Part 21 (1/2)
The possibility that the French marshal would accept battle at Sedan had been considered at the German headquarters on the night of the 31st, and arrangements had been made to meet his wishes. The army of the crown prince of Saxony (the Fourth Army) occupied the right of the German forces, the Bavarian Corps formed the centre, and the Prussians the left wing. The advanced troops of the army were ranged in the following order. On the right stood the Twelfth Corps, then the Fourth Prussian Corps, the Prussian Guards, and finally the Fourth Cavalry Division, their backs to Remilly. From this point they were linked to the First and Second Bavarian Corps, opposite Bazeilles; they, in turn, to the Eleventh and Fifth Corps; and they, at Dom-le-Mesnil, to the Wurtembergers. The Sixth Prussian Corps was placed in reserve between Attigny and Le Chene.
A word now as to the nature of the ground on which the impending battle was to be fought. Sedan lies in the most beautiful part of the valley of the Meuse, amid terraced heights, covered with trees, and, within close distance, the villages of Donchery, Iges, Villette, Glaire, Daigny, Bazeilles, and others. Along the Meuse, on the left bank, ran the main road from Donchery through Frenois, crossing the river at the suburb Torcy, and there traversing Sedan. The character of the locality may best be described as a ground covered with fruit gardens and vineyards, narrow streets shut in by stone walls, the roads overhung by forests, the egress from which was in many places steep and abrupt. Such was the ground. One word now as to the troops.
The German army before Sedan counted, all told, 240,000 men; the French 180,000. But the disparity in numbers was the least of the differences between the two armies. The one was flushed with victory, the other dispirited by defeat. The one had absolute confidence in their generals and their officers, the other had the most supreme contempt for theirs. The one had marched from Metz on a settled plan, to be modified according to circ.u.mstances, the drift of which was apparent to the meanest soldier; the other had been marched hither and thither, now toward Montmedy, now toward Paris, then again back toward Montmedy, losing much time; the men eager for a pitched battle, then suddenly surprised through the carelessness of their commanders, and compelled at last to take refuge in a town from which there was no issue. There was hardly an officer of rank who knew aught about the country in which he found himself. The men were longing to fight to the death, but they, one and all, distrusted their leaders. It did not tend, moreover, to the encouragement of the army to see the now phantom emperor, without authority to command even a corporal's guard, dragged about the country, more as a pageant than a sovereign. He, poor man, was much to be pitied. He keenly felt his position, and longed for the day when he might, in a great battle, meet the glorious death which France might accept as an atonement for his misfortunes.
The battle began at daybreak on the morning of the 1st of September.
Under cover of a brisk artillery fire, the Bavarians advanced, and opened, at six o'clock, a very heavy musketry fire on Bazeilles. The masonry buildings of this village were all armed and occupied, and they were defended very valiantly. The defenders drove back the enemy as they advanced and kept them at bay for two hours. Then the Saxons came up to the aid of the Bavarians, and forced the first position.
Still the defence continued, and the clocks were striking ten when the Bavarians succeeded in entering the place. Even then a house-to-house defence prolonged the battle, and it was not until every house but one[2] had been either stormed or burned that the Germans could call the village, or the ruins which remained of it, their own. Meanwhile, on the other points of their defensive position; at Floing, St.
Menges, Fleigneux, Illy, and, on the extreme left, at Iges, where a sharp bend of the Meuse forms a peninsula of the ground round which it slowly rolls; the French had been making a gallant struggle. In their ranks, even in advance of them, attended finally by a single aide-de-camp, all the others having been killed, was the emperor, cool, calm, and full of sorrow, earnestly longing for the sh.e.l.l or the bullet which should give a soldier's finish to his career. MacMahon, too, was there, doing all that a general could do to encourage his men. The enemy were, however, gradually but surely making way. To hedge the French within the narrowest compa.s.s, the Fifth and Eleventh Corps of the Third Army had crossed the Meuse to the left of Sedan, and were marching now to roll up the French left. But before their attack had been felt, an event had occurred full of significance for the French army.
Early in the day, while yet the Bavarians were fighting to get possession of Bazeilles, Marshal MacMahon was so severely wounded that he had to be carried from the field into Sedan. He made over the command of the army to General Ducrot. That general had even before recognized the impossibility of maintaining the position before Sedan against the superior numbers of the German army, and had seen that the one chance of saving his army was to fall back on Mezieres. He at once, then, on a.s.suming command, issued orders to that effect. But it was already too late. The march by the defile of St. Albert had been indeed possible at any time during the night or in the very early morning. But it was now no longer so. The German troops swarmed in the plains of Donchery, and the route by Carignan could only be gained by pa.s.sing over the bodies of a more numerous and still living foe. Still Ducrot had given the order, and the staff officers did their utmost to cause it to be obeyed. The crowded streets of Sedan were being vacated, when suddenly the orders were countermanded. General Wimpffen had arrived from Paris the previous day to replace the incapable De Failly in command of the Fifth Corps, carrying in his pocket an order from the Minister of War to a.s.sume the command-in-chief in the event of any accident to MacMahon. The emperor had no voice in the matter, for, while the regency of the empress existed, he no longer represented the government. The two generals met, and, after a somewhat lively discussion, Ducrot was forced to acknowledge the authority of the minister. Wimpffen then a.s.sumed command. His first act was to countermand the order to retreat on Mezieres, and to direct the troops to rea.s.sume the positions they had occupied when MacMahon had been wounded. This order was carried out as far as was possible.
Meanwhile the Germans were pressing more and more those positions.
About midday the Guards, having made their way step by step, each one bravely contested, gave their hand to the left wing of the Third Army.
Then Illy and Floing, which had been defended with extraordinary tenacity, as the keys of the advanced French position, were stormed.
The conquest of those heights completed the investment of Sedan. There was now no possible egress for the French. Their soldiers retreated into the town and the suburbs, while five hundred German guns hurled their missiles, their round shot and their sh.e.l.ls, against the walls and the crowded ma.s.ses behind them.
Vainly then did Wimpffen direct an a.s.sembly in ma.s.s of his men to break through the serried columns of the enemy. In the disordered state of the French army the thing was impossible. The emperor, who had courted death in vain, recognized the truth, and, desirous to spare the sacrifice of life produced by the continued cannonade, ordered, on his own responsibility, the hoisting of a white flag on the highest point of the defences, as a signal of surrender. But the firing still continued, and Wimpffen, still bent on breaking through, would not hear of surrender. Then Napoleon despatched his chief aide-de-camp, General Keille, with a letter to the king of Prussia.
King William early that day had taken his stand on an eminence which commanded an extensive view and which rises a little south of Frenois.
There, his staff about him, he watched the progress of the fight.
Toward this eminence Reille rode. Walking his horse up the steep, he dismounted, and raising his cap presented the letter. King William, breaking the imperial seal, read these phrases, which, if somewhat dramatic, are striking in their brevity:[3]
”MONSIEUR MON FReRE--N'ayant pu mourir au milieu de mes troupes, il ne me reste qu' a remettre mon epee entre les mains de Votre Majeste.
”Je suis de Votre Majeste, ”le bon Frere,
”NAPOLeON.
”Sedan, le 1er Septembre, 1870.”
”Only one half hour earlier,” writes Mr. George Hooper in his ”Campaign of Sedan,” ”had the information been brought that the emperor was in Sedan.” Mr. Hooper adds:
”The king conferred with his son, who had been hastily summoned, and with others of his trusty servants, all deeply moved by complex emotions at the grandeur of their victory. What should be done? The emperor spoke for himself only, and his surrender would not settle the great issue. It was necessary to obtain something definite, and the result of a short conference was that Count Hatzfeldt, instructed by the chancellor, retired to draft a reply. 'After some minutes he brought it,' writes Dr. Busch, 'and the king wrote it out, sitting on one chair, while the seat of a second was held up by Major von Alten, who knelt on one knee and supported the chair on the other.' The king's letter, brief and business-like, began and ended with the customary royal forms, and ran as follows:
”'Regretting the circ.u.mstances in which we meet, I accept your Majesty's sword, and beg that you will be good enough to name an officer furnished with full powers to treat for the capitulation of the army which has fought so bravely under your orders. On my side I have designated General von Moltke for that purpose.'
”General Reille returned to his master, and as he rode down the hill the astounding purport of his visit flew from lip to lip through the exulting army which now hoped that, after this colossal success, the days of ceaseless marching and fighting would soon end. As a contrast to this natural outburst of joy and hope we may note the provident Moltke, who was always resolved to 'mak siker.' His general order, issued at once, suspending hostilities during the night, declared that they would begin again in the morning should the negotiations produce no result. In that case, he said, the signal for battle would be the reopening of fire by the batteries on the heights east of Frenois.
”The signal was not given. Late on the evening of September 1st a momentous session was held in Donchery, the little town which commands a bridge over the Meuse below Sedan. On one side of a square table covered with red baize sat General von Moltke, having on his right hand the quartermaster-general Von Podbielski, according to one account, and Von Blumenthal according to another, and behind them several officers, while Count von Nost.i.tz stood near the hearth to take notes. Opposite to Von Moltke sat De Wimpffen alone; while in rear, 'almost in the shade,' were General Faure, Count Castelnau, and other Frenchmen, among whom was a cuira.s.sier, Captain d'Orcet, who had observant eyes and a retentive memory. Then there ensued a brief silence, for Von Moltke looked straight before him and said nothing, while De Wimpffen, oppressed by the number present, hesitated to engage in a debate 'with the two men admitted to be the most capable of our age, each in his kind.' But he soon plucked up courage, and frankly accepted the conditions of the combat. What terms, he asked, would the king of Prussia grant to a valiant army which, could he have had his will, would have continued to fight? 'They are very simple,'
answered Von Moltke. 'The entire army, with arms and baggage, must surrender as prisoners of war.' 'Very hard,' replied the Frenchman.
'We merit better treatment. Could you not be satisfied with the fortress and the artillery, and allow the army to retire with arms, flags and baggage, on condition of serving no more against Germany during the war?' No. 'Moltke,' said Bismarck, recounting the interview, 'coldly persisted in his demand,' or as the attentive d'Orcet puts it, 'Von Moltke was pitiless.' Then De Wimpffen tried to soften his grim adversary by painting his own position. He had just come from the depths of the African desert; he had an irreproachable military reputation; he had taken command in the midst of a battle, and found himself obliged to set his name to a disastrous capitulation. 'Can you not,' he said, 'sympathize with an officer in such a plight, and soften, for me, the bitterness of my situation by granting more honorable conditions?' He painted in moving terms his own sad case, and described what he might have done; but seeing that his personal pleadings were unheeded, he took a tone of defiance, less likely to prevail. 'If you will not give better terms,' he went on, 'I shall appeal to the honor of the army, and break out, or, at least, defend Sedan.' Then the German general struck in with emphasis, 'I regret that I cannot do what you ask,' he said; 'but as to making a sortie, that is just as impossible as the defence of Sedan. You have some excellent troops, but the greater part of your infantry is demoralized. To-day, during the battle, we captured more than twenty thousand unwounded prisoners. You have only eighty thousand men left.
My troops and guns around the town would smash yours before they could make a movement; and as to defending Sedan, you have not provisions for eight-and-forty hours, nor ammunition which would suffice for that period.' Then, says De Wimpffen, he entered into details respecting our situation, which, 'unfortunately, were too true,' and he offered to permit an officer to verify his statements, an offer which the Frenchman did not then accept.
”Beaten off the military ground, De Wimpffen sought refuge in politics. 'It is your interest, from a political standpoint, to grant us honorable conditions,' he said. 'France is generous and chivalric, responsive to generosity, and grateful for consideration. A peace, based on conditions which would flatter the amour-propre of the army, and diminish the bitterness of defeat, would be durable; whereas rigorous measures would awaken bad pa.s.sions, and, perhaps, bring on an endless war between France and Prussia.' The new ground broken called up Bismarck, 'because the matter seemed to belong to my province,' he observed when telling the story; and he was very outspoken as usual.
'I said to him that we might build on the grat.i.tude of a prince, but certainly not on the grat.i.tude of a people--least of all on the grat.i.tude of the French. That in France neither inst.i.tutions nor circ.u.mstances were enduring; that governments and dynasties were constantly changing, and the one need not carry out what the other had bound itself to do. That if the emperor had been firm on his throne, his grat.i.tude for our granting good conditions might have been counted upon; but as things stood it would be folly if we did not make full use of our success. That the French were a nation full of envy and jealousy, that they had been much mortified by our success at Koniggratz, and could not forgive it, though it in nowise damaged them. How, then, should any magnanimity on our side move them not to bear us a grudge for Sedan.' This Wimpffen would not admit. 'France,'
he said, 'had much changed latterly; it had learned under the empire to think more of the interests of peace than of the glory of war.
France was ready to proclaim the fraternity of nations;' and more of the same kind. Captain d'Orcet reports that, in addition, Bismarck denied that France had changed, and that to curb her mania for glory, to punish her pride, her aggressive and ambitious character, it was imperative that there should be a glacis between France and Germany.
'We must have territory, fortresses and frontiers which will shelter us forever from an attack on her part.' Further remonstrances from De Wimpffen only drew down fresh showers of rough speech very trying to bear, and when Bismarck said, 'We cannot change our conditions,' De Wimpffen exclaimed, 'Very well; it is equally impossible for me to sign such a capitulation, and we shall renew the battle.'