MacMahon’s Wound and its Consequences.
Meanwhile, inside the French lines, the drama had deepened, for the Commander-in-Chief had been wounded. Marshal MacMahon has related how, before daybreak, fearing lest the Germans should have moved troops over the Meuse at Donchery, he had sent two officers to look into matters in that quarter, and was awaiting their return when, about five o’clock, he received a despatch from Lebrun, which made him mount his ready-saddled horse and ride towards Bazeilles. Arrived there he saw that the place was well defended, and went to the left intending to examine the whole line of the Givonne, especially as Margueritte had sent word that German troops were moving towards Francheval. Halting above La Moncelle, not far from Lebrun, the Marshal has stated that while he was gazing intently upon the heights in front of the Bois Chevalier, and could not see anything, he was struck by the fragment of a shell. At first he thought that he was only bruised, but that being obliged to dismount from his horse, which was also wounded, he fainted for a moment, and then found that his wound was severe. Unable to bear up any longer he gave over the command of the Army to General Ducrot, and was carried to Sedan. That officer did not hear of the event until seven or later; it is impossible to fix precisely the moment when the Marshal was hit, nor when Ducrot learned his destiny, the evidence is so contradictory; but sometime between seven and eight Ducrot took the reins. His first act was to order a retreat on Mézières; Lebrun begged him to reflect and he did, but soon afterwards became positive. “There is not a moment to lose,” he cried; and it was arranged that the retreat should be made in echelons, beginning from the right of the 12th Corps. Neither General knew the real facts of the situation, nor guessed even how vast were the numbers of the enemy.
The retreat began; it attracted the notice of Napoleon III., who had ridden on to the field above Balan; and it roused De Wimpffen. He carried in his pocket an order from Palikao authorizing him to succeed MacMahon, if the Marshal were killed or disabled. He had kept the fact secret; after the Marshal fell he still hesitated to use his letter, but not long. The combat about Bazeilles was well sustained; the cavalry had been out a little way beyond St. Menges and, as usual, after a perfunctory search, had “seen nothing,” the attack on the Givonne even was not fully developed. General de Wimpffen, perhaps from mixed motives, resolved to interfere and show his old comrades how a man who really knew war could extricate a French Army from perils in which it had been placed by weakness and incompetence. He certainly thought himself a great man, and he roughly stopped the retreat. Ducrot was indignant, but he obeyed. Lebrun was not more favourably affected by De Wimpffen’s loud voice and overbearing manner. “I will not have a movement upon Mézières,” he exclaimed. “If the Army is to retreat, it shall be on Carignan and not on Mézières.” It should again be observed that the new Commander-in-Chief was quite as ignorant of the facts as his predecessors, and even when he wrote his book many months afterwards had not learned from sources open to all the world how many men stood at that moment between him and Carignan, nor was he at all acquainted with the difficult country through which he would have to move. Ducrot’s plan, which would have placed the Army between the Meuse below Sedan and the forest on the frontier, leaving a clear sweep for the guns of the fortress, was far more sensible than that of his imperious rival. Still, to have a chance of success, it should have been begun early in the morning, when the 5th and 11th German Corps were struggling towards the woods; even then it would have probably failed, but there would have been no capitulation of Sedan. General de Wimpffen, although he did not know it, was actually playing into the hand of Von Moltke, who desired above all things that the French Corps on the Givonne should remain there, because he knew, so great were his means, so firm his resolution, and so admirable as marchers and fighters were his soldiers, that the gain of a few hours would enable him to surround the Army of Chalons.
How far the retreat from the front line was carried, when it was stayed, and in what degree it injured the defence, cannot possibly be gleaned from the French narratives, which are all vague and imperfect in regard to time and place. We know that the Germans did not carry Bazeilles until nearly eleven o’clock, and then only by dint of turning movements executed by the Saxons and fresh Bavarian troops from the direction of La Moncelle. General Ducrot, in his account, places his stormy interview with De Wimpffen at a little after nine; and he says that when it ended he spurred in haste towards his divisions—Pellé’s and L’Hériller’s—and made them descend a part of the positions which they had climbed a few instants before. Lebrun is equally vague. He says in one place that when De Wimpffen came up his first brigades had “partly” crossed the Fond de Givonne, and in another, that the Marine Infantry had abandoned Bazeilles, which they had not done before nine o’clock. General de Wimpffen’s recollections are still more confused and his chronology unintelligible; so that it is impossible to ascertain precisely what happened beyond the Givonne after Ducrot ordered and his successor countermanded the retreat. If we take the German accounts, and try to measure the influence of the much-debated retreat by the resistance which the assailants encountered, we may doubt whether it had much greater influence on the issue than that which grew out of the impaired confidence of the troops in their antagonistic and jealous commanders. Nevertheless, it is probable that the swaying to and fro in the French line between Bazeilles and the village of Givonne, after nine o’clock, did, in some degree, favour the assailants, and render the acquisition of Bazeilles as well as the passage of the brook less difficult and bloody. In any case, the intervention of De Wimpffen can only be regarded as a misfortune for the gallant French Army, which can hardly find consolation in the fact that within four-and-twenty hours he was obliged to sign with his name the capitulation of Sedan.
This needful explanation and comment serves to illustrate the disorder, the infirmity of purpose, and the rivalries which existed in the French camp; and we may well agree with Marshal MacMahon when he says that the blow which obliged him to relinquish the command was a grievous event. Doubtless he would have taken a decided course had he not been wounded, and would have marched, if he could, with all his forces, either on Mézières or Carignan; and besides, he says, there was Belgium near at hand. He would not have tried to do all three at once. It is only an Army, well compacted and educated from the bottom to the top which can, without serious detriment, bear three successive commanders in three hours.