Germany from the Earliest Period Part 20

On June 14, Prussia sent a telegraphic summons to Hanover, Hesse-Ca.s.sel, and Saxony, demanding them to reduce their armies to the peace establishment, and to concur with Prussia respecting the Germanic confederation; and that if they did not send their consent within twelve hours, war would be declared. The states did not reply, Prussia declared war, and on the 16th invaded their territories. The occupation and disarmament of Hanover and Hesse were necessary to Prussia for a free communication with her Rhenish provinces, and she effected her purpose by means of well-planned combinations, so that in the course of a few days these states were overrun by Prussian troops, and their sovereigns expelled.

The rapid progress of events, and the Prussian declaration of war, had taken Hanover by surprise. Her army was not yet mobilized; Austria had evacuated Holstein, or she could have looked to her for support. To attempt to defend the capital was hopeless; so King George, suffering from blindness, moved with his army to Gottingen, with a view of joining the Bavarians. Prussia entered by the north, and, a.s.sisted by her navy on the Elbe, was by the 22d in possession of the whole of Hanover. Closed round on all sides by the Prussians, una.s.sisted by Prince Charles of Bavaria, Gotha having declared for Prussia, the king of Hanover, with his little army, crossed the frontier of his kingdom, and at Langensalza, fifteen miles north of Gotha, encountered the Prussians, and remained master of the battlefield. But victory was of little avail; surrounded by 40,000 Prussians, the king was forced to capitulate. The arms and military stores were handed over to the enemy, and the king and his soldiers allowed to depart. Thus, through the supineness of Prince Charles of Bavaria, a whole army was made captive, and Hanover erased from the roll of independent states.

More fortunate than his neighbor, the elector of Hesse-Ca.s.sel saved his army, though not his territory, from the invader. His troops retired toward the Maine, where they secured a communication with the federal army at Frankfort. The elector remained in Hesse, and was sent a state prisoner to the Prussian fortress of Stettin, on the Oder. The Prussians overran his territory, declaring they were not at war against "peoples, but against governments."

Two bodies of Prussian troops entered Saxony--the First Army and the Army of the Elbe--and the Saxon army retired into Bohemia to effect a junction with the Austrians. On the 20th, Leipzig was seized, and the whole of Saxony was in undisturbed possession of the Prussians; Prince Frederick Charles issuing a most stringent order that private property should be respected, and every regard shown to the comfort of the inhabitants. His order was strictly observed, and every measure taken to prevent the miseries attendant on the occupation of a country by a foreign army.

The invasion of Saxony brought immediately open war between Prussia and Austria, and on the 23d the Prussian army crossed the Bohemian frontier--only a week since it had entered Saxony. It is needless here to detail the battles which immediately followed; suffice it to say, the Prussians were victorious in all--at Podoll, where the needle-gun did such terrible work; Munchengratz, which gave them the whole line of the Iser; Trautenan, Gitschen, and others. On the 1st of July, the king of Prussia arrived from Berlin and took the supreme command of the army. The following day brought news from the crown prince that he was hastening from Silesia with the Second Army, whereby the whole of the Prussian forces would be concentrated. On the 3d of July was fought the decisive battle of Koniggratz, or Sadowa, as it is sometimes called, from the village of that name, a cl.u.s.ter of pine-wood cottages, enclosed by orchards, with a wood-crowned hill at the back, which was fiercely disputed by the contending parties.

On that day, General von Benedek had taken his position with the Austrian army in front of the frontier fortress of Koniggratz, on the right bank of the Elbe, about fifty-five miles east of Prague, to oppose the pa.s.sage of the crown prince from Silesia. In his front lay the marshy stream of Bistritz, upon which Sadowa and a few other villages are situated. At half-past seven in the morning the battle began, and continued with great slaughter without any marked advantage on either side till the arrival of the crown prince decided, like the advance of Blucher at Waterloo, the fortune of the day. The Austrians were completely routed, and fled across the Elbe to save the capital.

They lost 40,000 men in this sanguinary conflict, the Prussians 10,000. The forces in the field were 200,000 Austrians and Saxons, and 260,000 Prussians.

Immediately after her crus.h.i.+ng defeat, Austria surrendered Venetia to France, and the Emperor Napoleon at once accepted the gift and gave it over to Victor Emmanuel.

On July 26, preliminaries of peace were signed at Nikolsburg, and peace was finally concluded at Prague, August 23, between Prussia and Austria, and about the same time with the South German states. The Prussian House of Deputies voted the annexation of the conquered states, and in October peace was concluded with Saxony. By these arrangements, Hanover, Hesse-Ca.s.sel, and Frankfort became provinces of Prussia, as well as the long-disputed duchies of Denmark. All the German states north of the Maine concluded a treaty, offensive and defensive, for the maintenance of the security of their states.

Prussia increased her territory by 32,000 square miles and her population 4,000,000; and in October, 1866, the whole of northern Germany was united into a Confederation.

This Confederation, known as the North German, possessed a common parliament elected by universal suffrage, in which each state was represented according to its population. The first or const.i.tuent parliament met early in 1867, and adopted, with a few modifications, the const.i.tution proposed by Count Bismarck. The new elections then took place, and the first regular North German parliament met in September, 1867. According to this const.i.tution, there was to be a common army and fleet, under the sole command of Prussia; a common diplomatic representation abroad, of necessity little else than Prussian; and to Prussia also was intrusted the management of the posts and telegraphs in the Confederation.

The Southern German states which up to this point had not joined the Bund, were Bavaria, Baden, Wurtemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt, and Lichtenstein, with a joint area of 43,990 square miles, and a total population (1866) of 8,524,460. But, though these states were not formally members of the Bund, they were so practically, for they were bound to Prussia by treaties of alliance offensive and defensive, so that in the event of a war the king of Prussia would have at his disposal an armed force of upward of 1,100,000 men.

During the next few years the North German Confederation was employed in consolidating and strengthening itself, and in trying to induce the southern states to join the league. The Zollverein was remodelled and extended, until by the year 1868 every part of Germany was a member of it, with the exception of the cities of Hamburg and Bremen, and a small part of Baden. This paved the way for the formal entrance of the southern states into the confederation; but they still hung back, though the ideal of a united Germany was gradually growing in force and favor.

Meanwhile the terms of the treaty of Prague, together with the complete removal of alien powers from Italy, had wrought a radical change in the political relations of the European States. Excluded from Germany, the dominions of Austria still extended to the verge of Venetia and the Lombard plains, but her future lay eastward and her centre of gravity had been removed to Buda-Pesth. In the South German courts, no doubt, there was a bias toward Vienna, and a dislike of Prussia; yet both the leaning and the repugnance were counterbalanced by a deeper dread of France rooted in the people by the vivid memories of repeated and cruel invasions. Russia, somewhat alarmed by the rapid success of King William, had been soothed by diplomatic rea.s.surances, the tenor of which is not positively known, although a series of subsequent events more than justified the inference made at that time, that promises, bearing on the czar's Eastern designs, were tendered and accepted as a valuable consideration for the coveted boon of benevolent neutrality, if not something more substantial. Like Russia, France had lost nothing by the campaign of 1866; her territories were intact; her ruler had mediated between Austria and Prussia; and he had the honor of protecting the pope, who, as a spiritual and temporal prince, was still in possession of Rome and restricted territorial domains. But the Napoleonic court, and many who looked upon its head as a usurper, experienced, on the morrow of Sadowa, and in a greater degree after the preface to a peace had been signed at Nikolsburg, a sensation of diminished magnitude, a consciousness of lessened prestige, and a painful impression that their political, perhaps even their military place in Europe, as the heirs of Richelieu, Louis XIV., and Napoleon, had been suddenly occupied by a power which they had taught themselves to contemn as an inferior. Until the summer of 1866 the emperor Napoleon fancied that he was strong enough to play with Bismarck a game of diplomatic chess.

In that he erred profoundly. As early as the first week in August, 1866, M. Benedetti, the French amba.s.sador to the court of Berlin, was instructed to claim the left bank of the Rhine as far as and including Mainz. Bismarck replied that "the true interest of France is not to obtain an insignificant increase of territory, but to aid Germany in const.i.tuting herself after a fas.h.i.+on which will be most favorable to all concerned." Delphos could not have been more oracular. But Napoleon III. could not or would not heed. A week later Benedetti was instructed to submit a regular scale of concessions--the frontiers of 1814 and the annexation of Belgium, or Luxemburg and Belgium, Benedetti received the most courteous attention and nothing more. This was irritating. The French had been accustomed for more than two hundred years to meddle directly in Germany and find there allies, either against Austria, Prussia, or England; and the habit of centuries had been more than confirmed by the colossal raids, victories, and annexations of Napoleon I. A Germany which should escape from French control and reverse, by its own energetic action, the policy of Henry IV., Richelieu, Louis XIV., his degenerate grandson, Louis XV., and of the great Napoleon himself, was an affront to French pride, and could not be patiently endured. The opposing forces which had grown up were so strong that the wit of man was unable to keep them asunder; and all the control over the issue left to kings and statesmen was restricted to the fabrication of means wherewith to deliver or sustain the shock, and the choice of the hour, if such choice were allowed.

Then presently the opportunity occurred. On July 4, 1870, the throne of Spain was offered to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern. The fact created the greatest excitement in France. Threatening speeches were made. On July 18 Prince Leopold declined the offer. On the morrow Benedetti was instructed to demand a guarantee that any future offer of the kind would be refused. The king of Prussia would not listen to the proposition. The French minister, through whom the demand had been transmitted, then asked for his pa.s.sports. War was imminent.

At the prospect Paris grew mad with enthusiasm. Crowds a.s.sembled in the streets, shouting "Down with Prussia!" "Long live France!" "To the Rhine!" "To Berlin!" The papers abounded with inflammatory appeals, and, after the impulsive French fas.h.i.+on, glorified beforehand the easy triumphs that were to be won over the Prussians. Men told one another that they would be across the Rhine in a week, and at Berlin in a fortnight. The excitement in Prussia was not less than that in France.

The people, with scarcely an exception, declared their readiness for war, and seemed to find a pleasure in the opportunity now presented for settling old quarrels. Like the people of Paris, the Prussians shouted "To the Rhine!" The French cry of "To Berlin!" had its counterpart in the German e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of "To Paris!"

Perhaps a sentence spoken by M. Guyot Montpayroux best ill.u.s.trates the predominant feeling. "Prussia," he said, "has forgotten the France of Jena, and the fact must be recalled to her memory." Thus was war declared on the night of July 15. Thiers, who desired a war with Prussia "at the proper time," has left on record his judgment that the hour then selected was "detestably ill-chosen." Yet even he and Gambetta were both anxious that "satisfaction" should be obtained for Sadowa; while the thought which animated the court is admirably expressed in the phrase imputed to the empress who, pointing to the prince imperial, said, "This child will never reign unless we repair the misfortunes of Sadowa." Such was the ceaseless refrain. The word haunted French imaginations incessantly, and it was the pivot on which the imperial policy revolved; it exercised a spell scarcely less powerful and disastrous upon monarchists like Thiers and republicans like Gambetta. Long foreseen, the dread shock, like all grave calamities, came nevertheless as a surprise, even upon reflective minds. Statesmen and soldiers who looked on, while they shared in the natural feelings aroused by so tremendous a drama, were also the privileged witnesses of two instructive experiments on a grand scale--the processes whereby mighty armies are brought into the field, and the methods by means of which they are conducted to defeat or victory.

The French field army, called at the outset the "Army of the Rhine,"

consisted nominally of 336,000 men with 924 guns. It was considered that of these, 300,000 would be available for the initial operations.

The infantry of the army was provided with a breech-loading weapon, called after its inventor the Cha.s.sepot. The Cha.s.sepot was a weapon in all respects superior to the famous needle-gun, which was still the weapon of the Prussian army. Attached likewise to the divisional artillery was a machine gun called the Mitrailleuse, from which great things were expected. But this gun had been manufactured with a secrecy which, while it prevented foreign inspection, had withheld also the knowledge of its mechanism from the soldiers who were to work it. In the field, therefore, it proved a failure.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The French emperor had, indeed, been keenly alive to the advantages which would accrue to himself from a prompt invasion of Southern Germany. He designed to concentrate one hundred and fifty thousand men at Metz; one hundred thousand at Strasburg; to cross into Baden with these armies; while a third, a.s.sembling at Chalons, should protect the frontier against the German forces. The plan itself was an excellent one had he only been able to execute it, for, as we have seen, early success in Southern Germany would have meant the armed a.s.sistance of Austria and Italy. But the French army was in a condition more unready, one might truly say, of greater demoralization, thus early, than its severest critics had imagined. Considerable forces were indeed ma.s.sed about Metz and Strasburg. But the commissariat and transport departments were in a state of the most hopeless confusion.

The army could not move. To remedy these evils time was wanted, and time was the commodity the generals could not command. Every day which evoked some little order out of chaos brought the Germans nearer to positions, the occupation of which would render impossible the contemplated invasion. The emperor had quitted Paris for Metz, accompanied by the prince imperial, on the 28th of July, and had arrived there and taken the supreme command the same day. The day following he met his generals at St. Avoid, and unfolded to them his plans. Since war had been declared he had lost many illusions. It had become clear to him that he was warring against the concentrated might of Germany; that he could not make the inroad into Southern Germany originally contemplated without exposing Paris to an attack from forces already occupying the country between Treves and Mannheim: that he was bound to hold that line. Anxious, however, to a.s.sume the offensive, he dictated the following plan to his marshals. Bazaine, with the Second, Third, and Fifth Army Corps, should cross the Saar at Saarbrucken, covered on his left by the Fourth Corps, which should make a show of advancing against Saarlouis, while MacMahon, pus.h.i.+ng forward from his position near Strasburg, should cover his right. The emperor had some reason to believe that the Saar was weakly held.

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

Still, for the only time in the war, the emperor was able to send a rea.s.suring telegram to Paris. The young prince, upon whom the hopes of the nation would, he hoped, rest, had undergone the "baptism of fire."

French troops had made the first step in advance.

Soon, however, it became clear to him that the enemy had concentrated along the line of the frontier, and were about to make their spring.

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

Suddenly, in the midst of their vacillations, of their marchings and counter-marchings, the true report reached them, on the evening of the 3d of August, that a French division, the outpost of MacMahon's army, had been surprised and defeated at Weissenburg by a far superior force. Napoleon at once ordered the Fifth Corps to concentrate at Bitsche, and despatched a division of the Third to Saarguemund. These orders were followed by others. Those of the 5th of August divided the army of the Rhine into two portions, the troops in Alsace being placed under MacMahon, those in Lorraine under Bazaine, the emperor retaining the Guard. Those of the 7th directed the Second Corps to proceed to Bitsche, the Third to Saarguemund, the Fourth to Haut-Homburg, the Guard to St. Avoid. These instructions plainly signified the making of a flank movement in front of a superior enemy. With such an army as the emperor had, inferior in numbers, many of the regiments as yet incomplete, all his resources behind him, and these becoming daily more unavailable, his one chance was to concentrate in a position commanding the roads behind it, and yet adapted for attack if attack should be necessary. As it was, without certain information as to the movements of the Germans, anxious to move, yet dreading to do so, until his regiments should be completed, the French emperor was confused and helpless. He forgot even to transmit to the generals on one flank the general directions he had issued to those on the other.

Bazaine, for instance, was left on the 5th in ignorance of the emperor's intentions with respect to MacMahon; on the 6th none of the subordinate generals knew that the flank march was contemplated.

Frossard, who had fallen back to Spicheren, considered his position so insecure that he suggested to Leboeuf that he should be allowed to retire from the Saarbrucken ridge. He was ordered in reply to fall back on Forbach, but no instructions were given him as to the course he should pursue in the event of his being attacked, nor were the contemplated movements of the emperor communicated to him. In every order that was issued there was apparent the confused mind of the issuer.

Turn we now to MacMahon and the movements of himself and his generals.

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

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

The ground on which MacMahon had retired offered many capabilities for defence. The central point was the village of Worth on the rivulet Sauerbach, which covered the entire front of the position. To the right rear of Worth, on the road from Gundershofen, was the village of Elsa.s.shausen, covered on its right by the Niederwald, having the village of Eberbach on its further side, and the extreme right of the position, the village of Morsbronn, to its southeast. Behind Worth, again, distant a little more than two miles on the road to Reichshofen, was the key to the position, the village of Froschweiler.

From this point the French left was thrown back to a mound, covered by a wood, in front of Reichshofen.

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

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

The Germans, having seized Worth, stormed the hilly slopes between that place and Froschweiler, and made a furious a.s.sault upon the latter, now more than ever the key of the French position. For while Froschweiler was their objective centre, their right was thrown back toward Elsa.s.shausen and the Niederwald, their left to Reichshofen.

While the Eleventh Prussians were penetrating the Niederwald, preparatory to attacking Elsa.s.shausen on the further side of it, the Fifth Prussian Corps with the Second Bavarians were moving against Froschweiler. It was clear then to MacMahon that further resistance was impossible. Still holding Froschweiler, he evacuated Elsa.s.shausen, and drew back his right to Reichshofen. The safety of his army depended now upon the tenacity with which Froschweiler might be held.

It must be admitted, in justice to the French, that they held it with a stubborn valor not surpa.s.sed during the war. Attacked by overwhelming numbers, they defended the place, house by house. At length, however, they were overpowered. Then, for the first time, the bonds of discipline loosened, and the French, struck by panic, fled, in wild disorder, in the direction of Saverne. They reached that place by a march across the hills the following evening. On their way they fell in with one of the divisions of the corps of de Failly, and this served to cover the retreat.

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

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

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

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

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