The Generals Meet at Donchery.
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 Nostitz 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 Cuirassier 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 honourable 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 honour 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 honourable 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 passions, 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 gratitude of a prince, but certainly not on the gratitude of a people—least of all on the gratitude of the French. That in France neither institutions nor circumstances 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 gratitude for our granting good conditions might have been counted upon; but that 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 Königgratz, 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 for ever 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.”
Here Count Castelnau interposed meekly to say, on behalf of the Emperor, that he had surrendered, personally, in the hope that his self-sacrifice would induce the King to grant the Army honourable terms. “Is that all?” Bismarck inquired. “Yes,” said the Frenchman. “But what is the sword surrendered,” asked the Chancellor; “is it his own sword, or the sword of France?” “It is only the sword of the Emperor,” was Castelnau’s reply. “Well, there is no use talking about other conditions,” said Von Moltke, sharply, while a look of contentment and gratification passed over his face, according to Bismarck; one “almost joyful,” writes the keen Captain d’Orcet. “After the last words of Von Moltke,” he continues, “De Wimpffen exclaimed, ‘We shall renew the battle.’ ‘The truce,’ retorted the German General, ‘expires to-morrow morning at four o’clock. At four, precisely, I shall open fire.’ We were all standing. After Von Moltke’s words no one spoke a syllable. The silence was icy.” But then Bismarck intervened to sooth excited feelings, and called on his soldier comrade to show, once more, how impossible resistance had become. The group sat down again at the red baize-covered table, and Von Moltke began his demonstration afresh. “Ah,” said De Wimpffen, “your positions are not so strong as you would have us believe them to be.” “You do not know the topography of the country about Sedan,” was Von Moltke’s true and crushing answer. “Here is a bizarre detail which illustrates the presumptuous and inconsequent character of your people,” he went on, now thoroughly aroused. “When the war began you supplied your officers with maps of Germany at a time when they could not study the geography of their own country for want of French maps. I tell you that our positions are not only very strong, they are inexpugnable.” It was then that De Wimpffen, unable to reply, wished to accept the offer made, but not accepted at an earlier period, and to send an officer to verify these assertions. “You will send nobody,” exclaimed the iron General. “It is useless, and you can believe my word. Besides, you have not long to reflect. It is now midnight; the truce ends at four o’clock, and I will grant no delay.” Driven to his last ditch, De Wimpffen pleaded that he must consult his fellow-Generals, and he could not obtain their opinions by four o’clock. Once more the diplomatic peacemaker intervened, and Von Moltke agreed to fix the final limit at nine. “He gave way at last,” says Bismarck, “when I showed him that it could do no harm.” The conference so dramatic broke up, and each one went his way; but, says the German official narrative, “as it was not doubtful that the hostile Army, completely beaten and nearly surrounded, would be obliged to submit to the clauses already indicated, the Great Head-quarter Staff was occupied, that very night, in drawing up the text of the capitulation” a significant and practical comment, showing what stuff there was behind the severe language which, at the midnight meeting, fell from the Chief of that able and sleepless body of chosen men.