The French Generals Submit.
While one scene in the stupendous drama was performed at the weaver’s cottage, another was acted or endured in Sedan, where De Wimpffen had summoned the generals to consider the dreadful terms of capitulation. He has given his own account of the incident; but the fullest report is supplied by Lebrun. There were present at this council of war more than thirty generals. With tearful eyes and a voice broken by sobs, the unhappy and most ill-starred De Wimpffen described his interview and conflict with Von Moltke and Bismarck, and its dire result—the Army to surrender as prisoners of war, the officers alone to retain their arms, and by way of mitigating the rigour of these conditions, full permission to return home would be given to any officer, provided he would engage in writing and on honour not to serve again during the war. The generals, save one or two, and these finally acquiesced, felt that the conditions could not be refused; but they were indignant at the clause suggesting that the officers might escape the captivity which would befall their soldiers, provided they would engage to become mere spectators of the invasion of their country. In the midst of these mournful deliberations Captain von Zingler, a messenger from Von Moltke, entered, and the scene became still more exciting. “I am instructed,” he said, “to remind you how urgent it is that you should come to a decision. At ten o’clock, precisely, if you have not come to a resolution, the German batteries will fire on Sedan. It is now nine, and I shall have barely time to carry your answer to head-quarters.” To this sharp summons De Wimpffen answered that he could not decide until he knew the result of the interview between the Emperor and the King. “That interview,” said the stern Captain, “will not in any way affect the military operations, which can only be determined by the generals who have full power to resume or stop the strife.” It was, indeed, as Lebrun remarked, useless to argue with a Captain, charged to state a fact; and at the General’s suggestion De Wimpffen agreed to accompany Captain von Zingler to the German head-quarters.
These were, for the occasion, the Château de Bellevue, where the Emperor himself had been induced to take up his abode, and about eleven o’clock, in a room under the Imperial chamber, De Wimpffen put his name at the foot of the document drawn up, during the night, by the German Staff. Then he sought out the Emperor, and, greatly moved, told him that “all was finished.” His Majesty, he writes, “with tears in his eyes, approached me, pressed my hand, and embraced me;” and “my sad and painful duty having been accomplished, I remounted my horse and rode back to Sedan, ‘la mort dans l’âme.’”
So soon as the convention was signed, the King arrived, accompanied by the Crown Prince. Three years before, as the Emperor reminds us in the writing attributed to him, the King had been his guest in Paris, where all the sovereigns of Europe had come to behold the marvels of the famous Exhibition. “Now,” so runs the lamentation, “betrayed by fortune, Napoleon III. had lost all, and had placed in the hands of his conqueror the sole thing left him—his liberty.” And he goes on to say, in general terms, that the King deeply sympathized with his misfortunes, but nevertheless could not grant better conditions to the Army. “He told the Emperor that the castle of Wilhelmshöhe had been selected as his residence; the Crown Prince then entered and cordially shook hands with Napoleon; and at the end of a quarter of an hour the King withdrew. The Emperor was permitted to send a telegram in cipher to the Empress, to tell her what had happened, and urge her to negotiate a peace.” Such is the bald record of this impressive event. The telegram, which reached the Empress at four o’clock on the afternoon of the 3rd, was in these words: “The Army is defeated and captive; I myself am a prisoner.”
For one day more the fallen sovereign rested at Bellevue to meditate on the caprices of fortune or the decrees of fate. But that day, at the head of a splendid company of princes and generals, King William, crossing the bridge of Donchery, rode throughout the whole vast extent of the German lines, to greet his hardy warriors and be greeted by them on the very scene of their victories. And well they deserved regal gratitude, for together with their comrades who surrounded Metz, by dint of long swift marches and steadfast valour, they had overcome two great Armies in thirty days.
During the battle of Sedan, the Germans lost in killed and wounded 8,924 officers and men. On the other hand, the French lost 3,000 killed, 14,000 wounded, and 21,000 captured in the battle. The number of prisoners by capitulation was 83,000, while 3,000 were disarmed in Belgium, and a few hundreds, more or less, made their way by devious routes near and over the frontier, to Mézières, Rocroi, and other places in France. In addition, were taken one eagle and two flags, 419 field guns and mitrailleuses, 139 garrison guns, many wagons, muskets, and horses. On the day after the surrender, the French soldiers, having stacked their arms in Sedan, marched into the peninsula formed by the deep loop of the Meuse—“le Camp de Misère” as they called it—and were sent thence in successive batches, numbered by thousands, to Germany. Such was the astonishing end of the Army of Chalons, which had been impelled to its woful doom by the Comte de Palikao and the Paris politicians. Directed by General Vinoy, who was an able soldier, the troops brought to Mézières, escaped by rapid and clever marches from the German cavalry and the 6th Corps, and formed the nucleus of the improvised Army which afterwards defended the capital.