun. These consist of landwelir, principally of the 8th landwelir division. The garrisons in Alsace and Lorraine, almost all landwehr, are under the command of the respective military governors of these provinces. Moreover, there are the troops echeloned along the line of railway and the main roads whose exclusive duty it is to keep these in working order and open for army transport; these, formed by detachments of the various corps of the line, and amounting at least to the strength of a division, are under the “Etappen-Commandant.”

The Baden division and another landwehr division have been combined into the 14th Corps, which is now, under General von Werder, advancing upon Besançon, while General Schmeling, with the fourth reserve division, has just successfully besieged Schelestadt, and is now taking in hand Neu Breisach. Here for the first time we find the mention of a “reserve division,” which, in Prussian military language, is something essentially different from a landwehr division. In fact, we have so far accounted for six out of the nine landwehr divisions, and it may well be supposed that the garrisoning of Alsace and Lorraine, and in part of the Rhine fortresses, will account for the other three. The application of the term reserve division proves that the fourth battalions of the line regiments are now gradually arriving on French soil. There will be nine of them, or, in some cases, ten, to every army corps; these have been formed in as many reserve divisions, and probably bear the same number as the army corps to which they belong. Thus the fourth reserve division would be the one formed out of the fourth battalions of the Fourth Army Corps recruited in Prussian Saxony. This division forms part of the new 15th Army Corps. What the other division is we do not know — probably one of the three with which General Lowenfeld has just started from Silesia for Strasbourg; the other two would then form the 16th Corps. This would account for four but of thirteen reserve divisions, leaving nine still disposable in the interior of North Germany.

As to the numerical strength of these bodies of troops, the North German battalions before Paris have certainly been brought up again to a full average of 750 men; the Bavarians are reported to be weaker. The cavalry will scarcely average more than 100 sabres to the squadron instead of 150; and, upon the whole, an army corps before Paris will average 25,000 men, so that the whole army actually there will be nearly 190,000 men. The battalions before Metz must be weaker, on account of the greater amount of sickness, and will hardly average 700 men. Those of the landwehr will scarcely number 500.

The Polish press has lately begun to claim a rather large share in the glory of the Prussian arms. The truth of the matter is this: the whole number of the Polish-speaking population in Prussia is about two millions, or one-fifteenth of the whole North German population; in these we include both the Water-Polacks of Upper Silesia and the Masures of East Prussia, who would both be very much surprised to hear themselves called Poles. The 1st, 2nd, 5th, and 6th corps have an admixture of Polish soldiers, but the Polish element actually predominates in one division only of the 5th, and perhaps in one brigade of the 6th Corps. It has been the policy of the Prussian Government as much as possible to scatter the Polish element in the army over a great number of corps. Thus, the Poles of West Prussia are divided between the 1st and 2nd corps, and those of Posen between the 2nd and 5th, while in every case care has been taken that the majority of the men in each corps should be Germans.

The reduction of Verdun is now being energetically pushed on. The town and citadel are not very strongly fortified, but have deep wet ditches. On the 11th and 12th of October the garrison was driven from the villages surrounding the place, and the investment made close; on the 13th a bombardment was opened with forty-eight guns and mortars (French ones taken in Sedan), placed between 700 and 1,300 yards from the works. On the 14th some old French 24-pounders arrived from Sedan. and on the following day some of the new Prussian rifled 24-pounders which had reduced Toul. They were in full activity on the 18th. The town appeared to suffer severely, being very closely built.

The Fall of Metz, October 29, 1870

The present war is a war of capitulations, each one of which seems to be destined to surpass its predecessors in magnitude. First came the 84,000 men laying down their arms at Sedan, an event the like of which, or even anything approaching to which, had not been witnessed in any previous war, not even in those of Austria. Now comes the surrender of 170,000 men, together with the fortress of Metz, surpassing Sedan as much as Sedan surpassed all previous capitulations. Is Metz, in its turn, to be surpassed by Paris? If the war be continued there can be little doubt it will.

The three radical blunders which brought Napoleon from the 2nd of August to the 2nd of September, from Saarbrücken to Sedan, and which virtually deprived France of the whole of her armies, were — first, the receiving of the enemy’s attack in a position which allowed the victorious Germans to push in between the scattered corps of the French army, and thus to divide it into two distinct bodies, neither of which could rejoin or even act in concert with the other; second, the delay of Bazaine’s army at Metz, by which it got hopelessly shut up there; and third, the march to the relief of Bazaine with forces and by a route which positively invited the enemy to take the whole of the relieving army prisoners. The effects of the first blunder were conspicuous throughout the campaign. Those of the third were brought to a close at Sedan; those of the second we have just witnessed at Metz. The whole of that “Army of the Rhine,” to which Napoleon promised an arduous campaign in a country full of fortresses, is now in, or on the road to, these very same fortresses as prisoners of war, and France is not only virtually, but positively, deprived of nearly all of her regular troops.

The loss of the men themselves, and of the Matériel surrendered along with Metz, which must be enormous, is a blow hard enough. But it is not the hardest. The worst for France is that, with these men and this mat6riel, she is deprived of that military organization of which she is more in need than of anything else. Of men there are plenty; even of drilled men between twenty-five and thirty-five there must be at least 300,000. Matériel can be replaced from stores and factories at home and by commerce from abroad. Under circumstances like these all good breech-loaders are useful, no matter on what model they are constructed, or whether the ammunition of the one will suit the other models. Anything serviceable being welcome, with a proper use of telegraphs and steamers, there might be more arms and cartridges now at the disposal of the Government than could be used. Even field artillery might have been supplied by this time. But what is most wanted is that solid organization which can make an army out of all these armed men. This organization is personified in the officers and non-commissioned officers of the regular army, and finally ceases to be available with their surrender. The number of officers withdrawn from the active service of France, by losses on the battle-field and by capitulations, cannot now be less than from ten to twelve thousand, that of non-commissioned officers being nearly three times as great. With such organizing forces all at once withdrawn from the national defence, it becomes extremely difficult to turn crowds of men into companies and battalions of soldiers. Whoever has seen popular levies on the drill-ground or under fire — be they Baden Freischaaren, Bull-Run Yankees, French Mobiles, or British Volunteers — will have perceived at once that the chief cause of the helplessness and unsteadiness of these troops lies in the fact of the officers not knowing their duty; and in this present case in France who is there to teach them their duty? The few old half-pay or invalided officers are not sufficiently numerous to do it; they cannot be everywhere; the teaching has to be not theoretical only, but practical too; not by word of mouth only, but by act and example. A few young officers or newly-promoted sergeants in a battalion will very soon settle down to their work by the constant observation of what the old officers do; but what is to be done when the officers are almost all new, and not even many old sergeants to be had to be commissioned? The same men who now prove themselves in almost every encounter unfit to act in masses in the open would have soon learned how to fight if it had been possible to embody them in Bazaine’s old battalions; nay, if they had merely had the chance of being commanded by Bazaine’s officers and sergeants. And in this final loss for this campaign of almost the last vestige of her military organization, France suffers most by the capitulation of Metz.

It will be time to form a decided opinion upon the conduct of the defence when we shall have heard what the defenders have to say for themselves. But if it be a fact that 170,000 men capable of bearing arms have surrendered, then the presumption is that the defence has not been up to the mark. At no time since the end of August has the investing army been double the strength of the invested. It must have varied between 200,000 and 230,000 men, spread out on a circle of at least twenty-seven miles’ periphery, in the first line only; which means to say that the circle occupied by the masses must at least have been thirty-six to forty miles in periphery. This circle was moreover cut in two by the river Moselle, impassable except by bridges at some distance to the rear of the first line. If an army of 170,000 men could not manage to be in superior strength at any one point of this circle, and break through it before sufficient reinforcements could be brought up, we must conclude either that the arrangements of the investing troops were beyond all praise, or that the attempts to get through them were never made as they ought to have been done. We shall probably learn that here, as throughout this war, political considerations have lamed military action.

Unless peace be now concluded, the consequences of this fresh disaster will soon be brought home to France. We suppose that the two landwehr divisions will be left to garrison Metz. The 2nd Corps is already on the road to Paris, which does not absolutely imply that it is intended to take part in the investment of the capital. But supposing that to be the case, there would remain six corps, or at least 130,000 to 140,000 men, whom Moltke can send where he likes. The communications of the army with Germany were kept up without much participation of Prince Frederick Charles’s troops; for this purpose he will have to detach few men, if any at all. The rest is disposable for the invasion of the west and south of France. There will be no necessity to keep the whole of them together. They will probably be divided into two or three bodies, forming, with von der Tann’s corps, together at least 150,000, and will be ordered to advance into the parts of France hitherto unoccupied by the Germans. One corps will almost certainly occupy the rich provinces of Normandy and Le Maine as far as the Loire, with Le Mans, where five railways meet, for a centre. Another will push forward in the direction of Bordeaux, after having cleared the line of the Loire from Tours to Nevers, and occupied or destroyed the arsenals and military factories of Bourges. This corps might march from Metz by Chaumont and Auxerre, where the country has not yet been eaten up by requisitions. A third corps might go straight to the south, to open communications with General Werder. The interior of France being almost entirely divested of fortresses deserving of the name, there will be no resistance except the evanescent one of the new levies, and the more passive but also more stubborn one of the populations. Whether, with such armies set free all at once, Moltke will attempt the siege of any more fortresses, or even the reduction of a fortified naval port such as Cherbourg, remains to be seen; he need reduce no more fortresses now, except PhaIsbourg and Belfort, which block main lines of railway, and, of course, Paris.

Notes on the War.-XXVI, November 04, 1870

There can be no longer any reasonable doubt that the army which surrendered at Metz actually numbered 173,000 men, 140,000 of which were fit to bear arms, while rather more than 30,000 were sick and wounded. The Daily News gives us, in a telegram from Berlin, what professes to be full particulars of these troops: — 67 infantry regiments, 13 battalions of Chasseurs-à-Pied, 18 fourth and depôt battalions; 36 cavalry regiments — viz. 10 Cuirassiers, 1 Guides, 11 Dragoons, 2 Lancers, 3 Hussars, 6 Chasseurs-à-Cheval, and 3 Chasseurs d'Afrique, besides 6 depôt squadrons. We must suppose that this statement comes from the Prussian Staff in Berlin, and contains an abstract either of what they had made out from previous and indirect sources to be the composition of the French forces in Metz, or else of the French returns handed over to the captors on surrender. The latter appears most likely. We know there were within Metz, of infantry, the Guards (8 regiments=30 battalions, and 1 battalion Chasseurs), the Second Corps (Frossard, 3 divisions), the Third (Decaen, late Bazaine, 4 divisions), the Fourth (Ladmirault, 3 divisions), the Sixth (Canrobert, 3 divisions), and 1 division of the Fifth Corps (De Failly’s), in all 14 divisions of the line, each containing 1 battalion of Chasseurs and 4 regiments or 12 battalions of the line, excepting 2 divisions of Canrobert’s which had no Chasseurs. This would give 12 battalions of Chasseurs and 168 battalions of the line, or, with the Guards, a grand total of 13 battalions Chasseurs and 198 of infantry, and, with the 18 depôt battalions, in all 229 battalions, which is rather more than the 221 given as the total number in The Daily News. On the other hand, this list would give but 64 regiments of infantry, while our contemporary has 67. We must therefore conclude that the three missing regiments formed the garrison of Metz, and for that reason do not figure in the status of the “Army of the Rhine.” As to the discrepancy in the number of battalions, that is easily accounted for. The losses of many regiments during the battles in August, and the sorties of September and October, as well as by sickness, must have been such that the three battalions had to be formed into two, perhaps even one.

That such a force, as large as Napoleon’s army at Leipzig, should be compelled to surrender at all, is a fact unheard of in the history of warfare, and almost incredible even now after it has happened. But it becomes more inconceivable still if we compare the strength of this army with that of the captors. On the 18th of August Bazaine was thrown back, from the heights of Gravelotte, under the guns of the forts of Metz; in a few days after, the investment of the place was completed. But of the army which had fought at Gravelotte, 3 corps, or 75 battalions, were detached under the Crown Prince of Saxony on the 24th of August, at latest; for three days afterwards their cavalry defeated MacMahon’s Chasseurs-à-Cheval at Buzancy. There remained before Metz 7 corps, or 175 battalions, and 12 landwehr battalions, in all 187 battalions, to invest an army of at least 221 battalions! At that time Bazaine must have had at his disposal 160,000 combatants, if not more. The Prussians certainly had taken every step to send up fresh men from their reserve troops to make up for the losses of the late battles; but it will be impossible to suppose that their battalions were brought up again to the full complement of 1,000 men. Even supposing this to have been the case, with the exception of the landwehr, which forms battalions of five or six-hundred only, this will give the Prussians a force of not more than 182,000, or with cavalry and artillery about 240,000 men; that is to say, merely one-half more than the army shut up in Metz. And these 240,000 men were spread out on a front of twenty-seven miles in length, and there was an unfordable river to divide them into two distinct bodies. Under these circumstances, it is impossible to doubt that Bazaine, had he really attempted to break through the investing circle with the mass of his troops, could have done so — unless indeed we suppose that the French, after Gravelotte, were no longer the men they had been before; and for that there is no reason.

That Bazaine, after the proclamation of the Republic, should have refrained from breaking out of Metz through political motives appears to the writer of these Notes quite certain. It is equally certain that every day of delay decreased his chances of success for doing so; still the Prussians themselves appear to think now that, had they been in the same position, they could have performed the feat. But what remains inexplicable is the inaction, or at least the Indecision, of Bazaine during the last days of August and the first days of September. On the 31st of August he attempts an attack towards the north-east, and continues it throughout the night and the following morning; yet three Prussian divisions are sufficient to drive him back under the guns of the forts. The attempt must have been extremely feeble, considering the enormous strength with which he might have made it. A general who has sixteen divisions of splendid infantry under him, to be repelled by three divisions of the enemy! It is too bad.

As to the political motives which are said to have caused Bazaine’s inactivity after the revolution of the 4th of September, and the political intrigues in which he engaged, with the connivance of the enemy, during the latter part of the investment, they are thoroughly in keeping with the Second Empire, which, in one form or another, they were intended to restore. It shows to what an extent that Second Empire had lost every comprehension of French character if the general in command of the only regular army France then possessed could think of restoring the fallen dynasty with the help of the invader of his country.

Bazaine’s previous military career was none of the brightest. His Mexican campaign merely proved that he cared more for reward than for glory or the credit of his country. His nomination to the command-in-chief of the Army of the Rhine was due to accidental circumstances; he got it, not because he was the most eligible but the least ineligible of the possible candidates; and the deciding considerations were anything but strictly military. He will be immortalized as the man who committed the most disgraceful act in French military history — who prevented 160,000 Frenchmen from breaking through the investing army of, under the circumstances, positively inferior strength, and surrendered them as prisoners of war when there was nothing more to eat.

The Emperor's Apologia, November 05, 1870

Like other great men in bad luck, Louis Napoleon appears aware that he owes the public an explanation of the causes which led him, much against his will, from Saarbrücken to Sedan; and consequently we have now been put in possession of what professes to be this explanation of his. As there is no evidence, either external or internal, to fix any suspicion of spuriousness upon the document, but rather to the contrary, we take it, for the present, to be genuine. Indeed, we are almost bound to do so, out of mere compliment; for if ever there was a document confirming, both generally and in detail, the view taken of the war by The Pall Mall Gazette, it is this Imperial self-justification.

Louis Napoleon informs us that he was perfectly aware of the great numerical superiority of the Germans; that he hoped to counteract it by a rapid invasion of Southern Germany in order to compel that country to remain neutral, and to secure, by a first success, the alliance of Austria and Italy. For this purpose 150,000 men were to be concentrated at Metz, 100,000 at Strasbourg, and 50,000 at Châlons. With the first two rapidly concentrated, the Rhine was to be passed near Karlsruhe, while the 50,000 men from Châlons advanced on Metz to oppose any hostile movement on the flank and rear of the advancing forces. But this plan evaporated as soon as the Emperor came to Metz. He found there only 100,000 men, at Strasbourg there were only 40,000, while Canrobert’s reserves were anywhere and everywhere except at Châlons, where they ought to have been. Then the troops were unprovided with the first necessaries for a campaign, knapsacks, tents, camp-kettles, and cooking-tins. Moreover, nothing was known of the enemy’s whereabouts. In fact, the bold, dashing offensive was from the very beginning turned into a very modest defensive.

There will be scarcely anything new in all this to the readers of The Pall Mall Gazette. Our “Notes on the War” sketched out the above plan of attack as the most rational the French could pursue, and traced the causes why it had to be abandoned. But there is one fact, which was the proximate cause of his first defeats, for which the Emperor does not account: why he left his several corps in the faulty position of attack close to the frontier, when the intention of attack had been long given up. As to his figures, we shall criticize them by-and-by.

The causes of the breakdown of the French military administration the Emperor finds in

“the defects of our military organization such as it has existed for the last fifty years.”

But surely this was not the first time that this organization was put upon its trial. It had answered well enough during the Crimean war. It produced brilliant results at the outset of the Italian war, when it was held up in England, not less than in Germany, as the very model of army organization. No doubt it was shown to have many shortcomings even then. But there is this difference between then and now: then it did work, and now it does not. And the Emperor does not profess to account for this difference, which was the very thing to be accounted for — but, at the same time, the most tender point of the Second Empire, which had clogged the wheels of this organization by all manner of corruption and jobbery.

When Metz was reached by the retreating army,

“its effective force was brought up to 140,000 by the arrival of Marshal Canrobert with two divisions and the reserve.”

This statement, compared with the numbers who have just laid down their arms at Metz, compels us to look a little more closely into the Imperial figures. The army of Strasbourg was to be composed of MacMahon’s, De Failly’s, and Douay’s corps, in all ten divisions, and should number 100,000 men; but it is now said not to have exceeded 40,000. Leaving Douay’s three divisions entirely out of the question, although one of them came to MacMahon’s assistance at or after Woerth, this would give less than 6,000 men per division (13 battalions), or barely 430 men per battalion, even if we do not count one single man for cavalry or artillery. Now, with all the credit we are inclined to give the Second Empire in the matter of jobbery and dilapidation, we cannot bring ourselves to believe that there should have been ninety battalions in the army the effective strength of which, twenty days after the calling out of the reserves and men on furlough, averaged 430 men instead of 900. As to the army of Metz it comprised, in the Guards and ten divisions of the line, 161 battalions; and if we take the 100,000 men given in the pamphlet as consisting of infantry only, without allowing anything for cavalry or artillery, that would still give not more than 620 men per battalion, which is undoubtedly below the reality. More wonderful still, after the retreat to Metz, this army was raised to 140,000 men by the arrival of two divisions of Canrobert and the reserves. The new additions thus consisted of 40,000 men. Now, as the “reserves” arriving at Metz after Spicheren could consist of cavalry and artillery only, the Guards having arrived there long before, they cannot be set down at more than 20,000 men, leaving another 20,000 for Canrobert’s two divisions, which, for twenty-five battalions, would give 800 men per battalion; that is to say, Canrobert’s battalions, which were the most unready of all, are made by this account to be far stronger than those which had been concentrated and got ready long before. But, if the army of Metz, before the battles of the 14th, 16th, and 18th of August, counted but 140,000 men, how comes it that after the losses of these three days — certainly not less than 50,000 men — after the losses of the later sorties, and the deaths from sickness, Bazaine could still hand over 173,000 prisoners to the Prussians? We have entered into these figures merely to show that they contradict each other and all the known facts of the campaign. They can be dismissed at once as totally incorrect.

Besides the army organization, there were other circumstances hampering the Imperial eagle’s flight towards victory. There was, firstly, “the bad weather;” then “the encumbrance of baggage;” and finally,

“the absolute ignorance in which we always remained concerning the position and the strength of the hostile armies.”

Three very untoward circumstances indeed. But the bad weather was there for both parties, for in all his devout references to Providence King William has not once mentioned the fact that the sun shone on the German positions while rain fell on those of the French. Nor were the Germans unencumbered with baggage. As to the ignorance of the whereabouts of the enemy, there exists a letter of Napoleon’s to his brother Joseph, who complained in Spain of the same hardship, and which is anything but complimentary to generals making such complaints. It says that if generals are ignorant of the whereabouts of the enemy it is their own fault, and proves that they do not understand their business. One sometimes doubts, in reading these excuses for bad generalship, whether this pamphlet is really written for grown-up people.

The account given of the part played by Louis Napoleon himself will not please his friends very much. After the battles of Woerth and Spicheren he “resolved immediately to lead back the army to the camp of Châlons.” But this plan, though first approved by the Council of Ministers, two days afterwards was considered likely “to produce a deplorable effect on the public mind;” and, on the reception of a letter from M. E. Ollivier (!) to that effect, the Emperor abandoned it. He leads the army to the left bank of the Moselle, and then — “not foreseeing a general battle, and only looking for partial engagements” — leaves it for Châlons. Scarcely is he gone when the battles of the 16th and 18th of August take place, and shut up in Metz Bazaine and his army. In the meantime, the Empress and the Ministry, exceeding their powers, and behind the Emperor’s back, convoke the Chamber; and, with the meeting of that eminently powerful body, the Corps Législatif of Arcadians, the fate of the Empire was scaled. The Opposition — there were twenty-five of them, you know — became all-powerful, and “paralyzed the patriotism of the majority and the progress of the Government” — which Government, we all recollect, was not that of mealy-mouthed Ollivier but of rough Palikao.

“From this period Ministers appeared to be afraid to pronounce the name of the Emperor; and he, who had quitted the army, and had only relinquished the command in order to resume the reins of government, soon discovered that it would be impossible for him to play out the part which belonged to him.”

In fact, he was made to see that he was virtually deposed, that he had become impossible. Most people with some self-respect, under the circumstances, would have abdicated. But no; his irresolution, to use the mildest possible expression, continues, and he follows MacMahon’s army, a mere clog, powerless to do good, but not to prevent its being done. The Government in Paris insist upon MacMahon making a move to relieve Bazaine. MacMahon refuses, as this would be tantamount to running his army into the jaws of perdition; Palikao insists.

“As to the Emperor, he made no opposition. It could not enter into his views to oppose the advice of the Government and of the Empress Regent, who had shown so much intelligence and energy under the greatest difficulties.”

We admire the meekness of the man who for twenty years had maintained that submission to his own individual will was the only road to salvation for France, and who now, when “a plan of campaign is imposed from Paris, contrary to the most elementary principles of the art of war,” makes no opposition, because it could never enter into his views to oppose the advice of the Empress Regent, who had, &c. &c.!

The description of the state of the army with which this fatal march was undertaken is an exact confirmation in every particular of our estimate of it at the time. There is only one redeeming feature in it. De Failly’s corps, during its retreat by forced marches, had at least managed to lose, without a fight, “almost all its baggage;” but the corps does not appear to have appreciated this advantage.

The army had gone to Reims on the 21st of August. On the 23rd it advanced as far as the river Suippe, at Bétheniville, on the direct road to Verdun and Metz. But commissariat difficulties compelled MacMahon to return without delay to a line of railway; consequently, on the 24th, a movement to the left is made and Rethel is reached. Here the whole of the 25th is spent in distributing provisions to the troops. On the 26th, head-quarters go to Tourteron, twelve miles further eastward; on the 27th, to Le Chene Populeux, another six miles. Here MacMahon, finding out that eight German army corps were closing in around him, gave orders to retreat again towards the west; but during the night positive orders from Paris arrived that he was to march to Metz.

“Unquestionably, the Emperor could have countermanded this order, but he was resolved not to oppose the decision of the Regency.”

This virtuous resignation compelled MacMahon to obey; and so he reached Stonne, six miles further east, on the 28th. But “these orders and counter-orders occasioned delays in the movements.”

In the meantime

“the Prussian army had made forced marches, while we, encumbered with baggage [again!], had occupied six days with fatigued troops in marching twenty-five leagues.”

Then came the battles of the 30th, 31st, and 1st of September, and the catastrophe, which is narrated very fully, but without giving any new particulars. And then comes the moral to be drawn from it: —

“Certainly the struggle was disproportionate; but it would have been longer sustained, and less disastrous for our arms, if military operations had not been unceasingly subordinated to political considerations.”

It is the fate of the Second Empire and everything connected with it to fall without being pitied. The commiseration which is the least that falls to the lot of great misfortunes does not, somehow or other, appear to be extended to it. Even the “honneur au courage malheureux” which you cannot nowadays use in French without a certain irony, seems to be denied to it. We doubt whether, under the circumstances, Napoleon will derive much benefit from a document according to which his eminent strategical insight is in every case set at nought by absurd orders, dictated by political motives, from the Government at Paris, while his power to cancel these absurd orders is again set at nought by his unlimited respect for the Regency of the Empress. The best that can be said of this uncommonly lame pamphlet is, that it does acknowledge how necessarily things must go wrong in war “if military operations be unceasingly subordinated to political considerations.”

The Fighting in France, November 11, 1870

During the first six weeks of the war, while German victories followed each other rapidly, while the expanding force of the invaders was as yet but incompletely spent, and while there were still French armies in the field to oppose them, the contest, generally speaking, remained one of armies. The population of the invaded districts took but little part in the fighting. True, there were a dozen or so of Alsatian peasants court-martialed and shot for participating in battles or for maiming the wounded; but a tragedy like that of Bazeilles was quite the exception. This is proved by nothing better than by the immense impression it made, and by the eager controversy carried on in the press as to the degree in which the treatment of that village was justifiable or otherwise. If it were advisable to reopen that controversy, we could prove, from the testimony of unimpeachable eye-witnesses, that inhabitants of Bazeilles did fall upon the Bavarian wounded, ill-treated them, and threw them into the flames of houses fired by shells; and that in consequence of this, General von der Tann gave the stupid and barbarous order to destroy the whole place — stupid and barbarous chiefly because it meant setting fire to houses in which his own wounded were lying by the hundred. But anyhow, Bazeilles was destroyed in the heat of battle, and in a contest the most exasperating — that of house and street fighting, where reports must be acted upon and decisions taken at once, and where people have no time to sift evidence and to hear counsel on both sides.

During the last six weeks the character of the war has undergone a remarkable change. The regular armies of France have disappeared; the contest is carried on by levies whose very rawness renders them more or less irregular. Wherever they attempt to come out in masses in the open, they are easily defeated; wherever they fight under shelter of barricaded and loopholed villages and towns, they find they can offer a serious resistance. They are encouraged in this kind of fighting, in night surprises, and other coups of petty warfare, by proclamations and orders of the Government, who also command the people of the district in which they operate to support them in every way. This resistance would be easily put down if the enemy disposed of forces sufficient for the occupation of the whole country. But this he did not up to the surrender of Metz. The force of the invaders was spent before Amiens, Rouen, Le Mans, Blois, Tours, and Bourges could be reached on the one hand, and Besançon and Lyons on the other. And that this force became spent so soon is in no small degree owing to this greater condensation of the resisting medium. The eternal four Uhlans, cannot now ride into a village or a town far outside their own lines and command absolute submission to their orders without risk of being caught or killed. Requisition columns have to be accompanied by an imposing force, and single companies or squadrons have to guard themselves well from night surprises when quartered in a village, and from ambushes when on the march. There is a belt of disputed ground all around the German positions, and it is just there that popular resistance is most severely felt. And to put down this popular resistance the Germans are having recourse to a code of warfare as antiquated as it is barbarous. They are acting upon the rule that every town or village where one or more of the inhabitants take part in the defence, fire upon their troops, or generally assist the French, is to be burned down; that every man taken in arms who is not, according to their notion, a regular soldier, is to be shot at once; and that where there is reason to believe that any considerable portion of the population of a town have been guilty of some such offence, all able-bodied men are to be massacred at once. This system has now been ruthlessly carried out for nearly six weeks, and is still in full force. You cannot open a German newspaper without stumbling over half a dozen reports of such military executions, which there pass quite as a matter of course, as simple proceedings of military justice carried out with wholesome severity by “honest soldiers” against “cowardly assassins and brigands.” There is no disorder of any kind, no promiscuous plunder, no violation of women, no irregularity. Nothing of the kind. It is all done systematically and by order; the doomed village is surrounded, the inhabitants turned out, the provisions secured, and the houses set fire to, while the real or suspected culprits are brought before a court-martial, when a short shrift and half a dozen bullets await them with unerring certainty. In Ablis, a village of 900 inhabitants, on the road to Chartres, a squadron of the 16th (Sleswig-Holstein) Hussars were surprised at night by French irregulars, and lost one half of their men; to punish this piece of insolence, the whole brigade of cavalry marched to Ablis and burned down the whole place; and two different reports, both from actors in the drama, assert that all able-bodied men were taken out from the inhabitants and shot down, or hacked to pieces without exception. This is but one out of very many cases. A Bavarian officer in the neighbourhood of Orléans writes that his detachment had burned down five villages in twelve days'; and it is no exaggeration to say that wherever the German flying columns are passing in the centre of France, their road but too often remains traced by fire and by blood.

Now it will scarcely suffice in 1870 to say that this is legitimate warfare, and that the interference of civilians or of anybody not properly recognized as a soldier is tantamount to brigandage, and may be put down by fire and sword. All this might apply in the time of Louis XIV and Frederick II, when there were no other contests but those of armies. But from the American war of independence down to the American war of secession, in Europe as well as in America, the participation of the populations in war has become not the exception but the rule. Wherever a people allowed itself to be subdued merely because its armies had become incapable of resistance it has been held up to universal contempt as a nation of cowards; and wherever a people did energetically carry out this irregular resistance, the invaders very soon found it impossible to carry out the old-fashioned code of blood and fire. The English in America, the French under Napoleon in Spain, the Austrians, 1848, in Italy and Hungary, were very soon compelled to treat popular resistance as perfectly legitimate, from fear of reprisals on their own prisoners. Not even the Prussians in Baden, 1849, or the Pope after Mentana, had the courage to shoot down indiscriminately their prisoners of war, irregulars and “rebels” though they were. There exist only two modern examples of the ruthless application of this antiquated code of “stamping out:” the suppression of the Sepoy mutiny by the English in India, and the proceedings of Bazaine and his French in Mexico.

Of all armies in the world, the very last that ought to renew such practices is the Prussian. In 1806 Prussia collapsed merely because there was not anywhere in the country a trace of that spirit of national resistance. After 1807, the reorganizers of the administration and of the army did everything in their power to revive it. At that time Spain showed the glorious example how a nation can resist an invading army. The whole of the military leaders of Prussia pointed out this example to their countrymen as the one to be followed. Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Clausewitz were all of one mind in this respect; Gneisenau even went to Spain himself to fight against Napoleon. The whole of the new military system then inaugurated in Prussia was an attempt to organize popular resistance to the enemy, at least as far as this was possible in an absolute monarchy. Not only was every able-bodied man to pass through the army and to serve in the landwehr up to his fortieth year; the lads between seventeen and twenty and the men between forty and sixty were to form part of the landsturm or levee en masse, which was to rise in the rear and on the flanks of the enemy, harass his movements, intercept his supplies and couriers, use whatever arms it could find, employ indiscriminately whatever means were at hand to annoy the invader — “the more effective these means the better” — and, above all,

“to wear no uniform of any kind, so that the landsturmers might at any time resume their character of civilians and remain unknown to the enemy.”

The whole of this “Landsturm Ordnung,” as the law of 1813 regarding it is called, is drawn up — and its author is no other than Scharnhorst, the organizer of the Prussian army — in this spirit of uncompromising national resistance, to which all means are justifiable and the most effective are the best. But then all this was to be done by the Prussians against the French, and if the French act in the same way towards the Prussians that is quite a different thing. What was patriotism in the one case becomes brigandage and cowardly assassination in the other.

The fact is, the present Prussian Government are ashamed of that old, half-revolutionary Landsturm Ordnung, and try to make it forgotten by their proceedings in France. But every act of wanton cruelty they get committed in France will more and more call it to memory; and the justifications made for such an ignoble mode of warfare will but tend to prove that If the Prussian army has immensely improved since Jena, the Prussian Government are rapidly ripening that same state of things which rendered Jena possible.

Notes on the War.-XXVII, November 16, 1870

Those who believed, with M. Gambetta, that the skilful and well-combined movements by which the Army of the Loire manoeuvred von der Tann’s Bavarians out of Orléans would be followed up at once by an advance on Paris have been doomed to disappointment. The engagement of Coulmiers, or whatever else it may hereafter be called, took place on the 9th, and up to the evening of the 13th the Bavarian outposts appear to have remained unmolested in front of Toury, only twenty-five miles from Orléans.

It redounds greatly to the credit of General d'Aurelle de Paladines that after his first success he not only had the sense, but also the moral strength, to stop in time. With M. Gambetta behind him, proclaiming to his men that they are on the road to Paris, that Paris awaits them and must be freed from the barbarians, it cannot have been an easy matter to keep back these young and half-disciplined troops, who are but too ready to cry “trahison” unless they are at once led against the enemy, and to run away when they are made seriously to feel that enemy’s presence. That d'Aurelle has made them stop on the road to Paris shows that his efforts to discipline them have not been unsuccessful, and that his first success has gained him their confidence. His dispositions for this first French victory were everything they should have been. Von der Tann cannot have had more than 25,000 men in the neighbourhood of Orléans, which exposed position he was allowed to continue to hold, in the consciousness that his seasoned troops would, under any circumstances, be able to fray themselves a road through no matter what number of the new levies opposed to them. D'Aurelle could operate against the Bavarians with at least fourfold their numbers, and he did what is usual in such a case: he turned their flanks and displayed, especially on their right rear, such a strength that von der Tann was at once compelled to fall back towards his supports. These Joined him at Toury on the 11th, or at latest the 12th; and they consisted of Wittich’s 21st division of North German infantry, Prince Albrecht’s division of cavalry, and the 13th Corps (17th North German division and Württemberg division). Thus a force of from 65,000 to 70,000 men at least is concentrated under the command of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg at Toury, and General d'Aurelle may well look at them twice before he ventures upon an attack on them, though they are commanded by a very common-place chief indeed.

But there are other motives besides this which must compel General d'Aurelle to pause before making any fresh movement. If his intention really be to come to the relief of Paris, he must know perfectly well that his own forces are not sufficient to effect this object unless at the same time a vigorous effort is made, from within, to second him. We know that General Trochu has picked out the most disciplined and best organized portion of his troops and formed of them what may be called the active army of Paris. Under the command of General Ducrot, they appeal — to be intended for those grand sorties without which the defence of a place like Paris is like a soldier fighting with his right arm tied up.

It is not perhaps a matter of accident that this reorganization of the Army of Paris coincides, in point of time, with the advance of the Army of the Loire. General Trochu and General d'Aurelle doubtless have attempted, by means of balloons and carrier pigeons, to arrange a combined movement, to be made at a time agreed upon beforehand; and, unless the Germans previously attack the Army of the Loire, we may expect a sortie on a large scale from Paris on or about the same time that d'Aurelle makes his next forward movement. That sortie would probably be made with at least the whole of Ducrot’s three corps, on the south side of the town, where communication with the Army of the Loire might, in case of success, be established, while on the north-east and north-west sides Trochu’s “Third Army” would make simulated attacks and diversions, supported by the fire of the forts, to prevent the investing army from sending reinforcements to the south. We may be sure, on the other hand, that all this is taken into account by General Moltke, and that he will not be caught napping. In spite of the great numerical superiority which the French will be able to bring into the field, we are decidedly of opinion that the difference in the quality of the troops and in the generalship will more than make up for this.

This attempt to free Paris from the grasp of the “barbarians” will have to be made very soon if it is to have any chance at all. Besides the five divisions of infantry which are opposed to the Army of the Loire, there are now before Paris sixteen divisions of infantry (the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 12th corps, the Guards, the 1st Bavarian Corps, the 21st division, and the division of landwehr of the Guards). This force must be, in Moltke’s eyes, quite sufficient to keep Paris effectively blockaded; otherwise he would have drawn towards Paris more troops than the 2nd Corps, out of those that became free by the surrender of Metz. And considering that its positions, facing Paris, are everywhere strongly entrenched, and will shortly be under the protection of tremendous siege batteries, such will no doubt be the case. But we are now beginning to receive news from Prince Frederick Charles, who after the capitulation of Metz had become invisible with three army corps (the 3rd, 9th, and 10th). The first glimpse we since then have had of his troops was the short piece of news that the “9th regiment” had had a brush with the Mobiles just outside Chaumont, in the Haute-Marne, on the 7th of November. The 9th belongs to the seventh brigade (of the Second) Corps which had already arrived before Paris, and the whole story became thereby unintelligible. Since then, it has been established that the telegram, by mistake, gave the ninth regiment instead of the ninth brigade, and this clears up the matter. The ninth brigade is the first of the Third Army Corps, and belongs therefore to the army of Prince Frederick Charles. The locality of the engagement, combined with the report generally accredited in military circles in Berlin that the Prince had been marching upon Troyes, which city he was said to have reached on the 7th or 8th, left but little doubt that he had taken the route we supposed the main body of his troops would take, viz. “to march from Metz by Chaumont and Auxerre, and to push forward in the direction of Bordeaux after having cleared the line of the Loire from Tours to Nevers.” We now learn that this army has occupied the line of the Yonne at Sens, about fifty miles from Gien on the Loire, and but thirty from Montargis, whence any French position to the north of Orléans could be taken in flank by one good day’s march. The detachments reported at Malesherbes and Nemours may have been sent by Prince Frederick Charles to feel for von der Tann’s left, or they may be flanking parties on the extreme left of the line of march of the 13th Corps. At any rate, we may now expect that the Prince will very soon establish his communications by flying columns with von der Tann at Toury, on the one hand, and Werder at Dijon on the other. If the Army of the Loire delays its attack until Prince Frederick Charles arrives within reach, it will have, besides the 70,000 men in its front, another 75,000 men on its right flank and rear, and all idea of relieving Paris will have to be abandoned. It will have enough to do to look after its own safety, and will have to recede, hopelessly, before that broad flood-wave of invasion which will then cover central France on a front extending from Chartres to Dijon.

Fortified Capitals, November 21, 1870

If there is any military question which the experience of the present war may be said to have finally settled, it is that of the expediency of fortifying the capital of a great State. Ever since the day when the fortification of Paris was resolved upon, the controversy as to the usefulness or otherwise, and even as to the possibility of defending such a vast fortress, has been going on in the military literature of all countries. Nothing could settle it but practical experience — the actual siege of Paris, the only fortified capital in existence; and though the real siege of Paris has not yet begun, the fortifications of Paris have rendered such immense services to France already that the question is as good as decided in their favour.

The dangerous proximity of Paris to the north-eastern frontier of France — a frontier, moreover, entirely deprived of any defensible line either of river or mountains — led, first, to the conquest of the nearest border-lands; secondly. to the construction of a triple belt of fortresses running from the Rhine to the North Sea; and, thirdly, to that continuous hankering after the whole of the left bank of the Rhine, which has at last brought France to her present position. The conquests were cut down and defined by the Treaties of 1814 and 1815, the fortresses were proved to be all but useless, and completely incapable of arresting large armies, by the two invasions of the same years; finally, the shouts for the Rhine were, in 1840, checked for a time by a European coalition against France.) Then it was that France, as became a great nation, attempted to counterbalance the dangerous position of Paris by the only means in her power — by fortifying it.

In this present war France was covered, on her most vulnerable side, by the neutrality of Belgium. Still, one short month sufficed to drive all her organized forces from the field. One half had surrendered themselves prisoners; the other was hopelessly shut up in Metz, their surrender but a question of weeks. Under ordinary circumstances, the war would have been at an end. The Germans would have occupied Paris and as much of the rest of France as they desired, and after the capitulation of Metz, if not before, peace would have been concluded. France has nearly all her fortresses close to the frontier: this belt of fortified towns once broken through on a front sufficiently wide for liberty of movement, the remaining fortresses on the border or the coast might be neglected, and the whole of the central country occupied; after which, the border fortresses would be easily brought to surrender one after another. Even for guerilla warfare fortresses in the interior, as safe centres of retreat, are necessary in cultivated countries. In the Peninsular War, the popular resistance of the Spaniards was rendered possible mainly by the fortresses. The French, in 1809, drove Sir John Moore’s English troops out of Spain; they were victorious everywhere in the field, and yet never conquered the country. The comparatively small Anglo-Portuguese army, on its reappearance, could not have faced them had it not been for the innumerable Spanish armed bands which, easily beaten in open battle, infested the flanks and rear of every French column, and held fast by far the greater portion of the invading army. And these bands could not have held out for any length of time had it not been for the great number of fortresses in the country; fortresses, mostly small and antiquated, but still requiring a regular siege to reduce them, and therefore safe retreats for these bands when attacked in the open field. Such fortresses being absent in France, even a guerrilla war could never be very formidable there, unless there were some other circumstances to make up for their absence. And one such circumstance is the fortification of Paris.

On the 2nd of September the last French army in the field capitulated. And to-day, on the 21st of November, nearly eleven weeks afterwards, almost one-half of all the German troops in France is still held fast around Paris, while the greater portion of the remainder are hurried forward from Metz to protect the investment of Paris against a newly-formed Army of the Loire, an army which, whatever its value may be, could not have even come into existence had it not been for the fortifications of Paris. These fortifications have been invested for just two months, and the preparations for the opening of the regular siege are not yet complete; that is to say, the siege of a fortress of the size of Paris, even if defended by none but new levies and a determined population, can begin only when that of a common fortress would have been long brought to a successful close. The event has proved that a town holding two millions of inhabitants can be provisioned almost easier than a smaller fortress exercising less central attraction upon the produce of the surrounding country; for although the provisioning of Paris was taken seriously in hand after the 4th of September, or a fortnight only before the investment was complete, Paris is not yet starved into submission after nine weeks’ blockading. In fact, the armies of France resisted but for one month; Paris has, already now, resisted for two months and still holds fast the main body of the invaders. Surely this is more than ever a fortress did before, and repays in full the outlay upon the works. And we must not forget, what we have more than once pointed out already, that the defence of Paris this time is carried on under quite abnormal conditions, because it has to do without an active field army. What would that resistance be, how would it have delayed, if not altogether prevented, the investment, how many more men of the invading armies would it have fettered around Paris, if MacMahon’s army had gone to the capital instead of to Sedan?

But this is not all. Not only has the defence of Paris given to France two months of breathing time, which, under less disastrous circumstances, would have been invaluable and may even now turn out so, but it has also given her the benefit of whatever chances political changes may bring on during the siege. We may say as long as we like that Paris is a fortress like any other, yet the fact remains that the actual siege of a place like Paris will produce far more excitement all over the world than a hundred sieges of minor places. The laws of warfare may be what they may, our modern consciousness refuses to acquiesce in having Paris treated as Strasbourg was. The neutrals, under such circumstances, may pretty safely be counted on for trying mediation; political jealousies against the conqueror are almost certain to crop up before the place is completely reduced; in fact, an operation of the magnitude and duration of the siege of Paris is as likely to be decided in the Cabinet of some non-combatant Power, by alliances and counter-alliances, as in the trenches by dismounting and breaching batteries. Of this we are about to witness an example perhaps. It is just possible that the sudden irruption upon Europe of the Eastern question may do for Paris what the Army of the Loire cannot do — save it from surrender and free it from blockade. If, as is but too probable, Prussia should be unable to clear herself from complicity — of whatever degree — with Russia, and if Europe be determined not to tolerate the Russian breach of faith, then it is of the utmost importance that France should not be completely prostrated and Paris not be held by the Prussians. It is therefore absolutely necessary that Prussia should be compelled at once to declare herself categorically, and that if she attempt to prevaricate, steps should be taken at once to strengthen the hopes and the resistance of Paris. Thirty thousand British soldiers landed at Cherbourg or Brest would form an ingredient which, added to the Army of the Loire, would give it a degree of steadiness unknown to it heretofore. The British infantry, by its uncommon solidity, even by its corresponding fault, its clumsiness in light infantry movements, is peculiarly adapted thus to steady newly-formed levies; it performed that duty admirably in Spain, under Wellington; it did a similar duty in all Indian wars as regards the less trustworthy native troops. Under such circumstances the influence of such a British army corps would far exceed that due to its mere numbers, as, indeed, has always been the case when a British army corps was thus employed. A couple of Italian divisions thrown towards Lyons and the Saône Valley, as the advanced guard of an Italian army, would soon attract Prince Frederick Charles, there is Austria; there are the Scandinavian kingdoms to menace Prussia on other fronts and attract her troops; Paris itself, on receiving such news, would certainly undergo almost any degree of starvation rather than surrender — and bread there seems to be plenty — and thus the fortifications of the town might actually, even in its present distress, save the country by having enabled it to hold out until help arrived.

Notes on the War.-XXVIII, November 23, 1870

If ever there was a chance of relief for Paris that chance existed during the last eight days. A resolute advance of the Army of the Loire, reinforced by all troops that could be brought up from the East of France, against Mecklenburg’s army of observation, combined with a sortie en masse made by the whole of Trochu’s disciplined forces, both attacks carried out at the same time and before Prince Frederick Charles could come up with the Second Army — this was the only plan which promised success. And if we look at the counter-dispositions of the Germans we can hardly help concluding that it had more chances of success than could be expected at first sight.

Before Paris there were last week seventeen German infantry divisions, including the Württembergers. who had not left their post between the Seine arid the Marne, as has been erroneously reported at first. The army of observation, under Mecklenburg, counted two North German and two Bavarian divisions, besides cavalry. After the battle of Coulmiers, D'Aurelle, instead of following up the Bavarian rear, marched north and west in the direction of Chartres, where, for the present, he became lost to our eyes. The Germans followed this movement by a change of front towards the west, von der Tann’s Bavarians holding the country from Etampes to Ablis, while the 17th and 22nd divisions marched towards Chartres and Dreux. The latter town had, in the meantime, been reoccupied by French troops; it was supposed that D'Aurelle, reinforced by Kératry and other forces, was trying to turn the army of observation and to arrive suddenly upon the army blockading Paris. So serious did this attempt appear to Count Moltke that he despatched at once the nearest troops, portions of the 5th and 12th Corps, to the support of Mecklenburg, and ordered the 2nd Bavarian and 6th North German Corps, the 21st, and the Württemberg divisions to hold themselves in readiness to march south if required. The reinforcements already sent enabled Mecklenburg to retake Dreux on the 17th, and to follow the enemy up, on the 18th, beyond Châteauneuf. What French troops they were who were here defeated it is impossible to tell. They may have been portions of the Army of the Loire, but they certainly were not the Army of the Loire itself. Since then there is no news whatever of further French movements; while time runs on and Prince Frederick Charles draws nearer and nearer, and ought, by now, to be within supporting distance of Mecklenburg’s left wing.

There seems to be little doubt that a great opportunity has been missed by the French. The advance of the Army of the Loire made such a powerful impression upon Moltke that lie did not hesitate a moment to give orders which implied, if it became necessary to execute them, nothing less than the raising of the investment of Paris. The portions of the 5th and 12th Corps, which advanced towards Dreux, we will set down at not more than a brigade each, or a division in all; but besides them, two Bavarian, three North German and the Württemberg divisions were told off to hold themselves ready to march against D'Aurelle at the first notice. Thus, out of the seventeen divisions before Paris, seven at least were to march against the relieving army in case of need, and these seven just those which occupied the ground to the south of Paris. The Crown Prince would have retained but the 2nd and greater part of the 5th Corps, wherewith to guard the long extent of ground from the Seine at Choisy, by Versailles, to St. Germain; while the Guards, the 4th, and greater part of the 12th Corps would have had to hold the whole of the northern line from St. Germain round by Gonesse and St. Brice, across the Marne, again to the Seine above Paris. Thus ten divisions of infantry would have held a line of investment of forty miles, or four miles of front for each division. Such a scattering of forces would have reduced the investment to a mere line of observation; and Trochu, with eight divisions under Ducrot and seven more, in his Third Army, under his own immediate, command, could have outnumbered his opponents at least three to one on any point he might have chosen for an attack. With such odds victory ought to have been certain to him. He could have pierced the lines of the Germans, seized upon and destroyed their siege parks, ammunitions, and stores, and caused them such losses in men that a close investment, much less a siege, of Paris would have been rendered impossible for some time to come.

So far, we have merely considered Trochu’s chances, independent of those of the Army of the Loire. It is as good as certain that the latter would have been no match for the eleven German divisions told off against it, in case these eleven divisions were all concentrated. But the chances were much against that eventuality. It is likely enough that a bold and quick attack by D'Aurelle, combined with a large sortie made by Trochu at the same time, would have carried disorder into Moltke’s arrangements. None of the corps which Trochu happened to attack could have been spared to march off against D'Aurelle. Thus it might remain a matter of accident which of the two French chiefs might have to fight the bulk of the Germans; but the fact remained that their forces together were far superior in numbers to anything the Germans could bring against them. From Paris to Dreux the distance is less than fifty miles. A simultaneous attack upon the Germans from both ends, and with all available forces, would, in all probability, find some of their divisions on the march between the two end-points, and therefore not immediately available. If the attack were really simultaneous, an almost crushing numerical superiority on the French side, either at the Dreux end or at the Paris end, was a positive certainty; and therefore it was almost impossible to miss at least one victory. We know very well what great drawbacks and difficulties attach to combined movements, and how often they miscarry. But in this case it is to be observed that no other condition of success was necessary than that both attacks should be made at exactly the same time. And, further, it is clear that with a distance of forty miles from one army to the other, the Prussians had to combine their movements too.

It is impossible to explain why neither D'Aurelle nor Trochu has done anything to take advantage of the chance thus offered to them. The slight engagements near Dreux and Châteauneuf were certainly not of a nature to drive back the Army of the Loire; there were not more than three German divisions engaged in them, while the Army of the Loire counts at least eight. Whether D'Aurelle is awaiting further reinforcements; whether his pigeon-messages have miscarried; whether there are differences between him and Trochu, we cannot tell. Anyhow, this delay is fatal to

their cause. Prince Frederick Charles keeps marching on, and may be by this time so near to the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg’s army that he can co-operate, and the six divisions from before Paris can be spared. And from the day when that takes place, the two French generals will have lost another chance of victory — may be, their last one.

The Military Situation in France, November 26, 1870

Yesterday we called attention to the fact that since the surrender at Sedan the prospects of France had much improved, and that even the fall of Metz, and the setting free thereby of some 150,000 German soldiers, does not now look the crushing disaster it appeared to be at first. If we recur to the same subject to-day, it is in order to prove still more, by a few military details, the correctness of this view.

The positions of the German armies on the 24th of November, as far as they can be made out, were as follows: —

Investing Paris: The Third Army (2nd, 5th, 6th, and 2nd Bavarian corps, the 21st, the Württemberg, and Landwehr Guard divisions) and the Fourth Army (4th, 12th, and Guards corps); in all seventeen divisions.

Army of Observation, protecting this investment: To the north, the First Army (1st and 8th corps); to the west and south-west, Duke of Mecklenburg’s army (17th and 22nd divisions, and 1st Bavarian Corps); to the south, the Second Army (3rd, 9th, and 10th corps, and a division of landwehr, a detachment of which was so severely handled at Chatillon by Ricciotti Garibaldi) 104; in all fifteen divisions.

On special duty, in the south-east of France, the 14th Corps (Werder’s, consisting of two divisions and a half), and 15th Corps; in Metz and about Thionville, the 7th Corps; on the line of communication, at least a division and a half of landwehr; in all eight divisions at least.

Of these forty divisions of infantry, the first seventeen are at present fully engaged before Paris; the last eight show by their immobility that they have as much work cut out for them as they can manage. There remain disposable for the field the fifteen divisions composing the three armies of observation, and representing with cavalry and artillery a total force of some 200,000 combatants at most.

Now, before the 9th of November, there appeared to be no serious obstacle to prevent this mass of men from overrunning the greater part of central and even southern France. But since then things have changed considerably. And it is not so much the fact of von der Tann having been beaten and compelled to retreat, or that of D'Aurelle having shown his ability to handle his troops well, which has inspired us with a greater respect for the Army of the Loire than we confess we had up to that day; it is chiefly the energetic measures which Moltke took to meet its expected march on Paris which have made that army appear in quite a different light. Not only did he find it necessary to hold in readiness against it, even at the risk of raising de facto the investment of Paris, the greater portion of the blockading forces on the south side of the town, but he also changed at once the direction of march of the two armies arriving from Metz, so as to draw them closer to Paris, and to have the whole of the German forces concentrated around that city; and we now hear that, moreover, steps were taken to surround the siege park with defensive works. Whatever other people may think, Moltke evidently does not consider the Army of the Loire an armed rabble, but a real, serious, redoubtable army.

The previous uncertainty as to the character of that army resulted to a great extent from the reports of the English correspondents at Tours. There appears to be not one military man among them capable of distinguishing the characteristics by which an army differs from a mob of armed men. The reports varied from day to day regarding discipline, proficiency in drill, numbers, armament, equipment, artillery, transport — in short, regarding everything essential to form an opinion. We all know the immense difficulties under which the new army had to be formed: the want of officers, of arms, of horses, of all kinds of Matériel, and especially the want of time. The reports which came to hand, principally dwelt upon these difficulties; and thus, the Army of the Loire was generally underrated by people whose sympathies do not run away, with their judgment.

Now the same correspondents are unanimous in its praise. It is sale, to be better officered and better disciplined than the armies which succumbed at Sedan and ill Metz. This is no doubt the case to a certain extent. There is evidently a far better spirit pervading it than ever was to be found in the Bonapartist armies; a determination to do the best for the country, to co-operate, to obey orders on that account. Then this army has learned again one very important thing which Louis Napoleon’s army had quite forgotten — light infantry duty, the art of protecting flanks and rear from surprise, of feeling for the enemy, surprising his detachments, procuring information and prisoners. The Times’ correspondent with the Duke of Mecklenburg gives proofs of that. it is now the Prussians who cannot learn the whereabouts of their enemy. and have to grope in the dark; formerly it was quite the, reverse. An army which has learned that has learned a great deal. Still, we must not forget that the Army of the Loire as well as its sister Armies of the West and North has still to prove its mettle in a general engagement and against something like equal numbers. But, upon the whole, it promises well, and there are Circumstances which make it probable that even a great defeat will not affect it as seriously as such an event does most young armies.

The fact is that the brutalities and cruelties of the Prussians, instead of stamping out popular resistance, have redoubled its energies; so much so that the Prussians seem to have found out their mistake, and these burnings of villages and massacres of peasants are now scarcely ever heard of. But this treatment has had its effect, and every day the guerilla warfare takes larger dimensions. When we read in The Times the reports about Mecklenburg’s advance towards Le Mans, with no enemy in sight, no regular force offering resistance in the field, but cavalry and francs-tireurs hovering about the flanks, no news as to the whereabouts of the French troops, and the Prussian troops kept close together in pretty large bodies, we cannot help being reminded of the marches of Napoleon’s marshals in Spain, or of Bazaine’s troops in Mexico. And, that spirit of popular resistance once roused, even armies of 200,000 men do not go very far towards the occupation of a hostile country. They soon arrive at the point beyond which their detachments become weaker than what the defence can oppose to them; and it depends entirely upon the energy of popular resistance how soon that line shall be reached. Thus even a defeated army soon finds a safe place from the pursuit of an enemy if only the people of the country arise; and this may turn out to be the case now in France. And if the population in the districts occupied by the enemy should rise, or merely his lines of communication be repeatedly broken, the limit beyond which the invasion becomes powerless will be still more contracted. We should not wonder, for instance, if Mecklenburg’s advance, unless powerfully supported by Prince Frederick Charles, turned out to have been pushed too far even now.

For the present everything of course hinges upon Paris. If Paris hold out another month — and the reports on the state of provisions inside do not at all exclude that chance — France may possibly have an army in the field large enough, with the aid of popular resistance, to raise the investment by a successful attack upon the Prussian communications. The machinery for organizing armies appears to be working pretty well in France by this time. There are more men than are wanted; thanks to the resources of modern industry and the rapidity of modern communications, arms are forthcoming in unexpectedly large quantities; 400,000 rifles have arrived from America alone; artillery is manufactured in France with a rapidity hitherto quite unknown. Even officers are found, or trained, somehow. Altogether, the efforts which France has made since Sedan to reorganize her national defence are unexampled in history, and require but one element for almost certain success — time. If Paris holds out but one month more, that will go much towards it. And if Paris should not be provisioned for that length of time, Trochu may attempt to break through the investing lines with such of his troops as may be fit for the work; and it would be bold to say, now, that he cannot possibly succeed in it. If he should succeed, Paris would still absorb a garrison of at least three Prussian army corps to keep it quiet, so that Trochu might have set free more Frenchmen than the surrender of Paris would set free Germans. And, whatever the fortress of Paris can do if defended by Frenchmen, it is evident that it could never be successfully held by a Gerinan force against French besiegers. ‘There would be as many men required to keep the people down within as to man the ramparts to keep off the attack from without. Thus the fall of Paris may, but does not of necessity, imply the fall of France.

It is a bad time just now for speculating on the probability of this or that event in the war. We have an approximative knowledge of one fact only — the strength of the Prussian armies. Of another, the strength, numerical and intrinsic, of the French forces, we know but little. And, moreover, there are now moral factors at work which are beyond all calculation, and of which we can only say that they are all of them favourable to France and unfavourable to Germany. But this much appears certain, that the contending forces are more equally balanced just now than they ever have been since Sedan, and that a comparatively weak reinforcement of trained troops to the French might restore the balance altogether.

Notes on the War.-XXIX, December 02, 1870

The long-expected storm has broken out at last. After a prolonged period of marching and manoeuvring on both sides, varied by skirmishes and guerilla fighting only, the war has entered upon another of those critical periods in which blow follows blow. On the 27th of November the French Army of the North was defeated before Amiens; on the 28th a considerable portion of the Army of the Loire was beaten by Prince Frederick Charles at Beaune-la-Rolande; on the 29th Trochu made an unsuccessful sortie on the south side of Paris, and on the 30th he appears to have attacked with all his available forces the Saxons and Württembergers investing Paris on the north-east side.

These different actions are the result of combined operations, such as we repeatedly pointed out as offering the only chance of success to the French. If the Army of the North, with inferior numbers, could hold Manteuffel’s two corps in check so as to prevent him from reinforcing the Crown Prince of Saxony in his lines round the north side of Paris, then that army would have been well employed. But this was not the case. Its advance in the open country was soon stopped by inferior numbers of Prussians; for it appears all but certain, on a comparison of the various reports, that Manteuffel had only one of his corps engaged in the battle. The Army of the North would have been better employed either by sending its field troops down south to Le Mans by rail, or by constantly harassing Manteuffel’s outposts and detachments, but refusing battle except under the walls of one of the numerous fortresses in the North which form its base of operations. But in the present state of France, and with the young soldiers that form her armies, a General cannot always enter upon a retreat even if that be strategically necessary: such a course might demoralize his troops even more than a thorough defeat. In the present case, the Army of the North finds a safe retreat in its fortresses, where it can re-form, and where it would scarcely suit Moltke to send Manteuffel after it just now. But, at the same time, Manteuffel is now free to move in any other direction, and if, as is reported from Lille (though the report is denied’), he has again evacuated Amiens and turned in haste towards Paris, we cannot but confess that the Army of the North has failed in its mission.

On the west, the 21st French Corps at Le Mans, and the 22nd (late Kératry’s) in the camp of Conlie, have so far succeeded in drawing the troops of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg a long way from Paris without exposing themselves to any serious defeat. Our supposition that the advance of these German troops had been pushed almost too far seems confirmed by the unanimous French reports that they have again evacuated the positions lately taken up east and south-east of Le Mans, which have been reoccupied by the French. The latter, however, do not appear to have used their regular forces in a very energetic pursuit of the enemy, as we do not hear of any engagements of importance; and thus the Army of the West has not succeeded any more than that of the North in holding fast the troops opposed to it. Where it is, and what it is doing, we are not told; it may be that the sudden quarrel between Kératry and Gambetta had lamed its movements just at the most decisive moment. At all events, if it could neither beat Mecklenburg’s troops nor keep them engaged, it would have acted more wisely in sending such of its troops as are equipped and organized for a campaign by rail towards the Army of the Loire, so as to make the chief attack with concentrated forces.

This chief attack could only be made by the Army of the Loire, being the main body of all the French troops now in the field, and could only be directed against Prince Frederick Charles, his army being the most numerous of the three which cover the investment of Paris. The Army of the Loire is reported to consist of the 15th, 16th, 17th, and 19th French corps which had been in front of Orléans for some time and the 18th (now Bourbaki’s) and 20th in reserve behind the Loire. As the 18th and 20th were both engaged — wholly or in part — on the 28th, they must have passed the Loire before that day, and thus the whole of these six corps must have been available for an attack upon the Second German Army. A French corps, in this war, has always been composed of from three to four divisions of infantry. According to an ordre de bataille published by a Vienna military paper, the Kamerad, about a fortnight ago, the 15th Corps numbered five brigades in two divisions; the 16th, four brigades in two divisions; the 18th, ten brigades in three divisions. Even if we do not go by the report of the Journal de Bruxelles, which gives to the Army of the Loire the full complement of eighteen divisions of infantry (or three per corps), as a good many of these must still be in course of formation, there is no doubt that the attack on the 28th might have been made with twelve or fifteen divisions instead of five or six at most. It is characteristic of the troops composing the Army of the Loire that they were defeated by greatly inferior numbers, only three divisions (the two of the 10th Corps and the 5th) of infantry, or less than one-half of the Second Army, having been engaged against them. Anyhow their defeat must have been very severe; not only the German reports tend to show it, but also the fact that the Army of the Loire has not since attempted a fresh attack with more concentrated forces.

From these various transactions it results that the attempt to relieve Paris from without has for the present failed. It failed, firstly, because the inestimable chances of the week preceding the arrival of the First and Second German Armies were allowed to pass away; and, secondly, because the attacks, when they were made, were made without the necessary energy and concentration of forces. The young troops forming the new armies of France cannot, at first, expect success against the seasoned soldiers who oppose them, unless they are matched two against one; and it is therefore doubly faulty to lead them to battle without having taken care that every man, horse, and gun that can be had is actually sent on to the battle-field.

On the other hand, we do not expect that the defeats of Amiens and Beaune-la-Rolande will have any other great effect than that of frustrating the relief of Paris. The lines of retreat of the Armies of the West and of the Loire are perfectly safe, unless the grossest blunders are committed. By far the greater portion of these two armies has not taken part in the defeat. The extent to which the German troops opposing them can follow them up depends upon the energy of popular resistance and guerilla warfare — an element which the Prussians have a peculiar knack of arousing wherever they go. There is no fear now of Prince Frederick Charles marching as unopposed from Orléans to Bordeaux as the Crown Prince marched from Metz to Reims. With the broad extent of ground which must now be securely occupied before any further advance southward (other than by large flying columns) can be made, the seven divisions of Prince Frederick Charles will soon be spread out far and wide, and their invading force completely spent. What France requires is time, and, with the spirit of popular resistance once roused, she may yet get that time. The armaments carried on during the last three months must be everywhere approaching completion, and the additional number of fighting men which every fresh week renders disposable must be constantly increasing for some time.

As to the two sorties from Paris, the news received up to the moment of writing are too contradictory and too vague for any definite opinion to be formed. It appears, however, upon Trochu’s own showing, that the results obtained up to the evening of the 30th were not at all of a kind to justify the shouts of victory raised at Tours. The points, then, still held by the French south of the Marne are all protected by the fire of the Paris forts; and the only place which they at one time held outside the range of these forts — Mont Mesly — they had to abandon again. It is more than probable that fighting will have been renewed yesterday before Paris, and to-day, perhaps, near Orléans and Le Mans; at all events, a very few days must now decide this second crisis of the war which, in all probability, will settle the fate of Paris.

Notes on the War.-XXX, December 03, 1870

The Second Army of Paris began its offensive movements on the 29th of November by a sortie from the southern front of the town, in the direction of L'Hay and Choisy-le-Roi. According to the Prussian accounts, it was the First Corps of Ducrot’s army, under Vinoy, which here attacked the Sixth Prussian Corps under Tümpling. This attack appears to have been a mere feint to alarm the Prussians, and to induce them to strengthen this side by which the besieged could, if successful, join the Army of the Loire on the shortest road. Otherwise, Vinoy would, no doubt, have been supported by other corps, and would have lost more than a couple of hundred in killed and wounded, and a hundred men in prisoners. The real attack was opened on the following morning. Ducrot this time advanced on the right bank of the Seine, near its junction with the Marne, while a second sortie on the left bank was directed against Tümpling, and false attacks west of Saint Denis against the 4th and Guard Corps. What troops were used for these false attacks we do not know; but an official French account says that the sortie against Tümpling was made by Admiral De La Ronciere Le Noury. This officer commands one of the seven divisions of the Third Army of Paris which remains under Trochu’s direct command; it is therefore likely that all the secondary attacks were entrusted to this army, so as to leave the whole of Ducrot’s right divisions available for the real attack on the Marne.

This attack again had to be made in two divergent directions. One portion of the troops necessarily was directed eastwards towards Chelles, along the right bank of the Marne, in order to keep off the 12th or Saxon Corps which invests the east side of Paris. This was another subordinate attack; we hear very little of its history except that the Saxons profess to have maintained their position, which they probably did. The main body of Ducrot’s troops, however, Renault’s Second Corps in front, passed the Marne on eight bridges, and attacked the three Württemberg brigades which held the space between the Marne and Seine. As has been already pointed out, the Marne, before joining the Seine, forms by its course an immense S, the upper or northern bend approaching Paris and the lower receding from it. Both these bends are commanded by the fire of the forts; but, while the upper or advancing one favours a sortie by its configuration, the lower or receding one is completely commanded by the ground on the left bank as well as by the forts, and the river moreover, both from the line it takes and from its many branches, is unfavourable to the construction of bridges under fire. The greater part of this bend appears to have remained, on that account, a kind of neutral ground, on each side of which the real fighting took place.

The troops intended for the western attack advanced under the protection of the fire of Fort Charenton and the redoubt of La Gravelle, in the direction of Mesly and Bonneuil. Between these two places there is a solitary hill, commanding the surrounding plain by fully a hundred feet, called Mont Mesly, and necessarily the first object of the French advance. The force told off for this purpose is put down in a telegram from General Obernitz, commanding the Württemberg division, as “a division;” but as it at first drove in the 2nd and 3rd Würtemberg brigades who opposed it and could not be repelled until reinforcements had come to hand, and as it is moreover evident that Ducrot, who had troops enough in hand, would not make such an important attack with two brigades only, we may safely assume that this is another of the too many cases where the word Abtheilung which means any subdivision of an army, is mistranslated by “division,” which means a particular subdivision consisting of two or at most three brigades. Anyhow, the French carried Mont Mesly and with it the villages at its foot, and if they could have held and entrenched it, they would have obtained a result worth the day’s fighting. But reinforcements arrived in the shape of Prussian troops from the Second Corps, namely the seventh brigade; the lost positions were reconquered and the French driven back under the shelter of Fort Charenton.

Further to their left the French attempted the second attack. Covered by the fire of the Redoute de la Faisanderie and of Fort Nogent, they passed the Marne at the upper bend of the S, and took the villages of Brie and Champigny, which mark its two open ends. The real position of the 1st Württemberg Brigade, which held this district, lay a little to the rear, on the edge of the high ground stretching from Villiers to Coeuilly. Whether the French ever took Villiers is doubtful; King William says yes, General Obernitz says no. Certain it is that they did not hold it, and that the advance beyond the immediate range of the forts was repelled.

The result of this day’s fighting of Ducrot’s army, “with its back to the Marne,” that is, south of it, is thus summed up in the French official despatch: —

“The army then crossed the Marne by eight bridges, and maintained the positions taken, after capturing two guns.”

That is to say, it retreated again to the right or northern bank of the river, where it “maintained” some positions or other, which were, of course, “taken” by it, but not from the enemy. Evidently, the men who manufacture bulletins for Gambetta are still the same who did that kind of work for Napoleon.

On the 1st of December the French gave another sign that they considered the sortie as defeated. Although the Moniteur announced that on that day the attack from the south was to be made under the command of General Vinoy, we hear from Versailles, December 1 (time of day not stated), that no movement had been made by the French on that day; on the contrary, they had asked for an armistice to allow them to attend to the killed and wounded on the battlefield between the positions of both armies. Had they considered themselves in a position to reconquer that battlefield, they would no doubt have renewed the struggle at once. There can be, then, no reasonable doubt that this first sortie of Trochu’s has been beaten off, and by considerably inferior numbers too. We may assume that he will soon renew his efforts. We know too little of the way in which this first attempt was managed to be able to judge whether he may then have a better chance; but if he be again driven back, the effect upon both the troops and the population of Paris must be very demoralizing.

In the meantime the Army of the Loire, as we expected, has been stirring again. The engagements near Loigny and Patay, reported from Tours, are evidently the same as referred to in a telegram from Munich, according to which von der Tann was successful west of Orleans. In this case, too, both parties claim the victory. We shall probably hear more from this quarter in a day or two; and as we are still in the dark about the relative positions of the combatants, it would be idle to prognosticate.

The Chances of the War, December 08, 1870

The last defeat of the French Army of the Loire and the retreat of Ducrot behind the Marne — supposing that movement to be as decisive as was represented on Saturday — finally settle the fate of the first combined operation for the relief of Paris. It has completely miscarried, and people begin again to ask whether this new series of misfortunes does not prove the inability of the French for further successful resistance — whether it would not be better to give up the game at once, surrender Paris, and sign the cession of Alsace and Lorraine.

The fact is, people have lost all remembrance of a real war. The Crimean, the Italian, and the Austro-Prussian war were all of them mere conventional wars — wars of Governments which made peace as soon as their military machinery had broken down or become worn out. A real war, one in which the nation itself participates, we have not seen in the heart of Europe for a couple of generations. We have seen it in the Caucasus, in Algeria, where fighting lasted more than twenty years with scarcely any interruption; we should have seen it in Turkey if the Turks had been allowed, by their allies, to defend themselves in their own home — spun way. But the fact is, our conventionalities allow to barbarians only the right of actual self-defence; we expect that civilized States will fight according to etiquette, and that the real nation will not be guilty of such rudeness as to go on fighting after the official nation has had to give in.

The French are actually committing this piece of rudeness. To the disgust of the Prussians, who consider themselves the best judges in military etiquette, they have been positively fighting for three months after the official army of France was driven from the field; and they have even done what their official army never could do in tins campaign. They have obtained one important success and numerous small ones; and have taken guns, convoys, prisoners from their enemies. It is true they have just suffered a series of severe reverses; but these are as nothing when compared with the fate their late official army was in the habit of meeting with at the hands of the same opponents. It is true their first attempt to free Paris from the investing army, by an attack from within and from without at the same time, has signally failed; but is it a necessary sequel that there are no chances left for a second attempt?

The two French armies, that of Paris as well as that of the Loire, have both fought well, according to the testimony of the Germans themselves. They have certainly been beaten by inferior numbers, but that is what was to be expected from young and newly organized troops confronting veterans. Their tactical movements under fire, according to a correspondent in The Daily News, who knows what he writes about, were rapid and steady; if they lacked precision that was a fault which they had in common with many a victorious French army. There is no mistake about it: these armies have proved that they are armies, and will have to be treated with due respect by their opponents. They are no doubt composed of very different elements. There are battalions of the line, containing old soldiers in various proportions; there are Mobiles of all degrees of military efficiency, from battalions well officered, drilled, and equipped to battalions of raw recruits, still ignorant of the elements of the “manual and platoon;” there are francs-tireurs of all sorts, good, bad, and indifferent — probably most of them the latter. But there is, at all events, a nucleus of good fighting battalions, around which the others may be grouped; and a month of desultory fighting, with avoidance of crushing defeats, will make capital soldiers out of the whole of them. With better strategy, they might even now have been successful; and all the strategy required for the moment is to delay all decisive fighting, and that, we think, can be done.

But the troops concentrated at Le Mans and near the Loire are far from representing the whole armed force of France. There are at least 200,000 to 300,000 more men undergoing the process of organization at points farther away to the rear. Every day brings these nearer to the fighting standard. Every day must send, for a time at least, constantly increasing numbers of fresh soldiers to the front. And there are plenty more men behind them to take their places. Arms and ammunition are coming in every day in large quantities: with modern gun factories and cannon foundries, with telegraphs and steamers, and the command of the sea, there is no fear of their falling short. A month’s time will also make an immense difference in the efficiency of these men; and if two months were allowed them, they would represent armies which might well trouble Moltke’s repose.

Behind all these more or less regular forces there is the great landsturm, the mass of the people whom the Prussians have driven to that war of self-defence which, according to the father of King William, sanctions every means. When Fritz marched from Metz to Reims, from Reims to Sedan, and thence to Paris, there was not a word said about a rising of the people. The defeats of the Imperial armies were accepted with a kind of stupor; twenty years of Imperial régime had used the mass of the people to dull and passive dependence upon official leadership. There were here and there peasants who participated in actual fighting, as at Bazeilles, but they were the exception. But no sooner had the Prussians settled down round Paris, and placed the surrounding country under a crushing system of requisitions, carried out with no consideration whatever — no sooner had they begun to shoot francs-tireurs and burn villages which had given aid to the latter — and no sooner had they refused the French offers of peace and declared their intention to carry on a war of conquest, when all this changed. The guerilla war broke out all around them, thanks to their own severities, and they have now but to advance into a new department in order to raise the landsturm far and wide. Whoever reads in the German papers the reports of the advance of Mecklenburg’s and Frederick Charles’s armies will see at a glance what an extraordinary effect this impalpable, ever disappearing and reappearing, but ever impeding insurrection of the people has upon the movements of these armies. Even their numerous cavalry, to which the French have scarcely any to oppose, is neutralized to a great extent by this general active and passive hostility of the inhabitants.

Now let us examine the position of the Prussians. Of the seventeen divisions before Paris, they certainly cannot spare a single one while Trochu may repeat any day his sorties en masse. Manteuffel’s four divisions will have more work than they can execute in Normandy and Picardy for some time to come, and they may even be called away from them. Werder’s two divisions and a half cannot get on beyond Dijon, except on raids, and this will last until at least Belfort shall have been reduced. The long thin line of communication marked by the railway from Nancy to Paris cannot send a single man out of those told off to guard it. The 7th Corps has plenty to do with garrisoning the Lorraine fortresses and besieging Longwy and Montmédy. There remain for field operations against the bulk of central and southern France the eleven infantry divisions of Frederick Charles and Mecklenburg, certainly not more than 150,000 men, including cavalry.

The Prussians thus employ about six-and-twenty divisions in holding Alsace, Lorraine, and the two long lines of communication to Paris and Dijon, and in investing Paris, and still they hold directly perhaps not one-eighth, and indirectly certainly not more than one-fourth, of France. For the rest of the country they have fifteen divisions left, four of which are under Manteuffel. How far these will be able to go depends entirely upon the energy of the popular resistance they may find. But with all their communications going by way of Versailles — for the march of Frederick Charles has not opened to him a new line viâ Troyes — and in the midst of an insurgent country, these troops will have to spread out on a broad front, to leave detachments behind to secure the roads and keep down the people; and thus they will soon arrive at a point where their forces become so reduced as to be balanced by the French forces opposing them, and then the chances are again favourable to the French; or else these German armies will have to act as large flying columns, marching up and down the country without definitely occupying it; and in that case the French regulars can give way before them for a time, and will find plenty of opportunities to fall on their flanks and rear.

A few flying corps, such as Blücher sent in 1813 round the flanks of the French, would be very effective if employed to interrupt the line of communication of the Germans. That line is vulnerable almost the whole of its length from Paris to Nancy. A few corps, each consisting of one or two squadrons of cavalry and some sharpshooters, falling upon that line, destroying the rails, tunnels, and bridges, attacking trains, &c., would go far to recall the German cavalry from the front where it is most dangerous. But the regular “Hussar dash” does certainly not belong to the French.

All this is on the supposition that Paris continues to hold out. There is nothing to compel Paris to give in, so far, except starvation. But the news we had in yesterday’s Daily News from a correspondent inside that city would dispel many apprehensions if correct. There are still 25,000 horses besides those of the army in Paris, which at 500 kilos each would give 6¼ kilo, or 14lb. of meat for every inhabitant, or nearly a ¼lb. per day for two months. With that, bread and wine ad libitum, and a good quantity of salt meat and other eatables, Paris may well hold out until the beginning of February. And that would give to France two months, worth more to her, now, than two years in time of peace. With anything like intelligent and energetic direction, both central and local, France, by then, ought to be in a position to relieve Paris and to right herself.

And if Paris should fall? It will be time enough to consider this chance when it becomes more probable. Anyhow, France has managed to do without Paris for more than two months, and may fight on without her. Of course, the fall of Paris may demoralize the spirit of resistance, but so may, even now, the unlucky news of the last seven days. Neither the one nor the other need do so. If the French entrench a few good manoeuvring positions, such as Nevers, near the junction of the Loire and Allier — if they throw up advanced works round Lyons so as to make it as strong as Paris, the war may be carried on even after the fall of Paris; but it is not yet time to talk of that.

Thus we make bold to say that, if the spirit of resistance among the people does not flag, the position of the French, even after their recent defeats, is a very strong one. With the command of the sea to import arms, with plenty of men to make soldiers of, with three months — the first and worst three months — of the work of organization behind them, and with a fair chance of having one month more, if not two, of breathing-time allowed them — and that at a time when the Prussians show signs of exhaustion — with all that, to give in now would be rank treason. And who knows what accidents may happen, what further European complications may occur, in the meantime? Let them fight on, by all means.

Prussian Francs-Tireurs, December 09, 1870

For some time past the reports of village-burning by the Prussians in France had pretty nearly disappeared from the press. We began to hope that the Prussian authorities had discovered their mistake and stopped such proceedings in the interest of their own troops. We were mistaken. The papers again teem with news about the shooting of prisoners and the destroying of villages. The Berlin Borsen Courier reports, under date Versailles, Nov. 20: —

Yesterday the first wounded and prisoners arrived from the action near Dreux on the 17th. Short work was made with the francs-tireurs, and an example was made of them; they were placed in a row, and one after the other got a bullet through his head. A general order for the whole army has been published forbidding most expressly to bring them in as prisoners, and ordering to shoot them down by drumhead court-martial wherever they show themselves. Against these disgracefully cowardly brigands and ragamuffins [Lumpengesindel] such a proceeding has become an absolute necessity.

Again, the Vienna Tages-Presse says, under the same date: —

“In the forest of Villeneuve you could have seen, for the last week, four francs-tireurs strung up for shooting at our Uhlans from the woods.”

An official report dated Versailles, the 26th of November, states that the country people all around Orléans, instigated to fight by the priests, who have been ordered by Bishop Dupanloup to preach a crusade, have begun a guerilla warfare against the Germans; patrols are fired at, officers carrying orders shot down by labourers seemingly working in the field: to avenge which assassinations all non-soldiers carrying arms are immediately executed. Not a few priests are now awaiting trial — seventy-seven.

These are but a few instances, which might be multiplied almost infinitely, so that it appears a settled purpose with the Prussians to carry on these brutalities up to the end of the war. Under these circumstances, it may be as well to call their attention once more to some facts in modern Prussian history.

The present King of Prussia can perfectly recollect the time of his country’s deepest degradation, the Battle of Jena, the long flight to the Oder, the successive capitulations of almost the whole of the Prussian troops, the retreat of the remainder behind the Vistula, the complete downbreak of the whole military and political system of the country. Then it was that, under the shelter of a Pomeranian coast fortress, private initiative, private patriotism, commenced a new active resistance against the enemy. A simple cornet of dragoons, Schill, began at Kolberg to form a free corps (Gallice, francs-tireurs), with which, assisted by the inhabitants, he surprised patrols, detachments, and field-posts, secured public moneys, provisions, war Matériel, took the French General Victor prisoner, prepared a general insurrection of the country in the rear of the French and on their line of communication, and generally did all those things which are now laid to the charge of the French francs-tireurs, and which are visited on the part of the Prussians by the titles of brigands and ragamuffins, and by a “bullet through the head” of disarmed prisoners. But the father of the present King of Prussia d sanctioned them expressly and promoted Schill. It is well known that this same Schill in 1809, when Prussia was at peace but Austria at war with France, led his regiment out on a campaign of his own against Napoleon, quite Garibaldi-like; that he was killed at Stralsund and his men taken prisoner. Out of these, all of whom Napoleon, according to Prussian war rules, had a perfect right to shoot, he merely had eleven officers shot at Wesel. Over the graves of these eleven francs-tireurs the father of the present King of Prussia, much against his will, but compelled by public feeling in the army and out of it, had to erect a memorial in their honour.

No sooner had there been a practical beginning of freeshooting among the Prussians than they, as becomes a nation of thinkers, proceeded to bring the thing into a system and work out the theory of it. The theorist of freeshooting, the great philosophical franc-tireur among them, was no other than Anton Neithardt von Gneisenau, some time field marshal in the service of his Prussian Majesty. Gneisenau had defended Kolberg in 1807; he had had some of Schill’s francs-tireurs under him; he had been assisted vigorously in his defence by the inhabitants of the place, who could not even lay claim to the title of national guards, mobile or sedentary, and who therefore, according to recent Prussian notions, clearly deserved to be “immediately executed.” But Gneisenau was so impressed by the greatness of the resources which an invaded country possessed in an energetic popular resistance that he made it his study for a series of years how this resistance could be best organized. The guerilla war in Spain, the rising of the Russian peasants on the line of the French retreat from Moscow, gave him fresh examples; and in 1813 he could proceed to put his theory in practice.

In August, 1811, already Gneisenau had formed a plan for the preparation of a popular insurrection. A militia is to be organized which is to have no uniform but a military cap (Gallice, képi) and black and white belt, perhaps a military great-coat; in short, as near as can be, the uniform of the present French francs-tireurs.

“If the enemy should appear in superior strength, the arms, caps, and belt, are bid, and the militiamen appear as simple inhabitants of the country.”

The very thing which the Prussians now consider a crime to be punished by a bullet or a rope. These militia troops are to harass the enemy, to interrupt his communications, to take or destroy his convoys of supplies, to avoid regular attacks, and to retire into woods or bogs before masses of regular soldiers.

“The clergy of all denominations me to be ordered, as soon as the war breaks out, to preach insurrection, to paint French oppression in the blackest colours, to remind the people of the Jews under the Maccabees, and to tall upon them to follow their example. ... Every clergyman is to administer an oath to fits parishioners that they will not surrender any provisions, arms, &c., to the enemy until compelled by actual force”

in fact, they are to preach the same crusade which the Bishop of Orleans has ordered his priests to preach, and for which not a few French priests are now awaiting their trial.

Whoever will take up the second volume of Professor Pertz’s “Life of Gneisenau,” will find, facing the title-page of the second volume, a reproduction of part of the above passage as a facsimile of Gneisenau’s handwriting. Facing it is the facsimile of King Frederick William’s marginal note to it: —

“As soon as one clergyman shall have been shot this will come to an end.”

Evidently the King had no great faith in the heroism of his clergy. But this did not prevent him from expressly sanctioning Gneisenau’s plans; nor did it prevent, a few years later, when the very men who had driven out the French were arrested and prosecuted as “demagogues,” one of the intelligent demagogue-hunters of the time, into whose hands the original document had fallen, from instituting proceedings against the unknown author of this attempt to excite people to the shooting of the clergy!

Up to 1813 Gneisenau never tired in preparing not only the regular army but also popular insurrection as a means to shake off the French yoke. When at last the war came, it was at once accompanied by insurrection, peasant resistance, and francs-tireurs. The country between the Weser and Elbe rose to arms in April; a little later on the people about Magdeburg rose; Gneisenau himself wrote to friends in Franconia — the letter is published by Pertz — calling on them to rise upon the enemy’s line of communications. Then at last came the official recognition of this popular warfare, the Landsturm-Ordnung of the 21st of April, 1813 (published in July only), in which every able-bodied man who is not in the ranks of either line or landwehr is called upon to join his landsturm battalion, to prepare for the sacred struggle of self-defence which sanctions every means. The landsturm is to harass both the advance and the retreat of the enemy, to keep him constantly on the alert, to fall upon his trains of ammunition and provisions, his couriers, recruits, and hospitals, to surprise him at nights, to annihilate his stragglers and detachments, to lame and to bring insecurity into his every movement; on the other hand, to assist the Prussian army, to escort money, provisions, ammunition, prisoners, &c. In fact, this law may be called a complete vade-mecum for the franc-tireur, and, drawn up as it is by no mean strategist, it is as applicable to-day in France as it was at that time in Germany.

Fortunately for Napoleon, it was but very imperfectly carried out. The King was frightened by his own handiwork. To allow the people to fight for themselves, without the King’s command, was too anti-Prussian. Thus the landsturm was suspended until the King was to call upon it, which he never did. Gneisenau chafed, but managed finally to do without the landsturm. If he were alive now, with all his Prussian after-experiences, perhaps he would see his beau-ideal of popular resistance approached, if not realized, in the French francs-tireurs. For Gneisenau was a man — and a man of genius.

Notes on the War.-XXXI, December 17, 1870

The campaign on the Loire appears to have come to a momentary standstill, which allows us time to compare reports and dates, and to form the very confused and contradictory materials into as clear a narrative of actual events as can be expected under the circumstances.

The Army of the Loire began to exist as a distinct body on the 15th of November, when D'Aurelle de Paladines, hitherto commander of the 15th and 16th Corps, obtained command of the new organization formed under this name. What other troops entered into its composition at that date we cannot tell; in fact, this army received constant reinforcements, at least up to the end of November, when it consisted nominally of the following corps: 15th (Pallières), 16th (Chanzy), 17th (Sonis), 18th (Bourbaki), 19th (Barral, according to Prussian accounts), and 20th (Crouzat). Of these the 19th Corps never appeared either in the French or Prussian reports, and cannot therefore be supposed to have been engaged. Besides these, there were at Le Mans and the neighbouring camp of Conlie, the 21st Army Corps (Jaurès) arid the Army of Brittany, which, on the resignation of Kératry, was attached to Jaurès’ command. A 22nd Corps, we may add, is commanded by General Faidherbe in the North, with Lille for its base of operations. In the above we have omitted General Michel’s corps of cavalry attached to the Army of the Loire: this body of horse, though said to be very numerous, cannot rank, from its recent formation and crude material, otherwise than as volunteer or amateur cavalry.

The elements of which this army was composed were of the most varied kinds, from old troopers recalled to the ranks, to raw recruits and volunteers averse to all discipline; from solid battalions such as the Papal Zouaves to crowds which were battalions only in name. Some kind of discipline, however, had been established, but the whole still bore the stamp of the great hurry which had presided at its formation. “Had this army been allowed four weeks more for preparation, it would have been a formidable opponent,” said the German officers who had made its acquaintance on the field of battle. Deducting all those quite raw levies which were only in the way, we may set down the whole of D'Aurelle’s five fighting corps (omitting the 19th) at somewhere about 120,000 to 130,000 men fit to be called combatants. The troops at Le Mans may have furnished about 40,000 more.

Against these we find pitted the army of Prince Frederick Charles, including the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg’s command; their numbers we now know, through Capt. Hozier, to have been rather less than 90,000 all told. But these 90,000 were, by their experience of war, their organization, and the proved generalship of their leaders, quite competent to engage twice their number of such troops as were opposed to them. Thus, the chances were about even; and that they were so is immensely to the credit of the French people, who created this new army out of nothing in three months.

The campaign began, on the part of the French, with the attack on von der Tann at Coulmiers and the reconquest of Orléans, on November 9; the march of Mecklenburg to the aid of von der Tann; the manoeuvring of D'Aurelle in the direction of Dreux, which drew off Mecklenburg’s whole force in that direction, and made him enter upon a march towards Le Mans. This march was harassed by the French irregular troops in a degree hitherto unknown in the present war; the population showed a most determined resistance, francs-tireurs hovered round the flanks of the invaders; but the regular troops confined themselves to demonstrations, and could not be brought to bay. The letters of the German correspondents with Mecklenburg’s army, their rage and indignation at those wicked French who insist upon fighting in the way most convenient to themselves and most inconvenient to the enemy, are the best proof that this short campaign about Le

Mans was conducted exceedingly well by the defence. The French led Mecklenburg a perfect wild-goose chase after an invisible army up to about twenty-five miles from Le Mans: arrived thus far, he hesitated to go any farther, and turned south. The original plan had evidently been to deal a crushing blow at the Army of Le Mans, then to turn south upon Blois, and turn the left of the Army of the Loire; while Frederick Charles, just then coming up, attacked its front and rear. But this plan, and many others since, miscarried. D'Aurelle left Mecklenburg to his fate, marched against Frederick Charles, and attacked the 10th Prussian Corps on the 24th November at Ladon and Mézierès, and a large body of Prussians on the 28th at Beaune-la-Rolande. It is evident that here he handled his troops badly. He had but a small portion of them in readiness, though this was his first attempt to break through the Prussian army and force his way to Paris. All he did was to inspire the enemy with respect for his troops. He fell back into entrenched positions in front of Orléans, where he concentrated all his forces. These he disposed, from right to left, as follows: the 18th Corps on the extreme right; then the 20th and 15th, all of them east of the Paris-Orléans railway; west of it the 16th; and on the extreme left the 17th. Had these masses been brought together in time, there is scarcely any doubt that they might have crushed Frederick Charles’s army, then under 50,000 men. But by the time D'Aurelle was well established in his work, Mecklenburg had marched south again, and joined the right wing of his cousin, who now took the supreme command. Thus Mecklenburg’s 40,000 men had now come up to join in the attack against D'Aurelle, while the French army of Le Mans, satisfied with the glory of having “repulsed” its opponent, quietly remained in its quarters, sonic sixty miles away from the point where the campaign was decided.

Then all of a sudden came the news of Trochu’s sortie of the 30th of November. A fresh effort had to be made to support him. On the 1st D'Aurelle commenced a general advance against the Prussians, but it was too late. While the Germans met him with all their forces, his 18th Corps — on the extreme right — appeared to have been sent astray, and never to have been engaged. Thus he fought with but four corps, that is to say, with numbers (of actual combatants) probably little superior to those of his opponents. He was beaten; he appears to have felt himself beaten even before he was so. Hence the irresolution he displayed when, after having on the evening of the 3rd of December ordered a retreat across the Loire, he countermanded it next morning and resolved to defend Orleans. The usual result followed: order, counter-order, disorder. The Prussian attack being concentrated on his left and centre, his two right corps, evidently in consequence of the contradictory orders they had received, lost their line of retreat upon Orléans, and had to cross the river, the 20th at Jargeau and the 18th still further east, at Sully. A small portion of the latter appears to have been driven still more eastward, as it was found by the 3rd Prussian Corps on the 7th of December at Nevoy, near (;ten, and thence pursued in the direction of Briare, always on the right bank of the river. Orléans fell into the hands of the Germans on the evening of the 4th, and the pursuit was at once organized. While the 3rd Corps was to skirt the upper course of the Loire on the right bank, the 10th was sent to Vierzon, and the Mecklenburg command on the right bank towards Blois. Before reaching that place, this latter force was met at Beaugency by at least a portion of the army of Le Mans, which now at last had joined Chanzy’s command, and offered a pertinacious and partly successful resistance. But this was soon broken, for the 9th Prussian Corps was marching, on the left bank of the river, towards Blois, where it would have cut off Chanzy’s retreat towards Tours. This turning movement had its effect. Chanzy retired out of harm’s way, and Blois fell into the hands of the invaders. The thaw and heavy rains about this time broke up the roads, and thus stopped further pursuit.

Prince Frederick Charles has telegraphed to headquarters that the Army of the Loire is totally dispersed in various directions, that its centre is broken, and that it has ceased to exist as an army. All this sounds well, but it is far from being correct. There can be no doubt, even from the German accounts, that the seventy-seven guns taken before Orleans were almost all naval guns abandoned in the entrenchments. There may be 10,000, and, including the wounded, 14,000 prisoners, most of them very much demoralized; but the state of the Bavarians who on the 5th of December thronged the road from Artenay to Chartres, utterly disorganized, without arms or knapsacks, was not so much better.

There is an utter absence of trophies gathered during the pursuit on and after the 5th; and if an army has broken up, its soldiery cannot fail to be brought in wholesale by an active and numerous cavalry such as we know the Prussians to possess. There is extreme inaccuracy here, to say the least of it. The thaw is no excuse; that set in about the 9th, and would leave four or five days of fine frozen roads and fields for active pursuit. It is not so much the thaw which stops the advance of the Prussians; it is the consciousness that the force of these 90,000 men, now reduced to about 60,000 by losses and garrisons left behind, is nearly spent. The point beyond which it is imprudent to follow up even a beaten enemy has very nearly been reached. There may be raids on a large scale further south, but there will be scarcely any further occupation of territory. The Army of the Loire, now divided into two armies under Bourbaki and Chanzy, will have plenty of time and room to re-form, and to draw towards it newly formed battalions. By its division it has ceased to exist as an army, but it is the first French army in this campaign which has done so not ingloriously. We shall probably hear of its two successors again.

In the meantime, Prussia shows signs of exhaustion. The men of the landwehr up to forty years and more — legally free from service after their thirty-second year — are called in. The drilled reserves of the country are exhausted. In January the recruits — about 90,000 from North Germany — will be sent out to France. This may give altogether the 150,000 men of whom we hear so much, but they are not yet there; and when they do come they will alter the character of the army materially. The wear and tear of the campaign has been terrible, and is becoming more so every (lay. ‘I lie melancholy tone of the letters from the army shows it, as well as the lists of losses. It is no longer the great battles which make up the bulk of these lists, it is the small encounters where one, two, five men are shot down. This constant erosion by the waves of popular warfare in the long run melts down or washes away the largest army in detail, and, what is the chief point, without any visible equivalent. While Paris holds out, every day improves the position of the French, and the impatience at Versailles about the surrender of Paris shows best that that city may yet become dangerous to the besiegers.

Notes on the War.-XXXII, December 23, 1870

The last week’s fighting has proved how correctly we judged the relative positions of the combatants when we said that the armies arrived from Metz on the Loire and in Normandy had then already expended the greater part of their capability for occupying fresh territory. The extent of ground occupied by the German forces has scarcely received any addition since. The Grand Duke of Mecklenburg, with von der Tann’s Bavarians (who, in spite of their disorganization and want of shoes, cannot be spared at the front), with the 10th Corps and 17th and 22nd divisions, has followed up Chanzy’s slowly retreating and constantly fighting troops from Beaugency to Blois, from Blois to Vendôme, and Epuisay and beyond. Chanzy defended every position offered by the rivulets falling from the north into the Loire; and when the 9th Corps (or at least its Hessian division) turned his right at Blois. arriving from the left bank of the river, he retreated upon Vendôme, and took up a position on the line of the Loire. This he field on the 14th and 15th against the attacks of the enemy, but abandoned it on the evening of the latter day, and retreated slowly, and still showing a bold front, towards Le Mans. On the 17th he had another rear-guard affair with von der Tann at Epuisay; where the roads from Vendôme and Morée to Saint-Calais unite, and then withdrew, apparently without being followed up much farther.

The whole of this retreat appears to have been conducted with great discretion. After it was once settled that the old Army of the Loire was to be split up into two bodies, one of which, under Bourbaki, was to act south of Orléans, and the other, under Chanzy, to whom also the troops near Le Mans were given, to defend Western France north of the Loire — after this arrangement was once made, it could not be Chanzy’s object to provoke decisive actions. On the contrary, his plan necessarily was to dispute every inch of ground as long as he safely could without being entangled into such; to inflict thereby as heavy losses as he could upon the enemy, and break in his own young troops to order and steadiness under fire. He would naturally lose more men than the enemy in this retreat, especially in stragglers; but these would be the worst men of his battalions, which he could well do without. He would keep up the morale of his troops, while he maintained on the part of the enemy that respect which the Army of the Loire had already conquered for the Republican troops. And he would soon arrive at a point where the pursuers, weakened by losses in battle, by sickness, and by detachments left behind on their line of supply, must give up the pursuit or risk defeat in their turn. That point, in all probability, would be Le Mans; here were the two camps of instruction at Yvre-l'Eveque and at Conlie, with troops in various states of organization and armament, and of unknown numbers; but there must have certainly been more organized battalions there than Chanzy would require to repel any attack Mecklenburg could make on him. This appears to have been felt by the Prussian commander, or rather his chief of the staff, General Stosch, who actually directs the movements of Mecklenburg’s army. For after having learned that the 10th North German Corps, on the 18th, pursued Chanzy beyond Epuisay, we hear now that General Voigts-Rhetz (who commands this same 10th Corps) on the 21st has defeated a body of French near Monnaie, and driven them beyond Notre Dame d'Oé. Now, Monnaie is about five-and-thirty miles south of Epuisay, on the road from Vendôme to Tours, and Notre Dame d'Oé is a few miles nearer Tours. So that after following up Chanzy’s principal forces towards and close to Le Mans, Mecklenburg’s troops appear now to be directed — at least in part — towards Tours, which they probably will have reached ere now, but which it is not likely that they will be able to occupy, permanently.

Prussian critics blamed the eccentric retreat of the Army of the Loire after the battles before Orléans, and pretended that such a faulty step could only have been forced on the French by the vigorous action of Prince Frederick Charles, by which he “broke their centre.” That the mismanagement of D'Aurelle, at the very moment when he received the shock of the enemy, had a good deal to do with this eccentric retreat, and even with the subsequent division of the army into two distinct commands, we may readily believe. But there was another motive for it. France, above all things, wants time to organize forces, and space — that is to say, as much territory as possible — from which to collect the means of organization in men and Matériel. Not being as yet in a position to court decisive battles, she must attempt to save as much territory as possible from the occupation of the enemy. And as the invasion has now reached that line where the forces of the attack and those of the defence are nearly balanced, there is no necessity to concentrate the troops of the defence as for a decisive action. On the contrary, they may without great risk be divided into several large masses, so as to cover as much territory as possible, and so as to oppose to the enemy, in whatever direction he may advance, a force large enough to prevent permanent occupation. And as there are still some 60,000, or perhaps 100,000, men near Le Mans (in a very backward state of equipment, drill, and discipline, it is true, but yet improving daily), and as the means to equip, arm, and supply them have been organized and are being brought together in western France — it would be a great blunder to abandon these merely because strategic theory demands that under ordinary circumstances a defeated army should withdraw in one body; which could in this case have been done only by going south and leaving the west unprotected. On the contrary, the camps near Le Mans contain in themselves the stuff to render the new Army of the West, in course of time, stronger than even the old Army of the Loire was, while the whole south is organizing reinforcements for Bourbaki’s command. Thus, what at the first glance appears as a mistake, was in reality a very proper and necessary measure, which does not in any way preclude the possibility of having the whole of the French forces, at some later time, in a position to co-operate for decisive action.

The importance of Tours is in the fact that it forms the most westerly railway junction between the north-west and the south of France. If Tours be permanently held by the Prussians, Chanzy has no longer any railway communication with either the Government at Bordeaux or Bourbaki at Bourges. But with their present forces, the Prussians have no chance of holding it. They would be weaker there than von der Tann was at Orléans early in November. And a temporary loss of Tours, though inconvenient, may be borne.

There is not much news from the other German columns. Prince Frederick Charles, with the Third Corps, and perhaps half of the Ninth, has completely disappeared from sight, which does not prove much for his powers to advance. Manteuffel is reduced to play the part of a huge flying column for requisitions; his force of permanent occupation does not appear to go beyond Rouen. Werder is surrounded by petty warfare on all sides, and while he can hold out at Dijon by sheer activity only, now finds out that he has to blockade Langres too if he wants his rear secured. Where he is to find the troops for this work we do not learn; he himself has none to spare, and the landwehr about Belfort and in Alsace have fully as much on their hands as they can manage. Thus everywhere the forces appear to be nearly balanced. It is now a race of reinforcements, but a race in which the chances are immensely more favourable to France than they were three months ago. If we could say with safety that Paris will hold out till the end of February, we might almost believe that France would win the race.

The German Position in France, December 24, 1870

The wear and tear of this war is beginning to tell upon Germany. The first army of invasion, comprising the whole of the line troops of both North and South, was of the strength of about 640,000 men. Two months of campaigning had reduced that army so much that the first batch of men from the depôt battalions and squadrons — about one-third of the original strength — had to be ordered forward. They arrived towards the end of September and beginning of October, and though they must have amounted to some 200,000 men, yet the field battalions were far from being again raised to their original strength of 1,000 men each. Those before Paris counted from 700 to 800 men, while those before Metz were weaker still. Sickness and fighting soon made further inroads, and when Prince Frederick Charles reached the Loire, his three corps were reduced to less than half their normal strength, averaging 450 men per battalion. The fighting of this month and the severe and changeable weather must have told severely upon the troops both before Paris and in the armies covering the investment; so that the battalions must now certainly average below 400 men. Early in January the recruits of the levy of 1870 will be ready to be sent into the field, after three months’ drill. These would number about 110,000, and give rather less than 300 men per battalion. We now hear that part of these have already passed Nancy, and that new bodies are arriving daily; thus the battalions may soon be again raised to about 650 men. If, indeed, as is probable from several indications, the disposable remainder of the younger undrilled men of the depôt-reserve (Ersatz Reserve) have been drilled along with the recruits of the regular levy, this reinforcement would be increased by some 100 men per battalion more, making in all 750 men per battalion. This would be about three-fourths of the original strength, giving an army of 480,000 effectives, out of one million of men sent out from Germany to the front. Thus, rather more than one-half of the men who left Germany with the line regiments or joined them since, have been killed or invalided in less than four months. If this should appear incredible to any one, let him compare the wear and tear of former campaigns, that of 1813 and 1814 for instance, and consider that the continued long and rapid marches of the Prussians during this war must have told terribly upon their troops.

So far we have dealt with the line only. Besides them, nearly the whole of the landwehr has been marched off into France. The landwehr battalions had originally 800 men for the Guards and 500 men for the other battalions; but they were gradually raised to the strength of 1,000 men all round. This would make a grand total of 240,000 men, including cavalry and artillery. By far the greater part of these have been in France for some time, keeping up the communications, blockading fortresses, &c. And even for this they are not numerous enough; for there are at present in process of organization four more landwehr divisions (probably by forming a third battalion to every landwehr regiment), comprising at least fifty battalions, or 50,000 men more. All these are now to be sent into France; those that were still in Germany, guarding the French prisoners, are to be relieved in that duty by newly formed “garrison battalions.” What these may be composed of we cannot positively tell before we receive the full text of the order creating them, the of which, so far, are by a telegraphic summary only. But if, as we know to be the fact, the above four new landwehr divisions cannot be raised without calling out men of forty and even above, then what remains for the garrison battalions of drilled soldiers but men from forty to fifty years of age? There is no doubt the reserve of drilled men in Germany is by this measure fully exhausted, arid, beyond that, a whole year’s levy of recruits.

The landwehr force In France has had far less marching, bivouacking, and fighting than the line. It has mostly had decent quarters, fair feeding, and moderate duty; so that the whole of its losses may be put down at about 40,000 men, dead or invalided.

This would leave, including the new battalions now forming, 250,000 men; but it is very uncertain how soon, even if ever, the whole of these can be set free for service abroad. For the next two months we should say 200,000 would be a high estimate of the effective landwehr force in France.

Line and landwehr together, we shall thus have in the second half of January a force of some 650,000 to 680,000 Germans under arms in France, of which from 150,000 to 200,000 are now on the road or preparing for it. But this force will be of a far different character from that which has hitherto been employed there. Fully one-half of the line battalions will consist of young men of twenty or twenty-one years — untried men of an age at which the hardships of a winter campaign tell most fearfully upon the constitution. These men will soon fill the hospitals, while the battalions will again melt down in strength. On the other hand, the landwehr will consist more and more of men above thirty-two, married men and fathers of families almost without exception, and of an age at which open-air camping in cold or wet weather is almost sure to produce rheumatism rapidly and by wholesale. And there can be no doubt that the greater portion of this landwehr will have to do a deal more marching and fighting than hitherto, in consequence of the extension of the territory which is to be given into its keeping. The line is getting considerably younger, the landwehr considerably older than hitherto; the recruits sent to the line have barely had time to learn their drill and discipline, the new reinforcements for the landwehr have had plenty of time to forget both. Thus the German army is receiving elements which bring its character much nearer than heretofore to the new French levies opposed to it; with this advantage, however, on the side of the Germans that. these elements are being incorporated into the strong and solid cadres of the old army.

After these, what resources in men remain to Prussia? The recruits attaining their twentieth year in 1871, and the older men of the Ersatz Reserve, the latter all undrilled, almost all of them married, and at an age when people have little inclination or ability to begin soldiering. To call these out, men who have been induced by long precedent to consider their relation to the army an all but nominal one, would be very unpopular. Still more unpopular would it be if those able-bodied men were called out who for one reason or another have escaped the liability to service altogether. In a purely defensive war all these would march unhesitatingly; but in a war of conquest, and at a time when the success of that policy of conquest is becoming doubtful, they cannot be expected to do so. A war of conquest, with anything like varying fortunes, cannot be carried out, in the long run, by an army consisting chiefly of married men; one or two great reverses must demoralize such troops on such an errand. The more the Prussian army, by the lengthening out of the war, becomes in reality a “nation in arms,” the more incapable does it become for conquest. Let the Gerinan Philistine shout ever so boisterously about Alsace and Lorraine, it still remains certain that Germany cannot for the sake of their conquest undergo the same privations, the same social disorganization, the same suspension of national production, that France willingly suffers in her own self-defence. That same German Philistine, once put in uniform and marched off, may come to his cool senses again on some French battlefield or in some frozen bivouac. And thus it may be, in the end, for the best if both nations are, in reality, placed face to face with each other in full armour.

Notes on the War.-XXXIII, January 06, 1871

Christmas has ushered in the commencement of the real siege of Paris. Up to that time there had only been an investment of the giant fortress. Batteries had been constructed, it is true, for heavy siege guns; a siege park had been collected, but not a gun had been placed in position, not an embrasure cut, not a shot fired. All these preparations had been made on the southern and south-western front. On the other fronts there were breastworks thrown up as well, but these seem to have been intended for defensive purposes only, to check sorties, and to protect the infantry and field artillery of the besiegers. These entrenchments were naturally at a greater distance from the Paris forts than regular siege batteries would have to be; there was between them and the forts a larger belt of debatable ground on which sorties could take place. When Trochu’s great sortie of the 30th of November had been repelled, he still remained master of a certain portion of this debatable ground on the eastern side of Paris, especially of the isolated plateau of Avron, in front of Fort Rosny. This he began to fortify; at what exact date we do not know, but we find it mentioned on the 17th of December that both Mont Avron and the heights of Varennes (in the loop of the Marne) had been fortified and armed with heavy guns.

Barring a few advanced redoubts on the south front, near Vitry and Villejuif, which do not appear to be of much importance, we have here the first attempt, on a large scale, of the defenders to extend their positions by counter-approaches. And here we are naturally referred, for a comparison, to Sebastopol. More than four months after the opening of the trenches by the Allies, towards the end of February, 1855, when the besiegers had suffered terribly by the winter, Todleben began to construct advanced works at what were then considerable distances in front of his lines. On the 23rd of February he had constructed the redoubt Selenginsk, 1,100 yards from the main rampart; on the same day an assault of the Allies on the new work failed; on the 1st of March, another redoubt (Volynsk) was completed in a still more forward position, and 1,450 yards from the rampart. These two works were called by the Allies the “ouvrages blancs.” On the 12th of March, the Kamtschatka lunette, 800 yards from the ramparts, was completed, the “Mamelon vert,” of the Allies, and in front of all these works rifle-pits were dug out. An assault, on the 22nd of March, was beaten off, and the whole of the works, as well as another to the (proper) right of the Mamelon, the “Quarry,” was completed, and all these redoubts connected by a covered way. During the whole of April and May the Allies in vain attempted to recover the ground occupied by these works. They had to advance against them by regular siege approaches, and it was only on the 7th of June, when considerable reinforcements had arrived, that they were enabled to storm them. Thus, the fall of Sebastopol had been delayed fully three months by these advanced field works, attacked though they were by the most powerful naval guns of the period.

The defence of Mont Avron looks very paltry side by side with this story. On the 17th, when the French had had above fourteen days for the construction of their works, the batteries are completed. The besiegers in the meantime sent for siege artillery, chiefly old guns already used in the previous sieges. On the 22nd the batteries against Mont Avron are completed, but no action is taken until every danger of a sortie en masse of the French has passed away, and the encampments of the Army of Paris, round Drancy, are broken up on the 26th. Then on the 27th the German batteries open their fire, which is continued on the 28th and 29th. The fire of the French works is soon silenced, and the works abandoned on the 29th, because, as the official French report says, there were no casemates in them to shelter the garrison.

This is undoubtedly a poor defence and a still poorer excuse for it. The chief fault seems to rest with the construction of the works. From all descriptions we are led to conclude that there was not on the hill a single closed redoubt, but only batteries open to the rear, and even without efficient protection on the flanks. These batteries, moreover, appear to have been facing one way only, towards the south or south-east, while close by, to the north-east, lay the heights of Raincy and Montfermeil, the most eligible sites of all for batteries against Avron. The besiegers took advantage of these to surround Avron with a semicircle of batteries which soon silenced its fire and drove away its garrison. Then why was there no shelter for the garrison? The frost is but half an excuse, for the French had time enough; and what the Russians could do in a Crimean winter and on rocky soil must have been possible too this December before Paris. The artillery employed against Avron was certainly far more efficient than that of the Allies before Sebastopol; but it was the same as that used against the redoubts of Düppel, also field-works and they held out three weeks. It is surmised that the infantry garrison ran away and left the artillery uncovered. That may be so, but it would not excuse the engineers who constructed the works. The engineering staff inside Paris must be very badly organized if we are to judge it from this sample of its handiwork.

The rapid demolition of Mont Avron has sharpened the appetite of the besiegers for more successes of a similar sort. Their fire has been opened upon the eastern forts, especially Noisy, Rosny, and Nogent. After two days’ bombardment these forts were all but silenced. What more there is being done against them we do not hear. Neither is there any mention of the fire of the entrenchments which had been constructed in the intervals between these forts. But we may be certain that the besiegers are doing their best to push forward approaches, if only in a rough way, against these forts, and to secure a firm lodgment on Mont Avron. We should not wonder if they succeeded better in this than the French, in spite of the weather.

But what is the effect of all this upon the course of the siege? No doubt, if these three forts should fall into the hands of the Prussians, that would be an important success, and enable them to bring their batteries to within 3,000 or 4,000 yards of the enceinte. There is, however, no necessity that they should fall so soon. These forts all have bomb-proof casemates for their garrisons, and the besiegers, so far, have not got any rifled mortars, of which they altogether possess but a small stock. These mortars are the only sort of artillery which can destroy bomb-proof shelter in a very short time; the old mortars are too uncertain in their range to have a very rapid effect, and the 24-pounders (with 64lb. shell) cannot be sufficiently elevated to produce the effect of vertical fire. If the fire of these forts appears to be silenced, that signifies merely that the guns have been placed under shelter so as to keep them available for an assault. The Prussian batteries may demolish the parapets of the ramparts, but that will not constitute a breach. To breach the very well-covered masonry of the escarp, even by indirect fire, they will have to construct batteries within at least 1,000 yards from the forts, and that can be done by regular parallels and approaches only. The “abridged” process of besieging, of which the Prussians talk so much, consists in nothing but the silencing of the enemy’s fire from a greater distance, so that the approaches can be made with less danger and loss of time; this is followed up by a violent bombardment, and a breaching of the rampart by indirect fire. If all this does not compel surrender — and in the case of the Paris forts it is difficult to see how it could do so — nothing remains but to push up the approaches in the usual way to the glacis and risk an assault. The assault of Düppel was undertaken after the approaches had been pushed to about 250 yards from the ruined works, and at Strasbourg the saps had to be driven quite in the old-fashioned way up to the crest of the glacis and beyond.

With all this, we must recur again and again to the point so often urged in these columns, that the defence of Paris must be carried on actively, and not passively only. If ever there was a time for sorties, that time is now. It is not, at this moment, a question of breaking through the enemy’s lines; it is this — to accept a localized combat which the besieger forces upon the besieged. That the fire of the besieger can, under almost any circumstances, be made superior, on any given point, to that of the besieged, is an old and uncontested axiom; and unless the besieged make up for this his inherent deficiency by activity, boldness and energy in sorties, he gives up his best chance. Some say the troops inside Paris have lost heart; but there is no reason why they should. They may have lost confidence in their leader, but that is another thing altogether; and if Trochu persists in his inactivity, they may well do so.

We may as well advert in a word or two to the ingenious hypothesis of some people that Trochu intends to withdraw, with his troops, to the fortified peninsula of Mont Valerien, as to a citadel, after the fall of Paris. This profound surmise has been concocted by some of the super-clever hangers-on of the staff at Versailles, and is based chiefly on the fact that a good many carts go backwards and forwards between Paris and that peninsula. He must certainly be an uncommonly clever general who chooses to construct for himself a citadel on a low alluvial peninsula, surrounded on all sides by commanding heights, from which the camps of his troops can be surveyed. like a panorama, and consequently fired into at easy ranges. But as long as the Prussian staff has existed, it has been troubled with the presence of some men of superhuman sharpness. With them the enemy is always most likely to do the very unlikeliest thing of all. As the German saying goes, “they hear the grass growing.” Whoever has occupied himself with Prussian military literature must have stumbled over this sort of people, and the only wonder is that they should find anybody to believe them.

Notes on the War.-XXXIV, January 07, 1871

Although there has been a fair amount of fighting since we last surveyed the relative positions of the combatants in the provinces, there has been very little change, thus proving the correctness of our view that the forces of both were nearly balanced for the time being.

Chanzy’s Army of the West has maintained itself in front of Le Mans; the army of Mecklenburg opposes it on a line stretching from Blois by Vendôme to Verneuil. There has been a good deal of desultory fighting about Vendôme, but nothing has been changed in the relative position of the armies. In the meantime Chanzy has drawn towards himself all the drilled and armed men from the camp of Conlie, which has been broken up; he is reported to have entrenched a strong position around Le Mans, as a stronghold to fall back upon, and is now again expected to assume the offensive. As M. Gambetta left Bordeaux on the 5th for Le Mans this may be quite correct. Of the actual strength and organisation of Chanzy’s forces we have no knowledge whatever beyond the fact that he had, previous to his retreat upon Le Mans, three army corps. Nor are we much better informed as to the forces immediately opposed to him; the troops of Mecklenburg and those of Prince Frederick Charles’s original army have been so much intermixed that the original ordre de bataille is no longer in force. We shall have to treat both as one army, which they indeed are, since Frederick Charles has the command of the whole; the only distinction is, that Mecklenburg commands those troops which à cheval of the Loir, face west, while the Prince has under his immediate orders those which, along the Loire from Blois to Gien, face south and watch Bourbaki. The whole of both these bodies counts ten divisions of infantry and three of cavalry, but considerable detachments have been left on the line of march from Commercy, by Troyes, to the Loire; these are only gradually coming up, as they are being relieved by the new arrivals of landwehr.

On the 11th of December Prince Frederick Charles had arrived at Briare, with intent to advance upon Nevers, in order to turn Bourbaki ‘s right and to cut off his direct communication with the troops opposed to Werder. But we have only recently learned that on receiving the news of the resolute and unexpected resistance which Mecklenburg encountered on the part of Chanzy, he gave up his plan at once and turned back with the mass of his troops in the direction of Tours; which, as we know, his troops came in sight of but never entered. Thus we now learn that Chanzy’s clever and gallant retreat was the cause not only of his own safety, but of Bourbaki’s too. This latter general must still be in the neighbourhood of Bourges and Nevers. If, as has been presumed, he had marched off eastwards against Werder or against the Prussian line of communications, we should have heard of him ere now. Most probably he is reorganizing and reinforcing his army, and if Chanzy should advance we are sure to hear of him too.

North of the Seine Manteuffel, with the 1st Corps, holds Rouen and neighbourhood, while he has sent the 8th Corps into Picardy. This latter corps has had a hard time of it. General Faidherbe does not allow his Northern Army much rest. The three northernmost departments of France, from the Somme to the Belgian frontier, hold about twenty fortresses of various sizes, which, though wholly useless nowadays against a large invasion from Belgium, yet form a most welcome and almost unattackable basis of operations in this case. When Vauban planned this triple belt of fortresses, nearly two hundred years ago, he surely never thought that they would serve as a great entrenched camp, a sort of multiplied quadrilateral, to a French army against an enemy advancing from the heart of France. But so it is, and, small as this piece of territory is, it is for the nonce impregnable, and an important piece of ground too, on account of its manufacturing resources and its dense population. Driven back into this safe retreat by the battle of Villers-Bretonneux (27th of November), Faidherbe reorganized and strengthened his army; towards the end of December he again advanced upon Amiens, and delivered on the 23rd an undecided battle to Manteuffel on the Hallue. In this battle he had four divisions (35,000 men as he counts them) against the two divisions of the 8th Prussian Corps (24,000 men by, Prussian accounts). That with such a proportion of forces, and against as renowned a general as von Goeben, he should have held his own, is a sign that his Mobiles and Mobilise’s are improving. In consequence of the frost and of shortcomings of his commissariat and train, as he says, but probably also because he did not trust in the steadiness of his men for a second day’s hard fighting, he retreated almost unmolested behind the Scarpe. Von Goeben followed, left the greater part of the 16th division to keep the communications and to invest Péronne, and advanced with only the 15th division and Prince Albert the younger’s flying column (which at most was equivalent to a brigade) to Bapaume and beyond. Here, then, was a chance for Faidherbe’s four divisions. Without hesitating a moment, he advanced from his. sheltered position and attacked the Prussians. After a preliminary engagement on the 2nd of January, the main bodies fought in front of Bapaume on the following day. The clear reports of Faidherbe, the great numerical superiority of the French (eight brigades — or 33,000 men at least — against three Prussian brigades, or 16,000 to 18,000 men, to calculate the numbers according to the data given above for the two armies), the indefinite language of Manteuffel, leave no doubt that in this battle the French had the best of it. Besides, Manteuffel’s bragging is well known in Germany: everybody there recollects how as Governor of Sleswig, and being rather tall, he offered “to cover every seven feet of the country with his body.” His reports, even after censorship in Versailles, are certainly the least trustworthy of all Prussian accounts. On the other hand, Faidherbe did not follow up his success, but retired after the battle to a village some miles in rear of the battle-field, so that Peronne was not relieved and, as has already been pointed out in these columns, the fruits of the fighting were all for the Prussians. It is impossible to take Faidherbe’s excuses for his retreat as being meant seriously. But, whatever his reasons may have been, unless he can do more with his troops than beat three Prussian brigades and then retire, he will not relieve Paris.

In the meantime, Manteuffel has an important reinforcement at hand. The 14th division (Kameke) of the 7th Corps, after reducing Montmédy and Mézierès, is approaching his fighting-ground accompanied by its siege train. The fighting near Guise seems to mark a stage in this advance; Guise is on the direct road from Mézierès to Péronne, which naturally seems to be the next fortress set down for bombardment. After Péronne, probably Cambrai, if all be well with the Prussians.

In the south-east, Werder has been in full retreat since the 27th of December, when he evacuated Dijon. It took some time before the Germans mentioned a word about this, and then the Prussians were quite silent; it leaked out in a quiet corner of the KarIsruher Zeitung. On the 31st he evacuated Gray also, after an engagement, and is now covering the siege of Belfort at Vesoul. The Army of Lyons, under Crémer (said to be an emigrated Hanoverian officer) is following him up, while Garibaldi seems to be acting more westward against the Prussian chief line of communications. Werder, who is said to expect a reinforcement of 36,000 men, will be pretty safe at Vesoul, but the line of communications appears anything but secure. We now learn that General Zastrow, commander of the 7th Corps, has been sent thither, and is in communication with Werder. Unless he is appointed to quite a new command, he will have the 13th division with him, which has been relieved, in Metz, by landwehr, and he will also dispose of other forces for active operations. It must he one of his battalions which has been attacked, and is said to have been routed, near Saulieu, on the road from Auxerre to Chalon-sur-Saône. What the state of the communications is on the secondary lines of railway (always excepting the main line from Nancy to Paris, which is well guarded and so far safe) is shown by a letter from Chaumont (Haute-Marne) to the Cologne Gazette, complaining that now for the third time the francs-tireurs have broken up the railway between Chaumont and Troyes; the last time, on the 24th of December, they replaced the rails loosely, so that a train with 500 landwehr got off the rails and was stopped, upon which the francs-tireurs opened fire from a wood, but were beaten off. The correspondent considers this not only unfair but “infamous.” Just like the Austrian cuirassier in Hungary in 1849: “Are not these hussars infamous scoundrels? They see my cuirass, and yet they cut me across the face.”

The state of these communications is a matter of life and death to the army besieging Paris. A few days’ interruption would affect it for weeks. The Prussians know this, and are now concentrating all their landwelir in north-western France to hold in subjection a belt of country sufficiently broad to ensure safety to their railways. The fall of Mézierès opens them a second line of rails from the frontier by Thionville, Mézierès, and Reims; but this line dangerously offers its flank to the Army of the North. If Paris is to be relieved, it might perhaps be done easiest by breaking this line of communications.

Notes on the War.-XXXV, January 14, 1871

The armies in the field have entered upon two operations which might easily bring on a crisis of the war. The first of these is Bourbaki’s march against Werder; the second, Prince Frederick Charles’s march against Chanzy.

The rumour of Bourbaki’s march eastward has been current for nearly a week, but there was nothing in it to distinguish it from the rest of the rumours which are now flying about so plentifully. That the movement might be good in itself was no reason to believe in its reality. However, there can be now no doubt that Bourbaki, with at least the 18th and 20th Corps, and the 24th, a new corps, has arrived in the East of France, and has turned Werder’s position at Vesoul by a movement viâ Besançon upon Lure, between Vesoul and Belfort. Near Lure, Werder attacked him at Villersexel on the 9th, and an engagement ensued, in which both parties claim the victory. It was evidently a rearguard-engagement, in which Werder apparently has made good his retreat. Whichever may have won in this first encounter, other and more general battles are sure to follow in a day or two, and to bring matters here to a crisis.

If this movement of Bourbaki be undertaken with sufficient forces — that is to say, with every man, horse, and gun that was not absolutely required elsewhere — and if it be carried out with the necessary vigour, it may prove the turning point of the war. We have before now pointed out the weakness of the long line of the German communications, and the possibility of Paris being relieved by an attack in force upon that line. This is now upon the cards, and it will depend on the playing of them whether it is really to come off.

Of the forces now invading France, nearly the whole of the troops of the line are engaged either in the siege of Paris or in the covering of that siege. Out of thirty-five divisions (Including the landwehr of the Guard, who have all the time been used as line troops), thirty-two are thus employed. Two are with Werder (three Baden and one Prussian brigade), and one, under Zastrow, has gone to join him. Besides these, Werder has at least two divisions of landwehr to carry on the siege of Belfort and to occupy the fortresses in Southern Alsace. Thus the whole length and breadth of country north-east of the line from Mézierès by Laon and Soissons to Paris, and thence by Auxerre and Châtillon to Hüningen, near Basel, with all its reduced fortresses, has to be held by the remainder of the landwehr, as far as it has been made disposable. And when we consider that there are also the prisoners of war in Germany to be watched and the fortresses at home to be garrisoned; that only nine Prussian army corps (those existing before 1866) had old soldiers enough to fill up the landwehr battalions, while the others will have to wait five years yet before they can do this — we may imagine that the forces remaining disposable for the occupation of this part of France cannot have been over-numerous. True, eighteen depôt battalions are now being sent to garrison the fortresses in Alsace and Lorraine, and the newly forming “garrison battalions” are to relieve the landwehr in the interior of Prussia. But the formation of these garrison battalions is reported in the German press to proceed but slowly, and thus the army of occupation will still for some time be comparatively weak and barely able to hold in check the population of the provinces it has to guard.

It is against this portion of the German army that Bourbaki is moving. He evidently attempted to interpose his troops between Vesoul and Belfort, whereby he would isolate Werder, whom he might beat singly, driving him in a north-westerly direction. But as Werder now probably is before Belfort and united with Tresckow, Bourbaki has to defeat both in order to raise the siege; to drive the besiegers back into the Rhine valley, after which he might advance on the eastern side of the Vosges towards Lunéville, where he would be on the main line of the German communications. The destruction of the railway tunnels near PhaIsbourg would block up the Strasbourg line for a considerable period; that of the Frouard Junction would stop the line from Saarbrücken and Metz; and it might even be possible to send a flying column towards Thionville to destroy the line near that place too, so as to break the last through line the Germans have. That column could always retire into Luxembourg or Belgium and lay down its arms; it would have amply repaid itself.

These are the objects which Bourbaki must have in view. With the neighbourhood of Paris exhausted, the interruption of the communications from Paris to Germany even for a few days would be a very serious matter for the 240,000 Germans before Paris, and the presence of 120,000 to 150,000 French soldiers in Lorraine might be a more effective means of raising the siege than even a victory of Chanzy over Frederick Charles, by which the latter would after all be driven back upon the besieging forces, to be backed up by them. True, the Germans have another line of railway communication by Thionville, Mézierès, and Reims, which Bourbaki might probably not be able to reach even with flying columns; but then there is the absolute certainty of a general rising of the people in the occupied districts as soon as Bourbaki would have succeeded in penetrating into Lorraine; and what the safety for traffic of that second line of railway would be under such circumstances we need not explain any further. Besides, Bourbaki’s success would, as a first consequence, compel Goeben to fall back, and thus the Army of the North might find a chance of cutting off this line between Soissons and Mézierès.

We consider this movement of Bourbaki as the most important and the most promising one which has been made by any French general in this war. But, we repeat, it must be carried out adequately. The best plans are worthless if they be executed feebly and irresolutely; and we shall probably not learn anything positive about Bourbaki’s forces or the way he handles them until his struggles with Werder have been decided.

But we are informed that in view of some such contingency, the Corps of Werder is to be enlarged into a great “fifth army,” under Manteuffel, who is to hand over his “first army” to Goeben, and to bring to Werder’s assistance the 2nd, 7th, and 14th Corps.

Now, of the 7th Corps, the 13th division has already been sent towards Vesoul, under Zastrow; the 14th division has only just taken Mézierès and Rocroi, and cannot, therefore, be expected at Vesoul so very soon; the 14th Corps is the very one which Werder has had all along (the Baden division and the 30th and 34th Prussian regiments, under Goltz); and, as to the 2nd Corps, which is before Paris, we expect that it will not start before that city shall have surrendered, because it cannot be well spared there. But even if it were sent off now it would only arrive after Werder’s decisive action with Bourbaki had taken place. As to other reinforcements for Werder from reserves which may be supposed to exist in Germany, we have to consider, firstly, that whatever landwehr can be made disposable has already been, or is being, forwarded now; and, secondly, that the depôt battalions, the only other reserve force in existence, have just been emptied of their drilled men, and are at this moment mere cadres. Thus, Bourbaki will at all events have to fight his first and most decisive actions before the intended reinforcements can have arrived; and, if victorious, he will be in the favourable position to deal with these reinforcements one after another as they arrive successively and from very different directions.

On the other hand, Prince Frederick Charles, in spite of his victorious march to Le Mans, may yet have made the first mistake committed by the Germans in this war, when he left Bourbaki entirely free, in order to concentrate all his forces against Chanzy. Now, Chanzy was no doubt his more immediate opponent, and for the moment the most dangerous one too. But Chanzy’s country is not the one where decisive successes can be had over the French. Chanzy has just suffered a severe defeat; that settles his attempts for the relief of Paris for the present. But it so far settles nothing else. Chanzy may withdraw if he likes either towards Brittany or towards the Calvados. In either case he finds at the extreme end of his retreat a great naval arsenal, Brest or Cherbourg, with detached forts to shelter him until the French fleet can transport his men south of the Loire or north of the Somme. In consequence, the West of France is a country where the French can carry on a war to amuse the enemy — a war of alternate advances and retreats — without ever being brought to bay against their will. We should not wonder if Chanzy had been urged on to fight by Gambetta, who was reported to have joined

him, and who would be sure to subordinate military to political considerations. After his reverse, and — the loss of Le Mans. Chanzy could do nothing better than draw off Frederick Charles as far away to the westward as possible, so that this portion of the Prussian forces may be quite out of harm’s way when Bourbaki’s campaign begins to develop itself.

Faidherbe, in the north, is evidently too weak to do anything decisive against Goeben. As it appears that Chanzy cannot defeat Frederick Charles and thereby relieve Paris, it would be better to send plenty of men to the north, to get rid of Goeben both at Amiens and Rouen, and to attempt with concentrated forces an advance upon the railway line from Mézierès to Paris; especially now, while Bourbaki is threatening the other German line of railway. The communications are the tenderest part of an army’s position; and if the northern line, which lies so much exposed to an attack from the north both at Soissons and Rethel, should once be seriously menaced while Bourbaki is at work on the southern edge of Lorraine, we might see all of a sudden a very pretty commotion in Versailles.

Notes on the War.-XXXVI, January 19, 1871

Ever since, after Sedan, Paris was first seriously menaced by hostile attack, we have insisted upon the great strength of a fortified capital like Paris; but we have never omitted to add that, for the full development of its defensive powers, it required a large regular army to defend it'; an army too powerful to be shut up in the works of the place, or to be prevented from manoeuvring in the open around the fortress, which would serve as its pivot and partly as its base of operations.

Under normal conditions, this army would almost always be at hand, as a matter of course. The French armies, defeated near the frontier, would fall back upon Paris as their last and chief stronghold; they would under ordinary circumstances arrive here in sufficient strength, and find sufficient reinforcements to be able to fulfil the task assigned to them. But this time the strategy of the Second Empire had caused the whole of the French armies to disappear from the field. One of them it had managed to get shut up, to all appearance hopelessly, in Metz; the other had just surrendered at Sedan. When the Prussians arrived before Paris, a few half-filled depôts, a number of provincial Mobiles (just levied), and the local National Guard (not half formed), were all the forces ready for its defence.

Even under these circumstances the intrinsic strength of the place proved so formidable to the invaders, the task of attacking lege artis this immense city and its outworks appeared so gigantic to them, that they abandoned it at once, and chose to reduce the place by famine. At that time Henri Rochefort and others were formed into a “Commission of Barricades,” charged with the construction of a third interior line of defence, which should prepare the ground for that line of fighting so peculiarly Parisian — the defence of barricades and the struggle from house to house. The press at the time made great fun of this commission; but the semi-official publications of the Prussian staff leave no doubt that it was above all the certainty of having to encounter a determined struggle at the barricades which caused them to decide in favour of reduction by famine. The Prussians knew very well that the forts, and after them the enceinte, if defended by artillery alone, must fall within a certain time; but then would come a stage of the struggle in which new levies and even civilians would be a match for veterans; in which house after house, street after street, would have to be conquered, and, considering the great number of the defenders, with the certainty of an immense loss of life. Whoever will refer to the papers on the subject in the Prussian Staats-Anzeiger will find this reason to be stated as the decisive one against a regular siege.

The investment began on September 19, exactly four months ago to-day. On the following day General Ducrot, who commanded the regular troops in Paris, made a sortie with three divisions in the direction of Clamart, and lost seven guns and 3,000 prisoners. This was followed by similar sorties on the 23rd and 30th of September, 13th and 21st of October, all of which resulted in considerable loss to the French without other advantages than, perhaps, accustoming the young troops to the enemy’s fire. On the 28th another sortie was made against Le Bourget with better success. the village was taken and held 1()1 two days; but on the 30th the second division of the Prussian guards — thirteen battalions, then less than 10,000 men — retook the village. The French had evidently made very poor use of the two days, during which they might have converted the massively built village into a fortress, and neglected to keep reserves at hand to support the defenders in time, otherwise such a moderate force could not have wrested the place from them.

After this effort there followed a month of quietness. Trochu evidently intended to improve the drill and discipline of his men before again risking great sorties, and very properly so. But, at the same time, he neglected to carry on that war of outposts, reconnaissances and patrols, of ambushes and surprises, which is now the regular occupation of the men on the French front round Paris — a kind of warfare than which none is more adapted to give young troops confidence in their officers and in themselves, and the habit of meeting the enemy with composure. Troops which have found out that in small bodies, in single sections, half companies, or companies, they can surprise, defeat, or take prisoner similar small bodies of the enemy will soon learn to meet him battalion against battalion. Besides, they will thus learn what outpost duty really is, which many of them appeared to be ignorant of as late as December.

On the 28th of November, at last, was inaugurated that series of sorties which culminated in the grand sortie of the 30th of November across the Marne, and the advance of the whole eastern front of Paris. On the 2nd of December the Germans retook Briey and part of Champigny, and on the following day the French recrossed the Marne. As an attempt to break through the entrenched lines of circumvallation which the besiegers had thrown up, the attack completely failed; it had been carried out without the necessary energy. But it left in the hands of the French a considerable portion of hitherto debatable ground in front of their lines. A strip of ground about two miles in width. from Drancy to the Marne, near Neuilly, came into their possession; a country completely commanded by the fire of the forts, covered with massively built villages easy of defence, and possessing a fresh commanding position in the plateau of Avron. Here, then, was a chance of permanently enlarging the circle of defence; from this ground, once well secured, a further advance might have been attempted, and either the line of the besiegers so much “bulged in” that a successful attack on their lines became possible, or that, by concentrating a strong force here, they were compelled to weaken their line at other points, and thus facilitate a French attack. Well, this ground remained in the hands of the French for a full month. The Germans were compelled to erect siege batteries against Avron, and yet two days’ fire from these batteries sufficed to drive the French from it; and, Avron once lost, the other positions were also abandoned. Fresh attacks had indeed been made on the whole north-east and east front on the 21st; Le Bourget was half-carried, Maison Blanche and Ville-Evrard were taken; but all this vantage-ground was lost again the same night. The troops were left on the ground outside the forts, where they bivouacked at a temperature varying from nine to twenty-one degrees below freezing point, and were at last withdrawn under shelter because they naturally could not stand the exposure. The whole of this episode is more characteristic than any other of the want of decision and energy — the mollesse, we might almost say the drowsiness — with which this defence of Paris is conducted.

The Avron incident at last induced the Prussians to turn the investment into a real siege, and to make use of the siege artillery which, for unforeseen cases, had been provided. On the 30th of December the regular bombardment of the north-eastern and eastern forts commenced; on the 5th of January that of the southern forts. Both have been continued without interruption, and of late have been accompanied by a bombardment of the town itself, which is a wanton piece of cruelty. Nobody knows better than the staff at Versailles, and nobody has caused it oftener to be asserted in the press, that the bombardment of a town as extensive as Paris cannot hasten its surrender by one moment. The cannonade of the forts is being followed up by the opening of regular parallels, at least against Issy; we hear of the guns being moved into batteries nearer to the forts, and unless the defence acts on the offensive more unhesitatingly than hitherto, we may soon hear of actual damage being done to one or more forts.

Trochu, however. continues in his inactivity, masterly or otherwise. The few sorties made during the last few days appear to have been but too “platonic,” as Trochu’s accuser in the Siècle calls the whole of them. We are told the soldiers refused to follow their officers. If so, this proves nothing but that they have lost all confidence in the supreme direction. And, indeed, we cannot resist the conclusion that a change in the chief command in Paris has become a necessity. There is an indecision, a lethargy, a want of sustained energy in all the proceedings of this defence which cannot entirely be laid to the charge of the quality of the troops. That the positions, held for a month, during which there occurred only about ten days of severe frost, were not properly entrenched, cannot be blamed upon any one but Trochu, whose business it was to see to its being done. And that month, too, was the critical period of the siege; at its close the question was to be decided which party, besiegers or besieged, would gain ground. Inactivity and indecision, not of the troops but of the commander-in-chief, have turned the scale against the besieged.

And why is this inactivity and indecision continued even now? The forts are under the enemy’s fire, the besiegers’ batteries are being brought nearer and nearer; the French artillery, as is owned by Trochu himself, is inferior to that of the attack. Defended by artillery alone, the very day may be calculated when, under these circumstances, the ramparts — masonry and all — of the forts will give way. Inactivity and indecision cannot save them. Something must be done; and if Trochu cannot do it, he had better let some one else try.

Kinglake has preserved a transaction in which Trochu’s character appears in the same light as in this defence of Paris. When the advance to Varna had been resolved upon by both Lord Raglan and Saint-Arnaud, and the British Light Division had already been despatched, Colonel Trochu — “a cautious thinking man, well versed in strategic science,” of whom

“it was surmised that it was part of his mission to check anything like wildness in the movements of the French Marshal”

— Colonel Trochu called upon Lord Raglan, and entered upon negotiations, the upshot of which was that Saint-Arnaud declared he had resolved to send to

“Varna but one division, and to place the rest of his army in position, not in advance, but in the rear of the Balkan range,”

and invited Lord Raglan to follow his example. And that at a moment when the Turks were all but victorious on the Danube without foreign aid!

It may be said that the troops in Paris have lost heart, and are no longer fit for great sorties, that it is too late to sally forth against the Prussian siege works, that Trochu may save his troops for one great effort at the last moment, and so forth. But if the 500,000 armed men in Paris are to surrender to an enemy not half their number, placed moreover in a position most unfavourable for defence, they will surely not do so until their inferiority is brought home to all the world and to themselves. Surely they are not to sit down, eat up the last meal of their provisions, and then surrender! And if they have lost heart, is it because they acknowledge themselves hopelessly beaten, or because they have no longer any trust in Trochu? If it is too late to make sorties now, in another month they will be still more impracticable. And as to Trochu’s grand finale, the sooner it is made the better; at present the men are still tolerably fed and strong, and there is no telling what they will be in February.

Notes on the War.-XXXVII, January 21, 1871

This has been a most unfortunate week for the French arms. After Chanzy’s defeat came the repulse of Bourbaki before Belfort, and now comes the check which, according to Prussian accounts, Faidherbe has just suffered in front of St. Quentin.

There can be no mistake about Bourbaki’s failure. Ever since the affair at Villersexel on the 9th, he has displayed a slowness of movement which indicated either indecision on the part of the General or insufficient strength on the part of the troops. The attack upon the entrenched positions which Werder had prepared for the protection of the siege of Belfort beyond the Lisaine (or Isel on other maps) was not commenced before the 15th, and on the evening of the 17th Bourbaki gave it up in despair. There can be no doubt now that the expedition had been undertaken with insufficient forces. The 15th Corps had been left near Nevers; of the 19th we have not heard for a month; the troops brought up from Lyons reduce themselves to one army corps, the 24th. We now hear of considerable reinforcements being hurried up to Dijon, but, in the face of the strong reinforcements rapidly arriving on the other side, they will not enable Bourbaki at once to resume the offensive.

It may be questioned whether Bourbaki ought to have led his young troops to the assault of entrenched positions defended by breech-loaders; but we know little as yet of the tactical conditions under which the three days’ fight took place: he may have been unable to act otherwise.

That the Prussian headquarters did not look upon Bourbaki’s expedition with the same contemptuous shrug as most people did here in London is shown by the extreme eagerness with which they took steps to meet it. From these steps there can be no doubt that Bourbaki’s move was known in Versailles as soon as he began his eastward march, if not before. On the 2nd of January the 2nd Corps received orders to march from Paris in a south-easterly direction, towards the basin of the Upper Seine. About the same time Zastrow left the neighbourhood of Metz with the 13th division for Châtillon. Immediately after the reduction of Rocroi, on the 9th, the 14th division (the remaining one of Zastrow’s 7th Corps) was ordered from Charleville towards Paris, thence to follow the 2nd Corps; and on the 15th already we find its advance (a battalion of the 77th regiment) engaged near Langres. At the same time landwehr troops were hurried on towards southern Alsace from Germany, and Manteuffel evidently owes his new command to no other cause than this first serious movement against the weakest point of the whole German line. Had Bourbaki brought sufficient forces to overthrow Werder, he might have cast him back into the Rhine valley, placed the chain of the Vosges between Werder and his own troops, and marched with the greater part of his forces against these reinforcements, which he might have attacked in detail as they arrived from different directions. He might have penetrated as far as the Paris Strasbourg Railway, In which case it is very doubtful whether the investment of Paris could have been continued. His defeat proves nothing against the strategy of his movement: it proves merely that it was carried on with insufficient forces. The writer of these Notes is still of opinion that the shortest and safest plan to relieve Paris is an attack upon the Strasbourg-Paris Railway, the only through line of rail the Germans have, for we know now that the other line, viâ -Thionville and Mézierès, is still impracticable, and will remain so for some time vet, on account of the blowing-up of a tunnel in the Ardennes. This, by the way, is the second instance in this war in which the demolition of a tunnel stops a railway for months, while the destruction of bridges and viaducts has been in every case repaired in an incredibly short time.

As to Chanzy, he evidently made a very great mistake in accepting a pitched battle at all. He must have been aware of Bourbaki’s move for nearly a month; he must have known that this was the real move for the relief of Paris, and that in the meantime he might have the whole weight of Frederick Charles’s army brought to bear against himself. He was not compelled to accept battle; on the contrary, he might have drawn on his opponent farther than was safe for the latter, by a slow retreat under continuous rear-guard engagements, such as those by which he first established his reputation in December. He had plenty of time to get his stores sent off to places of safety, and he had the choice of retiring either upon Brittany with its fortified naval ports, or by Nantes to the south of the Loire. Moreover, Frederick Charles, with all his forces, could not have followed him very far. Such a military retreat would be more in keeping with our previous experience of Chanzy; and as he must have known that the new reinforcements he had received were not yet fit for a general action either by equipment, armament, or discipline, we cannot but come to the conclusion that the battle before Le Mans was fought not for military but for political reasons, and that the man responsible for it is not Chanzy but Gambetta. As to Chanzy’s retreat now, it is, of course, rendered far more difficult by the preceding defeat; but Chanzy excels in retreats, and, so far, the victors do not appear to have materially damaged the cohesion of his army. Otherwise they would have substantial proofs to show for their assertion that this army “shows signs of dissolution.” Whether the retreat of Chanzy’s army is really an eccentric one is not certain. At all events, from the fact that part of his troops retreated towards Alençon, and another part towards Laval, it does not necessarily follow that the first portion will be driven into the peninsula of the Cotentin towards Cherbourg, and the other into that of Brittany towards Brest. As the French fleet can steam from the one port to the other in a few hours, even this would be no severe disaster. In Brittany, the country, by its numerous thickset hedges — as thick as those in the Isle of Wight, only far more plentiful — is eminently adapted for defence, especially by raw troops, whose inferiority almost disappears there. Frederick Charles is not likely to entangle himself in a labyrinth where the armies of the first Republic fought for years against a mere peasant insurrection.

The conclusion we must come to upon the whole of the campaign of January is this — that the French lost it everywhere by trying to do too many different things at the same time. They can hope to win only by concentrating their masses upon one point, at the risk of being temporarily driven back on the other points, where, of course, they should avoid pitched battles. Unless they do this, and soon, Paris may be considered doomed. But if they act on this old-established principle they may still win — however black things may look for them to-day. The Germans now have received all the reinforcements they can expect for three months to come; while the French must have in their camps of instruction at least from two to three hundred thousand men, who during that time will be got ready to meet the enemy.

Notes on the War.-XXXVIII, January 26, 1871

We are again in a critical period of the war, which may turn out to be the critical period. From the moment we heard that bread had been rationed out in Paris by the Government, there could be no longer any doubt that the beginning of the end had come. How soon after that the offer of surrender would follow was a mere question of detail. We suppose, then, that it is intended to surrender to some 220,000 besiegers a besieged force of some 500,000 armed men on any terms the besiegers choose to impose. Whether it will be possible to carry this out without another struggle remains to be seen; at all events, any such struggle could not materially alter the state of things. Whether Paris holds out another fortnight, or whether a portion of these 500,000 armed men succeed in forcing a road across the lines of investment, will not much affect the ulterior course of the war.

We cannot but hold General Trochu mainly responsible for this result of the siege. He certainly was not the man to form an army out of the undoubtedly excellent material under his hands. He had nearly five months’ time to make soldiers out of his men; yet at the end they appear to fight no better than at the beginning of the siege. The final sortie from Valérien was carried out with far less dash than the previous one across the Marne; there appears a good deal of theatrical display in it — little of the rage of despair. It will not do to say that the troops were not fit to be sent out to storm breastworks manned by the German veterans. Why were they not? Five months are a sufficient time to make very respectable soldiers out of the men Trochu had at his command, and there are no circumstances better adapted for that purpose than those of the siege of a large entrenched camp. No doubt the men after the sorties of November and December had lost heart; but was it because they knew their inferiority with regard to their opponents, or because they had lost all faith in the pretended determination of Trochu to fight the matter out? All reports from Paris agree in ascribing the want of success to the absence of confidence of the soldiers in the supreme command. And rightly so. Trochu, we must not forget, is an Orleanist, and, as such, lives in bodily fear of La Villette, Belleville, and the other “revolutionary” quarters of Paris. He feared them more than the Prussians. This is not a mere supposition or deduction on our part. We know, from a source which admits of no doubt, of a letter sent out of Paris by a member of the Government in which it is stated that Trochu was on every side urged on to take the offensive energetically, but that he constantly refused, because such a course might hand over Paris to the “demagogues.”

The fall of Paris, then, appears now all but certain. It will be a hard blow to the French nation, immediately after St. Quentin, Le Mans, and Héricourt, and its moral effect under these circumstances will be very great. Moreover, there are events impending in the south-east which may render this blow morally crushing. Bourbaki appears to be tarrying in the neighbourhood of Belfort in a way which seems to imply that he does not at all comprehend his situation. The 24th Corps, under Bressolles, on the 24th was still at Blâmont, about twelve miles south of Montbéliard, and close to the Swiss frontier; and even supposing that this was Bourbaki’s rearguard, it is not to be expected that the other two corps he had with him would be far away. In the meantime, we find that Prussian detachments, as early as the 21st, had cut, at Dôle, the railway between Besançon and Dijon; that they have since occupied St. Vith, another station on the same line nearer to Besançon; and that they are thus confining Bourbaki’s retreat, towards Lyons, to the narrow strip between the Doubs and the Swiss frontier, a country of parallel longitudinal mountain chains and valleys where a comparatively small force may find plenty of positions in which it can stop the retreat of an army such as Bourbaki’s has shown itself to be. These detachments on the Doubs we take to be the 13th Division of Zastrow’s 7th Corps, or perhaps a portion of Fransecky’s 2nd Corps, which has turned up on the 23rd at Dijon. The 60th regiment, which with the 21st forms the 8th Brigade (or 4th brigade of the 2nd Corps), was repulsed before that town by Garibaldi, and lost its colours. As Garibaldi has but 15,000 men at the utmost, he will not be able to hold the town against the superior forces which are sure to have arrived before it in the meantime. He will be driven back, and the Prussian advance will be continued towards and beyond the Doubs. Unless Bourbaki has in the meantime used the legs of his men to good advantage, he may be driven, with all his army, into the fortress of Besançon to play Metz over again, or into a corner of the Jura abutting on Swiss territory, and compelled to lay down his arms either on this side or on the other of the frontier. And if he should escape with the greater portion of his troops, it is almost certain that large numbers of stragglers, much baggage, and perhaps artillery, will have to be sacrificed.

After the three days’ fighting at Héricourt, Bourbaki had no business to remain a day longer in his exposed position near the frontier, with Prussian reinforcements marching towards his communications. His attempts to relieve Belfort had failed; every chance of a further offensive movement in that direction had disappeared; his position became every day more dangerous, and nothing but rapid retreat could save him. By all appearances he has neglected that too, and if his imprudence should lead to a second Sedan, the blow to the French people might be morally overwhelming.

Morally, we say, for materially it need not be. Germany is certainly not so exhausted as Gambetta pretends, but Germany is at this very moment displaying a greater absolute and relative strength than she will again display for months to come. For some time the German forces must decline, while nothing prevents the French forces, even after the surrender of the Paris garrison and Bourbaki, should it come to that, from again increasing. The Prussians themselves appear to have given up all hopes of being able to conquer and occupy the whole of France; and as long as the compact block of territory in the South remains free, and as long as resistance, passive and occasionally active (like the blowing up of the Moselle bridge near Toul), is not given up in the North, we do not see how France can be compelled to give in unless she be tired of the war.

Notes on the War.-XXXIX, January 28, 1871

Twice only since Sedan have the operations of a French army caused serious uneasiness to General Moltke. The first instance occurred about the middle of November, when the Army of the Loire, after the defeat of von der Tann at Coulmiers, filed off to the left in order to approach Paris from the west, and advanced to Dreux. Then Moltke, with a resolution worthy of such a crisis, prepared for the immediate raising of the siege in case Mecklenburg, even with all the temporary reinforcements detached to his aid, should not be strong enough to stem the enemy’s advance. That advance was stemmed, and the siege could continue. The second time it was Bourbaki’s march towards the east which troubled the repose of the headquarters at Versailles. How serious this move was considered to be was shown by the steps taken at once to meet it. Werder’s troops — the 14th Corps and the reserve divisions of Tresckow and Schmeling — were at once reinforced by two more corps, of which one, the second, marched off from Paris as early as the 2nd of January. The language of the semi-official communications became guarded; on the 11th the Provinzial-Correspondenz calls attention to the fact that “in the east of France important and decisive battles are impending,” and that Bourbaki intends, after relieving Belfort, to break through the Prussian line of communication at Nancy. Non-official correspondents, though still guarded, speak more plainly; we will only quote one of them, Wickede, of the Cologne Gazette. Immediately after the engagement of Villersexel, by which Werder had secured his communications with and retreat upon Tresckow’s troops before Belfort, he says,

“Care has been taken that the French shall not relieve Belfort, and after the late successful engagements we may with probability hope that they will not succeed in advancing by Chaumont to Nancy or some other point of our railway line, which a short time ago there was some reason to fear they might do.”

And on the 16th of January, from Nancy, he writes that, after the arrival of Manteuffel with three divisions beyond Châtillon,

“the apprehension that a hostile corps ... might take possession of Nancy — an apprehension which we justly (mit Recht) might have felt a few days ago — has now quite disappeared.” (Immediately after this letter there is one from Baden beginning with the words: “There can be no doubt that the situation before Belfort looks very serious.”)

But Herr Wickede was doomed to further apprehensions, for on the following day he had to communicate that news had arrived of the occupation of Flavigny (eleven miles from Nancy) by French troops. Immediately the guards were reinforced, strong patrols were sent out, the whole of the twenty engines at the station got their steam up, officers, Government employés and other Germans packed their trunks, and got ready for immediate departure. The men at Flavigny were expected to be Garibaldi’s advanced guard; they turned out to be some twenty francs-tireurs from the Vosges, and soon disappeared again. But the Prussian garrison of Nancy was not completely tranquillized until the 19th, when the news of Bourbaki’s final repulse on the Lisaine came to hand, and then at last Wickede could again resume his former strain.

Ought not the French, after all these defeats, to arrive at the conviction that further resistance is hopeless? Such was the opinion of those most directly concerned about an operation which, after its failure, The Times classifies as simply absurd. There might have been a difference of opinion as to whether the operation was likely to have been undertaken with sufficient forces; or whether, in case of success, its consequences could be developed in time to save Paris before starvation compelled surrender; or whether or not this was the best direction for a move against the German communications. But to put down such a move, the most effective one known to strategy, as simply absurd was left to the Moltkes of The Times.

In the meantime Count Moltke has operated with his usual mastery. He was too late to reinforce Werder before the arrival of Bourbaki; he chose the next best thing, and concentrated his reinforcements at Châtillon, where Manteuffel had three divisions (3rd, 4th, and 13th) on or before the 15th, and where they were joined by the 60th regiment (of the 3rd Corps), left in the neighbourhood by Prince Frederick Charles. We may expect that, by this time, he will have been joined by the 14th division too. At all events, on his advance south, he had at least forty-one if not fifty-three, battalions with him. With these troops he marched upon the river Doubs, leaving to the south the town of Dijon, where he merely occupied Garibaldi by the attack on the 23rd, but evidently without any intention to delay his advance by seriously engaging him or carrying the town. On the contrary, he steadily pursued the main object — the cutting off of Bourbaki ‘s retreat. According to the latest telegrams that object was nearly attained. His troops were across the Doubs, at Quingey and Mouchard, at which latter place the railway from Dijon to Pontarlier and Switzerland crosses that from Besançon to Lyons. There still remains one good road by which Bourbaki might escape, but that road is, at Champagnole, not more than twenty-five miles from Mouchard, and may be occupied by this time. In that case there would only remain to Bourbaki the country road passing by the source of the Doubs, where he could scarcely get on with his artillery; and even that road may be cut off before he is out of harm’s way. And if he does not succeed in breaking through the opposing troops in a country very favourable to the defence, he has but the choice of withdrawing under the shelter of the forts of Besançon or of surrendering In the open — the choice between Metz and Sedan, unless he surrenders to the Swiss.

It is inconceivable that he should have tarried so long near Belfort, for the latest Prussian telegrams represent him still to be north-east of Besançon. If he could not defeat Werder before Manteuffel’s arrival, how much less could he expect to do so afterwards? Bourbaki’s duty evidently was to withdraw at once to a position of safety after his final repulse before Belfort. Why he has not done so is totally inexplicable. But if the worst should befall him, after his mysterious journey from Metz to Chiselhurst, after his refusal to salute the Republic at Lille, the late commander of the Imperial Guard is sure to have doubts raised as to his loyalty.

Notes on the War.-XL, February 02, 1871

If we are to believe the latest telegram from Berne — and there is now no room to discredit it — our anticipations regarding the fate of Bourbaki’s army have been realized. The Swiss Federal Council is reported to have received the official news that this army, about 80,000 strong, had passed upon Swiss territory, where, of course, it would have to lay down its arms. The exact points at which this took place have not been stated, but it must have been somewhere south of Blâmont and not more south than Pontarlier. The various detachments would pass the frontier at different points, the greatest mass of the troops probably at Les Brenets, where the road from Besançon to Neuchâtel enters Swiss territory.

Thus another French army has passed away, through — to use the mildest phrase — the irresolution of its chief. Bourbaki may be a dashing officer at the head of a division; but the nerve required to brace oneself up to a bold resolution in a decisive moment is quite a different thing from the nerve which enables a man to command a division with éclat under fire; and like many men of undoubted and brilliant personal courage, Bourbaki seems deficient in the moral courage necessary to come to a decisive resolution. On the evening of the 17th at latest, when his inability to pierce Werder’s lines became fully evident to himself, his mind ought to have been made up at once as to his line of conduct. He must have known that Prussian reinforcements were approaching his line of retreat from the north-west; that his position with a victorious enemy in his front, and a long line of retreat, close to a neutral frontier, in his rear, was extremely dangerous; that the object of his expedition had irretrievably failed; and that his most pressing, nay, his only duty, under the circumstances, was to save his army. In other words, that he must retire as hastily as the state of his army would allow. But this resolution to retire, to confess by deeds that he had failed in his expedition, appears to have been too much for him. He dallied about the scene of his last battles, unable to advance, unwilling to retire, and thus gave Manteuffel the time to cut off his retreat. Had he marched off at once, and only done fifteen miles a day, he could have reached Besançon on the 20th, and the neighbourhood of Dôle on the 21st, just about the time when the first Prussians made their appearance there. These Prussians could not be very strong; and even Bourbaki’s advanced guard must have been sufficient if not to drive them off entirely, still to confine them to the right or western bank of the Doubs, which would have been quite sufficient to secure Bourbaki’s line of retreat, especially with an adversary of the force of Manteuffel, who will act correctly enough so long as the execution of Moltke’s orders meets with no resistance, but who sinks below the level of mediocrity as soon as that resistance calls into play his own mental powers.

It is one of the most curious points in the document agreed to between Bismarck and Jules Favre, that the four departments where Bourbaki and Garibaldi are acting are not included in the general armistice, but that the Prussians virtually reserve to themselves the power of continuing to fight there as long as they please. It is an unprecedented stipulation, which shows more than any other that the conqueror, in the true Prussian fashion, exacted to the full every concession his momentary superiority enabled him to impose. The armistice is to extend to the West, where Frederick Charles finds that he had better not advance beyond Le Mans; to the North, where Goeben is arrested by the fortresses; but not to the south-east, where Manteuffel’s advance promised a second Sedan. Jules Favre, in consenting to this clause, virtually consented to the surrender of Bourbaki, either to the Prussians or to the Swiss; the only difference in his favour being that he shifted the responsibility of the act from his shoulders to those of Bourbaki.

Altogether, the capitulation of Paris is an unprecedented document. When Napoleon surrendered at Sedan he declined entering on negotiations beyond those for the surrender of himself and army; he, as a prisoner, being disabled from binding the Government and France. When M. Jules Favre surrenders Paris and its army he enters upon stipulations binding the rest of France, though exactly in the same position as Napoleon at Sedan. Nay, worse. Napoleon, almost up to the day of his capitulation, had been in free communication with the rest of France; M. Jules Favre, for five or six weeks, has enjoyed but rare and fragmentary opportunities of learning what was going on outside Paris. His information as to the military situation outside the forts could be supplied to him by Bismarck only; and upon this one-sided statement, furnished by the enemy, he ventured to act.

M. Jules Favre had a choice between two evils. He could do as he has done, secure a three weeks’ armistice on the enemy’s terms, and bind the real Government of France, that of Bordeaux to it . Or he could refuse to act for the rest of France, offer to treat for Paris alone, and in case of difficulties raised by the besiegers, do as the commandant of PhaIsbourg did — throw open the gates and invite the conquerors to enter. The latter course would have been more in the interest of his dignity and of his political future.

As to the Bordeaux Government, it will have to adhere to the armistice and to the election of a National Assembly. It has no means to compel the generals to repudiate the armistice, it will hesitate to create divisions among the people. The surrender of Bourbaki to the Swiss adds another crushing blow to the many the French have lately received; and, as we stated in anticipation of the event we believe that this blow, following immediately upon the surrender of Paris, will so much depress the spirits of the nation that peace will be made. As to the material resources of France, they are so far from being exhausted that the struggle might be continued for months. There is one striking fact which shows how immense are the difficulties in the way of a complete conquest of France. Prince Frederick Charles, after seven days’ fighting, had driven back Chanzy’s army, in a state of utter dissolution. With the exception of a few brigades, there were positively no troops left to oppose him. The country in his front was rich and comparatively unexhausted. Yet he stops his march at Le Mans, pursuing beyond with his advanced guard only, and not beyond short distances. Our readers will recollect that we were prepared for no other result'; for it may be said, with a certain amount of truth that in conquering a large country, while the extent to be occupied increases arithmetically, the difficulties of occupation increase geometrically.

Still we think that the repeated disasters of the January campaign must have shaken the morale of the nation to such an extent that the proposed National Assembly will not only meet, but also probably make peace; and thus, along with the war, these Notes upon it will come to a close.

The Military Aspect of Affairs in France, February 08, 1871

If the series of disasters to the French arms which mark the January campaign — the defeats of Faidherbe and Chanzy, the fall of Paris, the defeat and surrender to the Swiss of Bourbaki — if all these crushing events, concentrated in the short period of three weeks, may well be considered to have broken the spirit of resistance in France, it now seems not improbable that the Germans, by their extravagant demands, may rouse that spirit again. If the country is to be thoroughly ruined by peace as well as by war, why make peace at all? The propertied classes, the middle class of the towns and the larger landed proprietors, with part of the smaller peasantry, hitherto formed the peace party; they might have been reckoned upon to elect peace deputies for the National Assembly; but if such unheard-of demands are persisted in, the cry of war to the knife may rise from their ranks as well as from those of the workmen of the large towns. At any rate, it is well not to neglect whatever chance there may be that the war may be resumed after the 19th of February ... ; especially since the Germans themselves, if we may trust The Daily News of to-day, are not so satisfied with the prospect of affairs as to abstain from serious preparations for the resumption of hostilities. Let us, therefore, cast another glance at the military aspect of affairs.

The twenty-seven departments of France now occupied by the Prussians contain an area of 15,800,000 hectares, with a population (allowing for the fortresses still unsurrendered) of rather less than 12,500,000. The extent of all France comprises 54,240,000 hectares, and its population is 37,382,000. It thus appears that, in round numbers, thirty-eight and a half millions of hectares, with a population of 25,000,000, remain still unconquered, — fully two-thirds of the people, considerably more than two-thirds of the soil. Paris and Metz, the resistance of which so long retarded further hostile advance, have certainly fallen. The interior of the unconquered country contains no other entrenched camp — Lyons excepted — capable of playing the same part which these two fortresses have played. Rather less than 700,000 Frenchmen (not counting the National Guard of Paris) are prisoners of war or interned in Switzerland. But there are other circumstances which may make up for this deficiency, even if the three weeks’ armistice should not be used for the creation of new camps, surrounded by field works; for which there is ample time.

The great bulk of unconquered France lies south of the line Nantes-Besançon; it forms a compact block, covered on three sides by the sea or by neutral frontiers, with only its northern boundary line open to the enemy’s attack. Here is the strength of the national resistance; here are to be found the men and the material to carry on the war if it is resumed. To conquer and occupy this immense rectangle of 450 miles by 250 against a desperate resistance — regular and irregular — of the inhabitants, the present forces of the Prussians would not suffice. The surrender of Paris, leaving four corps for the garrison of that capital, will set free nine divisions; Bourbaki’s surrender sets free Manteuffel’s six line divisions; in all, fifteen divisions, or 150,000 to 170,000 additional soldiers for operations in the field, added to Goeben’s four and Frederick Charles’s eight divisions. But Goeben has plenty on his hands in the north, and Frederick Charles has shown by his halt at Tours and Le Mans that his offensive powers are exhausted to the full, so that for the conquest of the South there remain but the above fifteen divisions; and for some months to come no further reinforcements can arrive.

To these fifteen divisions the French will have to oppose in the beginning mostly new formations. There were about Nevers and Bourges the 15th and 25th Corps; there must have been in the same neighbourhood the 19th Corps, of which we have heard nothing since the beginning of December. Then there is the 24th Corps, escaped from Bourbaki’s shipwreck, and Garibaldi’s troops, recently reinforced to 50,000 men, but by what bodies and from what quarters we do not know. The whole comprises some thirteen or fourteen divisions, perhaps even sixteen, but quite insufficient as to quantity and quality to arrest the progress of the new armies which are sure to be sent against them if the armistice should expire without peace having been made. But the three weeks’ armistice will not only give these French divisions time to consolidate themselves; it will also permit the more or less raw levies now in the camps of instruction, and estimated by Gambetta at 250,000 men, to transform at least the best of their battalions into useful corps fit to meet the enemy; and thus, if the war should be renewed, the French may be in a position to ward off any serious invasion of the South, not perhaps at the boundary line of the Loire or much north of Lyons, but yet at points where the presence of the enemy will not efficiently impair their force of resistance.

As a matter of course, the armistice gives ample time to restore the equipment, the discipline, and the morale of Faidherbe’s and Chanzy’s armies, as well as of all the other troops in Cherbourg, Havre, & The question is whether the time will be so employed. While thus the strength of the French will be considerably increased, both as to numbers and quality, that of the Germans will scarcely receive any increment at all. So far, the armistice will be a boon to the French side.

But beside the compact block of southern France, there remain unconquered the two peninsulas of the Bretagne with Brest, and of the Cotentin with Cherbourg, and, moreover, the two northern departments with their fortresses. Havre, too, forms an unconquered, well-fortified spot on the coast. Every one of these four districts is provided with at least one well-fortified place of safety on the coast for a retreating army; so that the fleet, which at this moment has nothing, absolutely nothing, else to do, can keep up the communications between the South and all of them, transport troops from one place to another, as the case may require, and thereby all of a sudden enable a beaten army to resume the offensive with superior forces. Thus while these four western and northern districts are in a measure unassailable, they form so many weak points on the flanks of the Prussians. The line of actual danger for the French extends from Angers to Besansçon; for the Germans it extends, in addition to this, from Angers by Le Mans, Rouen, and Amiens to the Belgian frontier. Advantages on this latter line gained over the French can never become decisive if moderate common sense be used by them; but those gained over the Germans may, under certain conditions, become so.

Such is the strategical situation. By using the fleet to advantage the French might move their men in the West and North, so as to compel the Germans to keep largely superior forces in that neighbourhood, and to weaken the forces sent out for the conquest of the South, which it would be their chief object to prevent. By concentrating their armies more than they have hitherto done, and, on the other hand, by sending out more numerous small partisan bands, they might increase the effect to be obtained by the forces on hand. There appear to have been many more troops at Cherbourg and Havre than were necessary for the defence; and the well executed destruction of the bridge of Fontenoy, near Toul, in the centre of the country occupied by the conquerors, shows what may be done by bold partisans. For, if the war is to be resumed at all after the 19th of February, it must be in reality a war to the knife, a war like that of Spain against Napoleon; a war in which no amount of shootings and burnings will prove sufficient to break the spirit of resistance.

Bourbaki's Disaster, February 18, 1871

By the correspondent of The Standard we are at last furnished with an eyewitness’s report of what took place in Bourbaki’s army during its disastrous January campaign. The correspondent was with General Crémer’s division, which formed the extreme left during the advance, and the rearguard during the retreat. His account, though naturally one-sided and full of inaccuracies in matters which did not occur under his eyes, is very valuable because it furnishes facts and dates hitherto unknown, and thus throws much light upon this phase of the war.

Bourbaki’s army, 133,000 men with 330 guns, was, it appears, scarcely deserving the name of an army. The linesmen, with passable officers, were inferior in physique to the Mobiles, but the latter had scarcely any officers acquainted even with the rudiments of their duties. The accounts received from Switzerland confirm this; if they give a worse account of the physique of the men, we must not forget the effect of a month’s campaigning under hunger and cold. The equipment as to clothing and shoes appears to have been by all accounts miserable. A commissariat or even a mere organization for carrying out with some order and regularity the levying of requisitions and the distribution of the food thus procured, appears to have been as good as totally absent.

Now of the four-and-a-half corps employed, three (the 15th, 18th, and 20th) had been handed over to Bourbaki as early as the 5th of December; and very soon after that date the plan to march eastwards must have been resolved upon. All his movements, up to the 5th of January, were mere marches for concentration, undisturbed by the enemy; they therefore were no obstacle in the way of improving the organization of this army — quite the contrary. Napoleon, in 1813, formed his raw levies into soldiers on the march to Germany. Thus Bourbaki had a full month to work in; and when after the time thus given him his troops arrived in presence of the enemy in the state described, he cannot possibly be considered free from blame. He does not appear to advantage as an organizer.

The original plan is said to have been to march upon Belfort in four columns — one on the eastern side of the Doubs through the Jura, to take or turn Montbéliard and the Prussian left; a second column along the valley of the river, for the front attack; a third column by a more westerly route, through Rougemont and Villersexel, against the enemy’s right; and Crémer’s division to arrive from Dijon by Lure beyond the Prussian right. But this was altered. The whole of the first three columns advanced on the one road through the valley, by which it is asserted that five days were lost, during which Werder was reinforced, and that the whole army being thrown upon one line of retreat, again lost time, and thus was cut off from Lyons and forced upon the Swiss frontier. Now, it is quite evident that throwing some 120,000 men — and men so loosely organized as these — in one column on one single line of march, would cause confusion and delay; but it is not so certain that this blunder was actually committed to the extent here implied. From all previous reports, Bourbaki’s troops arrived before Belfort in a broad front, extending from Villersexel to the Swiss boundary line, which implies the use of the various roads mentioned in the original plan. But whatever may have been the cause, the delay did occur, and was the chief cause of the loss of the battle at Héricourt. The engagement of Villersexel took place on the 9th. Villersexel is about twenty miles from the Prussian position at Héricourt, and it took Bourbaki five days — up to the evening of the 14th — to bring his troops up in front of that position so as to be able to attack it next morning! This we pointed out in a previous article as the first great mistake in the campaign. and we now see from the correspondent’s report that it was felt to be so by Crémer’s officers even before the battle of Héricourt began.

In that three days’ battle 130,000 Frenchmen fought against, 35,000 to 40,000 Germans, and could not force their entrenched position. With such a numerical superiority, the boldest flank movements were possible. Forty or fifty thousand men thrown resolutely upon the rear of the Germans while the rest occupied them in front could scarcely have failed to force them from their position. But instead of that merely the front, the entrenched front, of the position was attacked, and thus an immense and barren loss was caused. The flank attacks were carried out so weakly that a single German brigade (Keller’s) not only sufficed to repel that on the German right, but was enabled to hold Frahier and Chenebier so as in turn to outflank the French. Bourbaki’s young troops were thus put to the severest task which can be found for a soldier in battle, while their own superior numbers would have rendered it easier to carry the position by manoeuvring. But probably the last five days’ experience had proved to Bourbaki that it was useless to expect mobility from his army.

After the final repulse on the 17th of January followed the retreat to Besançon. That this retreat may have taken place mainly by the one road in the Doubs valley is probable; but we know that large bodies retreated by other roads nearer the Swiss frontier. Anyhow, on the afternoon of the 22nd the rearguard, under Crémer, arrived in Besançon. Thus the advanced guard must have arrived there as early as the 20th, and have been ready to march on the 21st against the Prussians, who on that day reached Dôle. But no. No notice is taken of them until after Crémer’s arrival, who all at once, changing his place from the rear to the vanguard, is sent out to meet them on the 23rd towards Saint Vit. On the following day Crémer is ordered back to Besançon; two days are wasted in indecision and inactivity, until, on the 26th, Bourbaki, after passing in review the 18th Corps, attempts suicide. Then a disorderly retreat commences in the direction of Pontarlier. But on that day the Germans at Mouchard and Salins were nearer the Swiss frontier than the fugitives, and their retreat was virtually cut off. It was no longer a race; the Germans could occupy leisurely the outlets of all the longitudinal valleys by which escape was still possible; while other troops pressed on the French rear. Then followed the engagements around Pontarlier, which brought this fact home to the defeated army; the result of which was the Convention of Les Verrieres and the surrender of the whole body to the Swiss.

The whole behaviour of Bourbaki, from the 15th to the 26th, seems to prove that he had lost all confidence in his men, and that consequently he also lost all confidence in himself. Why he suspended the march of his columns at Besançon until Crémers arrival, thus throwing away every chance of escape; why he recalled Crémer’s division, the best in the army, immediately after sending it out of Besançon to meet the Prussians, who blocked the direct road to Lyons; why after that he dallied another two days, which brings the time lost in Besançon to fully six days — it is impossible to explain unless by supposing that Bourbaki was eminently deficient in that resolution which is the very first quality of an independent commander. It is the old tale of the August campaign over again and it is curious that this singular hesitation should again show itself in a general inherited from the Empire, while none of the generals of the Republic — whatever else may have been their faults — have shown such indecision, or suffered such punishment for it.