The Moral and Political Forces.
One other fact may be usefully noticed, because it had a considerable influence on the campaign. It is this—the moral force, represented by public opinion in politics, and in the Armies by what the French call the moral, which has nothing to do with morals, but means cheerfulness, good will, confidence—had passed wholly over to the German side. Public opinion, which ran in a strong and steady current, condemned the declaration of war, although a certain superstitious belief in the invincibility of French soldiers, at least when opposed to Germans, still prevailed, even among military men who ought to have been better informed and less under the sway of prejudice. While Germany was united and hearty, and willingly obeyed an executive which no one questioned, while Saxony and Hanover, Würtemberg and Bavaria vied in patriotic ardour with Pomerania and Brandenburg; there was no such complete and consentaneous feeling in France; and there was, on the one hand, a powerful, ambitious, and indignant group of Imperialists, who thirsted for the possession of office, which they strove to snatch from Emile Ollivier and his semi-Liberal colleagues, and on the other, outside all the Imperialist sections, the repressed, enraged, and sturdy republicans of Paris who, it is not too much to say, waited for the first decisive defeat of the Imperial Armies to overturn an arbitrary system of government which they detested on account of its treacherous origin, and dreaded, as well as despised, while they writhed beneath its power. Jérôme David and Clement Duvernois were resolved to expel the so-called constitutionalists; and Gambetta, Favre, and their friends were equally determined, if an opportunity occurred, to destroy the Empire, root and branch. There were no such elements of weakness beyond the Rhine.
Nor, as we shall see, did the conduct of the Empress Eugénie, in her capacity as Regent, supply strength to the Government or impart wisdom to its councils. She had one dominant idea—the preservation of the dynasty—and aided by a willing instrument, the Comte de Palikao, she was the prime agent in the work of depriving the French nation of the best and last chance of saving Paris from investment and capitulation. If the political conditions were adverse to the Imperialists in respect of unity and moral force, they were not less so when estimated from a military standpoint. The French Army we will not say lost courage, but confidence, from the moment when it was brought to a standstill. The soldiers knew quite as well as the generals why, on the 4th of August, the larger host, under an Emperor Napoleon, was pottering to and fro, driven hither and thither by orders and counter-orders, in the country north of Metz, and why the smaller, commanded by Marshal the Duke of Magenta, was still south of the Lauter. They knew also, from daily experience, how imperfect the Armies were, because the weakness of the battalions, the scarcity of provisions, the defects of equipment, the lack of camp utensils were things which could not be hidden. They were also inactive and unable to develop the power which springs up in a French Army when engaged in successful offensive operations; they deteriorated hourly in morale. The Germans gained confidence at every step they took towards the frontier, not only because they were animated by a formidable patriotic spirit and were eager for battle with their ancient foes, but because each battery, squadron, and battalion had its full complement of men, because they put trust in their royal chief and his illustrious assistant, and because they were intensely proud of an almost perfect war-apparatus, in which each officer and soldier was able, so solid yet elastic was the system of training, to harmonize obedience to orders with, when the need arose, discretionary independent action. So that as the huge but perfectly articulated masses of the German Armies moved swiftly and steadily to the frontier behind which the adversary awaited them, they bore along in their breasts that priceless belief in themselves and their cause which had so often carried troops to victory, even when they were few and their foes were many. The contrast is painfully distressing; but it is also profoundly instructive, because when closely scrutinized it reveals the open secrets which show, not only how empires are lost and won, but what severe duties a great self-respecting people must perform to obtain securities for the right of cementing and preserving National Independence.