Part 24 (1/2)
Baptized in true Caesar fas.h.i.+on, Remember, through all your years, That the font was a burning city, And the water was widows' tears,'”
When these lines were written, how little could any man have foreseen the fate of the poor lad, lying b.l.o.o.d.y and stark on a hillside of South Africa, deserted by his comrades, and above all by a degenerate descendant of Sir Walter Raleigh, who should have risked his life to defend his charge!
The day after the attack on Saarbruck compact ma.s.ses of Germans were moving across the frontier into France, and the next day (August 4), a division of MacMahon's army corps was surprised at Wissembourg, while their commander was at Metz in conference with the emperor.
The French troops were cut to pieces, and the fugitives spread themselves all over the country. The battle had been fought on ground covered with vineyards, and the movements of the French cavalry had been impeded by the vines. In this battle the French were without artillery, but they took eight cannon from the enemy.
The Prussians, however, being speedily reinforced, recovered their advantage and gained a complete victory. Wissembourg, a small town in Alsace, was bombarded and set on fire. There seemed no officer among the defeated French to restore order. They had never antic.i.p.ated such a rout, and were, especially the cavalry, utterly demoralized.
The French army was divided into seven army corps, the German into twelve. Each German army corps was greatly stronger in men, and incomparably better officered and equipped, than the French. The Germans began the war with nearly a million men; the French with little more than two hundred thousand on the frontier, though their army was five hundred thousand strong on the official records. The habit of the War Office had been to let rich men who were drawn for the conscription pay four hundred francs for a subst.i.tute, which subst.i.tute was seldom purchased, the money going into the pockets of dishonest officials.
The two hundred thousand French were stretched in a thin line from Belgium to the mountains of Dauphine. A German army corps could break this line at almost any point; and throughout the whole campaign the French suffered from the lack of reliable information as to the movements of the enemy.
On August 6, two days after the defeat at Wissembourg, the battle of Worth, or Reichshofen, was fought between the German _corps d'armee_ under the Prussian Crown Prince and the corps of MacMahon, which was completely defeated, and only enabled to leave the field of battle in retreat rather than rout, by brilliant charges of cavalry. The French lost six mitrailleuses, thirty guns, and four thousand unwounded prisoners. On the same day the German reserves retook Saarbruck, and put to flight General Frossard's division.
After these reverses Napoleon III. proposed to retreat on Paris and to cover the capital. This also was the counsel of MacMahon; but the empress-regent opposed it strongly, considering it a movement that must prove fatal to the dynasty. She even refused to receive back her son. And indeed it did not seem unlikely that the good people of Paris, who ten days before had cheered clamorously their beloved emperor, might have tom him in pieces, had he come back to them after such a succession of disasters.
On the 7th of August, the very day after the battle of Worth, while MacMahon was retreating before the victorious army of the Prussian Crown Prince, the Parisians were made victims of an extraordinary deception. A great battle was reported, in which the Crown Prince had been made prisoner, together with twenty-six thousand of his men.
All Paris turned into the streets to exult over this victory; everyone rushed in the direction of the Bourse, where details of the great victory were said to have been posted. In every street, from every house, people were summoned to hang out flags and banners. An excited crowd filled up the Bourse, many men clinging to the railings, all shouting, singing, and embracing each other. No one for a long time had any clear idea what the rejoicing was about, yet the crowd went on shouting and singing choruses, waving hats, and reiterating the ”Ma.r.s.eillaise.” The carriage of Madame Marie Sa.s.se, the prima donna, who was on her way to a rehearsal at the Grand Opera House, was stopped, and she was requested to sing the ”Ma.r.s.eillaise.”
She stood up on the seat of her carriage and complied at once.
”There was profound silence,” wrote a gentleman who was in the crowd, ”when she gave the first notes of the 'Ma.r.s.eillaise;' but all Paris seemed to take up the chorus after each stanza. There was uproarious applause. The last verse was even more moving than when Faure had sung it, on account of the novelty of the surroundings and the spontaneous feeling of the people. There were real tears in the singer's eyes, and her voice trembled with genuine emotion as she came to the thrilling appeal to _Liberte_.”
At the same moment Capoul also was singing the ”Ma.r.s.eillaise” in another street, and in the Rue Richelieu the mob, having stopped a beer cart and borrowed some gla.s.ses from a restaurant, were drinking healths to the army and the emperor.
”All this time,” says the American, who mingled in the crowd and shouted with the rest in his excitement, ”it never occurred to me to doubt the accuracy of the news that had so stirred up Paris; for the newspapers on the preceding days had prepared us to expect something of the kind. All at once, upon the Boulevard, I was aware of a violent altercation going on between a respectable-looking man and a number of infuriated bystanders. He seemed to be insisting that the whole story of the victory was untrue, and that despatches had been received announcing heavy disasters. I saw that unlucky citizen hustled about, and finally collared and led off by a policeman, the people pursuing him with cries of 'Prussian!' But some time later in the day some persons in a cab drove down the Boulevards with a white banner, inscribed: THE AUTHOR OF THE FALSE NEWS IS ARRESTED! This, however, was not the case, for the news was never traced to any person.”
The mob as soon as it began to believe that it had been the victim of some stockjobbing operators, rushed to the Bourse, determined to pull everything to pieces; but the military were there beforehand, and it had to content itself with requiring all householders to pull down the flags which two hours before it had insisted must be hung out.
The Parisians were not easily appeased after this cruel deception, and took their revenge by spreading damaging reports about the Government of the regency, especially accusing the ministers of basely suppressing bulletins from the army, that they might gamble on the stock-exchange. The chief of the cabinet, emile Ollivier, was very nearly mobbed; but he pacified the people by a speech made from the balcony of his residence. He was at the time really unaware that more than one defeat had been sustained.
Hour after hour alarming reports kept coming in; and at last, on August 9, the fatal news of three successive defeats was posted all over the city. Soon an ominous message, sent by Napoleon III., revealed the full horror of the situation: ”Hasten preparations for the defence of Paris.”
The greatest dismay prevailed. The Chambers were summoned to an evening session. The legislators were guarded by cavalry from the mob which surged round the Chamber. Ollivier and his cabinet were forced to resign, and a new cabinet was hastily installed in office, calling itself the Ministry of National Defence. Its head was Count Montauban, a man seventy-five years old, who had gained the t.i.tle of Count Palikao by his notorious campaign in China in 1860, when he sacked the summer palace at Pekin. M. Thiers had p.r.o.nounced him far more of a soldier than a statesman. He was in command of the fourth army corps at Lyons when summoned by the empress-regent to take up the reins of government; but in the course of the unvaried succession of misfortunes which made up the history of the French arms during the month of August, the public statements of Palikao proved as unreliable as those of his predecessor. His favorite way of meeting inquiries was to say oracularly: ”If Paris knew what I know, the city would be illuminated.”
Confidence increased after the empress-regent had proclaimed a _levee en ma.s.se_. There were no arms for those who responded to the call, and most of them had to be sent back to their homes; but it was considered certain that the mere idea of a general call to arms would intimidate the Prussians. Indeed, there was a popular delusion, shared even by foreigners, that the Prussian soldiery, on their march to Paris, would be cut to pieces by the peasantry. The conduct of the peasantry proved exactly the reverse of belligerent.
The penalties inflicted by the invaders for irregular warfare, and the profits made by individuals who remained neutral, were cleverly calculated to render the peasantry, not only harmless, but actually useful to the enemy.
Meantime the French were rapidly evacuating Alsace, and preparing to make their stand on the Moselle. General Failly's corps of thirty thousand men, which had failed to come up in time to help MacMahon at Worth, were in full retreat, without exchanging a shot with the enemy.
The Germans continued to march steadily on. The country was systematically requisitioned for supplies. The _maire_ or other high official of each village was informed twenty-four hours beforehand how many men he was expected to provide with rations; namely, to each man daily, 1-1/2 lb. bread, 1 lb. Meat, 1/4 lb. coffee, five cigars, or their equivalent in tobacco, a pint of wine or a quart of beer, and horse feed. If these demands were not complied with, he was a.s.sured that the village would be set on fire; and after a few examples had been made, the villagers became so intimidated that they furnished all that was required of them.
Here is a description of one night's work done by a Prussian general.
It is taken from a work by Erckmann-Chatrian;[1] but those graphic writers took all their descriptions from the mouths of Alsatian peasants who had been eye-witnesses of the scenes which they described:--
[Footnote 1: La Plebiscite.]
”The first thing the Prussian commander did on entering his chamber in a cottage where he had quarters for the night, was to make three or four soldiers turn out every article of furniture. Then he spread out on the floor an enormous map of the country. He took off his boots and lay down on the map flat on his stomach. Then he called in six or seven officers, all captains or lieutenants. Each man pulled out a small map. The general called to one of them by name: 'Have you got the road from here to Metting?' 'Yes, General.' 'Name all the places between here and there.' Then the officer, without hesitation, told the names of all the villages, farms, streams, bridges, and woods, the turnings of the roads, the very cow-paths.
The general followed him on the large map with his finger. 'That's all right. Take twenty men and go as far as St. Jean by such a road. You will reconnoitre. If you want any a.s.sistance, send me word.' And so on, one by one, to all the others.”
Such was the system and order of the Germans; while the French, full of amazement at their own defeat, unled, unofficered, and disorganized, are thus described by Edmond About as he saw them entering Saverne after the disastrous day at Worth.
”There were cuira.s.siers,” he says, ”without cuira.s.ses, fusileers without guns, hors.e.m.e.n on foot, and infantry on horseback. The roads taken by the army in its flight were blocked by trains of wagons loaded with provisions and clothing, and the woods were filled with stragglers wandering about in a purposeless way. Among the spoils of that day which fell into the hands of the Prussians were several railroad freight-cars loaded with Paris confectionery: and two days after the battle it was easier to obtain a hundredweight of bonbons at Forbach than a loaf of bread.”