The Campaign of Sedan

Mobil

scheme of organization, a halting Gallic adaptation of Prussian principles, modified by French traditions, and still further by the political exigencies besetting an Imperial dynasty, having little root in the nation, besides being new and rickety, was in an early stage of development; it may be said to have been [p 57] adolescent, not mature. No greater contrast was ever presented by two parallel series of human actions than that supplied by the irregular, confused, and uncertain working of the Imperial arrangement of forming an Army and setting it in motion for active service, and the smoothness, celerity, and punctuality which marked the German "mobilization." The reason is-first, that the system on which the German Army was built up from the foundations was sound in every part, and that the plan which had been designed for the purpose of placing a maximum force under arms in a given time, o

gether from the distracting duty of settling questions of detail, had ample time to consider the broad and absorbing business problems which should and did occupy the days and nights of a leader of armies. The composition of the North German troops, that is, those under the immediate control of King William, occasioned no anxiety; and there was only a brief period of doubt in Bavaria, where a strong minority had not so much French and Austrian sympathies, as inveterate Prussian antipathies. They were promptly suppressed by the popular voice and the loyalty of the King. Hesse, Würtemberg, and Baden responded so heartily to the calls of patriotism that in more than one locality the landwehr battalions far exceeded their normal numerical strength, that is, more men than were summoned presented themselves at the dep?ts. The whole operation of bringing a great Army from a peace to a war footing, in absolute readiness, within th

Mobil

e Imperial military mechanism might have been removed, and possible, also, that the moral and discipline of the officers and men might have been raised. Barely probable, since Marshal Leb?uf believed that the [p 60] Army was in a state of perfect readiness, not merely to defend France, but to dash over the Rhine into South Germany. His illusion was only destroyed when the fatal test was applied. Nominally, the French Army was formidable in numbers; but not being based on the territorial system, which includes all the men liable to service in one Corps, whether they are with the colours or in the reserve, and also forms the supplementary landwehr into local divisions, the French War Office could not rapidly raise the regiments to the normal strength. For a sufficient reason. A peasant residing in Provence might be summoned to join a regiment quartered in Brittany, or a workman employed in Bordeaux called up to the Pas de Calais. When he arrived he might find that the regiment had marched to Alsace or Lorraine. During th

y thirty-eight additional bakers to Metz for 120,000 men, and even these few practitioners were sadly in want of ovens. "I observe that the Army stands in need of biscuit and bread," said the Emperor to the Minister of War at the same date. "Could not bread be made in Paris, and sent to Metz?" Marshal Leb?uf, a day later, took note of the fact that the detachments which came up to the front, sometimes reserve men, sometimes battalions, arrived without ammunition and camp [p 62] equipments. Soldiers, functionaries, carts, ovens, provisions, horses, munitions, harness, all had to be sought at the eleventh hour. These facts are recorded in the despairing telegrams sent from the front to the War Office. The very Marshal who had described France as "archiprête," in a transcendent state of readiness for war, announced by telegram, on the 28th of July, the lamentable fact that he could not move forward for want of biscuit-"Je manque de biscuit pour marcher en avant." The 7th Corps was to have been formed at Belfort, but its divisions could never be assembled. General Michel, on the 21st of July, sent to Paris this characteristic telegram: "Have arrived at Belfort," he wrote: "can't find my brigade; can't find the General of Division. What shall I do? Don't know where my regiments are"-a document probably unique in military records. Hardly a week later, that is on the 27th, Marshal Leb?uf became anxious respecting the organization of this same Corps, and put, through Paris, some

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estitute of what the French call "le flair militaire." He had, also, some inkling of the political side of warfare; and in July, 1870, he saw that much would depend upon his ability to make [p 64] a dash into South Germany, because, if he were successful, even for a brief time, Prussia might be deprived of South German help, and Austria might enter the field. There was no certainty about the calculation, indeed, it was almost pure conjecture; seeing that Count von Beust and the Archduke Albert had both warned him that, "above all things," they needed time, and that the former had become frightened at the prospect of Hungarian defection, and a Russian onfall. Yet it was on this shadowy basis that he moved to the frontier the largest available mass of incomplete and suddenly organized batteries, squadrons and battalions. He and his advisers were possessed with a feverish desire to be first in the field; and the Corp

rds of war. This is not the place to deal with its general or detailed arguments. For present purposes, it is sufficient to set forth the main operative idea. The contention was, that an army assembled on the Rhine between Rastadt and Mainz, and on the Moselle below Treves, would be able to operate successfully, either on the right bank of the main stream, against the flank of a French Army, which sought to invade South Germany; or, with equal facility, concentrate on the left bank, and march in three great masses through the country between the Rhine and Moselle, upon the French frontier. Should the French make a precipitate dash into the German country towards Mainz, then the Corps collected near that fortress would meet them in front, and those on the Moselle would threaten their communications or assail them in flank. The soundness of the reasoning is indisputable; its application would depend upon the prompt concentration of the Armies, and that had been rendered certain by careful and rigorously enforced pre

lle [p 67] on the other, followed the valley of the Moselle; and as the important connecting branch from Metz to Verdun had not been constructed, it follows that the French Army in Lorraine had no direct railway line of retreat and supply. The railway from Metz to Strasburg, which crossed the Vosges by the defile of Bitsche and emerged in the Rhine valley at Hagenau, was, of course, nearly parallel to the German front, except for a short distance west of Bening. The frontier went eastward from Sierck, on the Moselle to Lauterbourg on the Rhine, and thence southerly to Basle. The hill range of the Vosges, starting from the Ballon d'Alsace, overlooking the Gap of Belfort, runs parallel to the river, and extends in a northerly direction beyond the French boundary, thrusting an irregular mass of uplands deep into the Palatinate, ending in the isolated Donnersberg. It follows that the main roads out of, as wel

meet their opponents in the Prussian provinces at or north of Kaiserslautern; while the Germans, assuming that their adversaries assembled forces in Alsace, as well as

ly able to bring a portion of his Corps from Chalons to Metz; and General Douay, the chief of the 7th, had one division at Lyons, and another at Colmar, whence it was sent on to join the 1st Corps assembling under Marshal MacMahon near Strasburg. The principal body, consisting of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Corps, ultimately joined by the greater part of the 6th, and the Guard were p

Manheim and Mainz upon Kaiserslautern. The Third Army, or left wing, under the Crown Prince, was made up of the 5th and 11th and the two Bavarian Corps, together with a Würtemberg and a Baden Division. Each Army had one or more divisions of cavalry, and, of course, the due proportion of guns. By the 31st of July, the whole of these troops, except the Baden and the Würtemberg Divisions, were on the west of the Rhine, with foreposts on the Saar, below Saarbrück, in the mountains at Pirmasens, and on the ro

seen; yet one which was needless, as the French had already learned that they could not take the offensive in any direction. No other changes were made, and the only result of this modification was that the soldiers had to march further than they would have marched, and they probably benefited by the exercise. During this period, the bridge at Kehl had been broken, the boats and ferries removed from the Rhine from Lauterbourg to Basle, the railway pontoon bridge at Maxau protected, a measure suggested by the presence of river gunboats at Strasburg, and an unremitting watch had been kept on the land frontier by small detachments of horse and foot. Not the least surprising fact is that no attempt was made by the French to destroy the bridges over the Saar at Saarbrück, or penetrate far beyond that river on its upper course. On the other hand, parties of German horse and foot made several incursions between Sierck and Bitsche, and on

titude, thereby relieving the timid from any apprehension of a descent. Large German forces were set free to face westward, and in a brief space

MAP OF W

Lithos.? London, Bell