SEDAN
"Nothing is more rash and contrary to the principles of war than to make a flank-march before an army in position, especially when this army occupies heights before which it is necessary to defile."--NAPOLEON I.
The success of the German operations to the south and west of Metz virtually decided the whole of the campaign. The Germans could now draw on their vast reserves ever coming on from the Rhine, throw an iron ring around that fortress, and thereby deprive France of her only great force of regular troops. The throwing up of field-works and barricades went on with such speed that the blockading forces were able in a few days to detach a strong column towards Châlons-sur-Marne in order to help the army of the Crown Prince of Prussia. That army in the meantime was in pursuit of MacMahon by way of Nancy, and strained every nerve so as to be able to strike at the southern railway lines out of Paris. It was, however, diverted to the north-west by events soon to be described.
The German force detached from the neighbourhood of Metz consisted of the Prussian Guards, the 4th and 12th corps, and two cavalry divisions. This army, known as the Army of the Meuse, was placed under the command of the Crown Prince of Saxony. Its aim was, in common with the Third German Army (that of the Crown Prince of Prussia), to strike at MacMahon before he received reinforcements. The screen of cavalry which preceded the Army of the Meuse passed that river on the 22nd, when the bulk of the forces of the Crown Prince of Prussia crossed not many miles farther to the south. The two armies swept on westwards within easy distance of one another; and on the 23rd their cavalry gleaned news of priceless value, namely, that MacMahon's army had left Châlons. On the next day the great camp was found deserted.
In fact, MacMahon had undertaken a task of terrible difficulty. On taking over the command at Châlons, where Napoleon III. arrived from Metz on the 16th, he found hopeless disorder not only among his own beaten troops, but among many of the newcomers; the worst were the Garde Mobile, many regiments of whom greeted the Emperor with shouts of À Paris. To meet the Germans in the open plains of Champagne with forces so incoherent and dispirited was sheer madness; and a council of war on the 17th came to the conclusion to fall back on the capital and operate within its outer forts--a step which might enable the army to regain confidence, repress any rising in the capital, and perhaps inflict checks on the Germans, until the provinces rose en masse against the invaders. But at this very time the Empress-Regent and the Palikao Ministry at Paris came to an exactly contrary decision, on the ground that the return of the Emperor with MacMahon's army would look like personal cowardice and a mean desertion of Bazaine at Metz. The Empress was for fighting à outrance, and her Government issued orders for a national rising and the enrolling of bodies of irregulars, or francs-tireurs, to harass the Germans[43].
Their decision was telegraphed to Napoleon III. at Châlons. Against his own better judgment the Emperor yielded to political considerations--that mill-stone around the neck of the French army in 1870--and decided to strike out to the north with MacMahon's army, and by way of Montmédy stretch a hand to Bazaine, who, on his side, was expected to make for that rendezvous. On the 21st, therefore, they marched to Reims. There the Emperor received a despatch which Bazaine had been able to get through the enemies' lines on the 19th, stating that the Germans were making their way in on Metz, but that he (Bazaine) hoped to break away towards Montmédy and so join MacMahon's army. (This, it will be observed, was after Gravelotte had been lost.) Napoleon III. thereupon replied: "Received yours of the 19th at Reims; am going towards Montmédy; shall be on the Aisne the day after to-morrow, and there will act according to circumstances to come to your aid." Bazaine did not receive this message until August 30, and then made only two weak efforts to break out on the north (August 31-September 1). The Marshal's action in sending that message must be pronounced one of the most fatal in the whole war. It led the Emperor and MacMahon to a false belief as to the position at Metz, and furnished a potent argument to the Empress and Palikao at Paris to urge a march towards Montmédy at all costs.
Doubtfully MacMahon led his straggling array from Reims in a north-easterly direction towards Stenay on the Meuse. Rain checked his progress, and dispirited the troops; but on the 27th August, while about half-way between the Aisne and the Meuse, his outposts touched those of the enemy. They were, in fact, those of the Prussian Crown Prince, whose army was about to cross the northern roads over the Argonne, the line of hills that saw the French stem the Prussian invasion in 1792. Far different was the state of affairs now. National enthusiasm, organisation, enterprise--all were on the side of the invaders. As has been pointed out, their horsemen found out on the 23rd that the Châlons camp was deserted; on the next day their scouts found out from a Parisian newspaper that MacMahon was at Reims; and, on the day following, newspaper tidings that had come round by way of London revealed the secret that MacMahon was striving to reach Bazaine.
How it came about that this news escaped the eye of the censor has not been explained. If it was the work of an English journalist, that does not absolve the official censorship from the charge of gross carelessness in leaving even a loophole for the transmission of important secrets. Newspaper correspondents, of course, are the natural enemies of Governments in time of war; and the experience of the year 1870 shows that the fate of Empires may depend on the efficacy of the arrangements for controlling them. As a proof of the superiority of the German organisation, or of the higher patriotism of their newspapers, we may mention that no tidings of urgent importance leaked out through the German Press. This may have been due to a solemn declaration made by German newspaper editors and correspondents that they would never reveal such secrets; but, from what we know of the fierce competition of newspapers for priority of news, it is reasonable to suppose that the German Government took very good care that none came in their way.
As a result of the excellent scouting of their cavalry and of the slipshod Press arrangements of the French Government, the German Army of the Meuse, on the 26th, took a general turn towards the north-west. This movement brought its outposts near to the southernmost divisions of MacMahon, and sent through that Marshal's staff the foreboding thrill felt by the commander of an unseaworthy craft at the oncoming of the first gust of a cyclone. He saw the madness of holding on his present course and issued orders for a retreat to Mézières, a fortress on the Meuse below Sedan. Once more, however, the Palikao Ministry intervened to forbid this salutary move--the only way out of imminent danger--and ordered him to march to the relief of Bazaine. At this crisis Napoleon III. showed the good sense which seemed to have deserted the French politicians: he advised the Marshal not to obey this order if he thought it dangerous. Nevertheless, MacMahon decided to yield to the supposed interests of the dynasty, which the Emperor was ready to sacrifice to the higher claims of the safety of France. Their rôles were thus curiously reversed. The Emperor reasoned as a sound patriot and a good strategist. MacMahon must have felt the same promptings, but obedience to the Empress and the Ministry, or chivalrous regard for Bazaine, overcame his scruples. He decided to plod on towards the Meuse.
The Germans were now on the alert to entrap this army that exposed its flank in a long line of march near to the Belgian frontier. Their ubiquitous horsemen captured French despatches which showed them the intended moves in MacMahon's desperate game; Moltke hurried up every available division; and the elder of the two Alvenslebens had the honour of surprising de Failly's corps amidst the woods of the Ardennes near Beaumont, as they were in the midst of a meal. The French rallied and offered a brisk defence, but finally fell back in confusion northwards on Mouzon, with the loss of 2000 prisoners and 42 guns (August 30).
This mishap, the lack of provisions, and the fatigue and demoralisation of his troops, caused MacMahon on the 31st to fall back on Sedan, a little town in the valley of the Meuse. It is surrounded by ramparts planned by the great Vauban, but, being commanded by wooded heights, it no longer has the importance that it possessed before the age of long-range guns of precision. The chief strength of the position for defence lay in the deep loop of the river below the town, the dense Garenne Wood to the north-east, and the hollow formed by the Givonne brook on the east, with the important village of Bazeilles. It is therefore not surprising that von Moltke, on seeing the French forces concentrating in this hollow, remarked to von Blumenthal, Chief of the Staff: "Now we have them in a trap; to-morrow we must cross over the Meuse early in the morning."
The Emperor and MacMahon seem even then, on the afternoon of the 31st, to have hoped to give their weary troops a brief rest, supply them with provisions and stores from the fortress, and on the morrow, or the 2nd, make their escape by way of Mézières. Possibly they might have done so on that night, and certainly they could have reached the Belgian frontier, only some six miles distant, and there laid down their arms to the Belgian troops whom the resourceful Bismarck had set on the qui vive. To remain quiet even for a day in Sedan was to court disaster; yet passivity characterised the French headquarters and the whole army on that afternoon and evening. True, MacMahon gave orders for the bridge over the Meuse at Donchéry to be blown up, but the engine-driver who took the engineers charged with this important task, lost his nerve when German shells whizzed about his engine, and drove off before the powder and tools could be deposited. A second party, sent later on, found that bridge in the possession of the enemy. On the east side, above Sedan, the Bavarians seized the railway bridge south of Bazeilles, driving off the French who sought to blow it up[44].
Over the Donchéry bridge and two pontoon bridges constructed below that village the Germans poured their troops before dawn of September 1, and as the morning fog of that day slowly lifted, their columns were seen working round the north of the deep loop of the Meuse, thus cutting off escape on the west and north-west. Meanwhile, on the other side of the town, von der Tann's Bavarians had begun the fight. Pressing in on Bazeilles so as to hinder the retreat of the enemy (as had been so effectively done at Colombey, on the east of Metz), they at first surprised the sleeping French, but quickly drew on themselves a sharp and sustained counter-attack from the marines attached to the 12th French corps.
In order to understand the persistent vigour of the French on this side, we must note the decisions formed by their headquarters on August 31 and early on September 1. At a council of war held on the afternoon of the 31st no decision
was reached, probably because the exhaustion of the 5th and 7th corps and the attack of the Bavarians on the 12th corps at Bazeilles rendered any decided movement very difficult. The general conclusion was that the army must have some repose; and Germans afterwards found on the battlefield a French order--"Rest to-day for the whole army." But already on the 30th an officer had come from Paris determined to restore the morale of the army and break through towards Bazaine. This was General de Wimpffen, who had gained distinction in previous wars, and, coming lately from Algeria to Paris, was there appointed to supersede de Failly in command of the 5th corps. Nor was this all. The Palikao Ministry apparently had some doubts as to MacMahon's energy, and feared that the Emperor himself hampered the operations. De Wimpffen therefore received an unofficial mandate to infuse vigour into the counsels at headquarters, and was entrusted with a secret written order to take over the supreme command if anything were to happen to MacMahon. On taking command of the 5th corps on the 30th, de Wimpffen found it demoralised by the hurried retreat through Mouzon; but neither this fact nor the exhaustion of the whole army abated the determination of this stalwart soldier to break through towards Metz.
Early on September 1 the positions held by the French formed, roughly speaking, a triangle resting on the right bank of the Meuse from, near Bazeilles to Sedan and Glaire. Damming operations and the heavy rains of previous days had spread the river over the low-lying meadows, thus rendering it difficult, if not impossible, for an enemy to cross under fire; but this same fact lessened the space by which the French could endeavour to break through. Accordingly they deployed their forces almost wholly along the inner slopes of the Givonne brook and of the smaller stream that flows from the high land about Illy down to the village of Floing and thence to the Meuse. The heights of Illy, crowned by the Calvaire, formed the apex of the French position, while Floing and Bazeilles formed the other corners of what was in many respects good fighting-ground. Their strength was about 120,000 men, though many of these were disabled or almost helpless from fatigue; that of the Germans was greater on the whole, but three of their corps could not reach the scene of action before 1 P.M. owing to the heaviness of the roads[45]. At first, then, the French had a superiority of force and a far more compact position, as will be seen by the accompanying plan.
We now resume the account of the battle. The fighting in and around Bazeilles speedily led to one very important result. At 6 A.M. a splinter of a shell fired by the assailants from the hills north-east of that village, severely wounded Marshal MacMahon as he watched the conflict from a point in front of the village of Balan. Thereupon he named General Ducrot as his successor, passing over the claims of two generals senior to him. Ducrot, realising the seriousness of the position, prepared to draw off the troops towards the Calvaire of Illy preparatory to a retreat on Mézières by way of St. Menges. The news of this impending retreat, which must be conducted under the hot fire of the Germans now threatening the line of the Givonne, cut de Wimpffen to the quick. He knew that the Crown Prince held a force to the south-west of Sedan, ready to fall on the flank of any force that sought to break away to Mézières; and a temporary success of his own 5th corps against the Saxons in la Moncelle strengthened his prepossession in favour of a combined move eastwards towards Carignan and Metz. Accordingly, about nine o'clock he produced the secret order empowering him to succeed MacMahon should the latter be incapacitated. Ducrot at once yielded to the ministerial ukase; the Emperor sought to intervene in favour of Ducrot, only to be waved aside by the confident de Wimpffen; and thus the long conflict between MacMahon and the Palikao Ministry ended in victory for the latter--and disaster for France[46].
In hazarding this last statement we do not mean to imply that a retreat on Mézières would then have saved the whole army. It might, however, have enabled part of it to break through either to Mézières or the Belgian boundary; and it is possible that Ducrot had the latter objective in view when he ordered the concentration at Illy. In any case, that move was now countermanded in favour of a desperate attack on the eastern assailants. It need hardly be said that the result of these vacillations was deplorable, unsteadying the defenders, and giving the assailants time to bring up troops and cannon, and thereby strengthen their grip on every important point. Especially valuable was the approach of the 2nd Bavarian corps; setting out from Raucourt at 4 A.M. it reached the hills south of Sedan about 9, and its artillery posted near Frénois began a terrible fire on the town and the French troops near it.
About the same time the Second Division of the Saxons reinforced their hard-pressed comrades to the north of la Moncelle, where, on de Wimpffen's orders, the French were making a strong forward move. The opportune arrival of these new German troops saved their artillery, which had been doing splendid service. The French were driven back across the Givonne with heavy loss, and the massed battery of 100 guns crushed all further efforts at advance on this side. Meanwhile at Bazeilles the marines had worthily upheld the honour of the French arms. Despite the terrible artillery fire now concentrated on the village, they pushed the German footmen back, but never quite drove them out. These, when reinforced, renewed the fight with equal obstinacy; the inhabitants themselves joined in with whatever weapons fury suggested to them and as that merciless strife swayed to and fro amidst the roar of artillery, the crash of walls, and the hiss of flame, war was seen in all its naked ferocity.
Yet here again, as at all points, the defence was gradually overborne by the superiority of the German artillery. About eleven o'clock the French, despite their superhuman efforts, were outflanked by the Bavarians and Saxons on the north of the village. Even then, when the regulars fell back, some of the inhabitants went on with their mad resistance; a great part of the village was now in flames, but whether they were kindled by the Germans, or by the retiring French so as to delay the victors, has never been cleared up. In either case, several of the inhabitants perished in the flames; and it is admitted that the Bavarians burnt some of the villagers for firing on them from the windows[47].
In the defence of Bazeilles the French infantry showed its usual courage and tenacity. Elsewhere the weary and dispirited columns were speedily becoming demoralised under the terrific artillery fire which the Germans poured in from many points of vantage. The Prussian Guards coming up from Villers Cernay about 10 A.M. planted their formidable batteries so as to sweep the Bois de Garenne and the ground about the Calvaire d'Illy from the eastward; and about that time the guns of the 5th and 11th German corps, that had early crossed the Meuse below Sedan, were brought to bear on the west front of that part of the French position. The apex of the defenders' triangle was thus severely searched by some 200 guns; and their discharges, soon supported by the fire of skirmishers and volleys from the troops, broke all forward movements of the French on that side. On the south and south-east as many cannon swept the French lines, but from a greater distance.
Up to nearly noon there seemed some chance of the French bursting through on the north, and some of them did escape. Yet no well-sustained effort took place on that side, apparently because, even after the loss of Bazeilles at eleven o'clock, de Wimpffen clung to the belief that he could cut his way out towards Carignan, if not by Bazeilles, then perhaps by some other way, as Daigny or la Moncelle. The reasoning by which he convinced himself is hard to follow; for the only road to Carignan on that side runs through Bazeilles. Perhaps we ought to say that he did not reason, but was haunted by one fixed notion; and the history of war from the time of the Roman Varro down to the age of the Austrian Mack and the French de Wimpffen shows that men whose brains work in grooves and take no account of what is on the right hand and the left, are not fit to command armies; they only yield easy triumphs to the great masters of warfare--Hannibal, Napoleon the Great, and von Moltke.
De Wimpffen, we say, paid little heed to the remonstrances of Generals Douay and Ducrot at leaving the northern apex and the north-western front of the defence to be crushed by weight of metal and of numbers. He rode off towards Balan, near which village the former defenders of Bazeilles were making a gallant and partly successful stand, and no reinforcements were sent to the hills on the north. The villages of Illy and Floing were lost; then the French columns gave ground even up the higher ground behind them, so great was the pressure of the German converging advance. Worst of all, skulkers began to hurry from the ranks and seek shelter in the woods, or even under the ramparts of Sedan far in the rear. The French gunners still plied their guns with steady devotion, though hopelessly outmatched at all points, but it was clear that only a great forward dash could save the day. Ducrot therefore ordered General Margueritte with three choice cavalry regiments (Chasseurs d'Afrique) and several squadrons of Lancers to charge the advancing lines. Moving forward from the northern edge of the Bois de Garenne to judge his ground, Margueritte fell mortally wounded. De Bauffremont took his place, and those brave horsemen swept forward on a task as hopeless as that of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, or that of the French Cuirassiers at Wörth[48]. Their conduct was as glorious; but the terrible power of the modern rifle was once more revealed. The pounding of distant batteries they could brave; disordered but defiant they swept on towards the German lines, but when the German infantry opened fire almost at pistol range, rank after rank of the horsemen went down as grass before the scythe. Here and there small bands of horsemen charged the footmen on the flank, even in a few cases on their rear, it is said; but the charge, though bravely renewed, did little except to delay the German triumph and retrieve the honour of France.
By about two o'clock the French cavalry was practically disabled, and there now remained no Imperial Guard, as at Waterloo, to shed some rays of glory over the disaster. Meanwhile, however, de Wimpffen had resolved to make one more effort. Gathering about him a few of the best infantry battalions in and about Sedan, he besought the Emperor to join him in cutting a way out towards the east. The Emperor sent no answer to this appeal; he judged that too much blood had already been needlessly shed. Still, de Wimpffen persisted in his mad endeavour. Bursting upon the Bavarians in the village of Balan, he drove them back for a space until his men, disordered by the rush, fell before the stubborn rally of the Bavarians and Saxons. With the collapse of this effort and the cutting up of the French cavalry behind Floing, the last frail barriers to the enemy's advance gave way. The roads to Sedan were now thronged with masses of fugitives, whose struggles to pass the drawbridges into the little fortress resembled an African battue; for King William and his Staff, in order to hurry on the inevitable surrender, bade the 200 or more pieces on the southern heights play upon the town. Still de Wimpffen refused to surrender, and, despite the orders of his sovereign, continued the hopeless struggle. At length, to stay the frightful carnage, the Emperor himself ordered the white flag to be hoisted[49]. A German officer went down to arrange preliminaries, and to his astonishment was ushered into the presence of the Emperor. The German Staff had no knowledge of his whereabouts. On hearing the news, King William, who throughout the day sat on horseback at the top of the slope behind Frénois, said to his son, the Crown Prince: "This is indeed a great success; and I thank thee that thou hast contributed to it." He gave his hand to his son, who kissed it, and then, in turn, to Moltke and to Bismarck, who kissed it also. In a short time, the French General Reille brought to the King the following autograph letter:--
MONSIEUR MON FRÈRE--N'ayant pu mourir au milieu de mes troupes, il ne me reste qu'à remettre mon épée entre les mains de Votre Majesté.--Je suis de Votre Majesté le bon Frère
NAPOLÉON.
SÉDAN, le 1er Septembre, 1870.
The King named von Moltke to arrange the terms and then rode away to a village farther south, it being arranged, probably at Bismarck's suggestion, that he should not see the Emperor until all was settled. Meanwhile de Wimpffen and other French generals, in conference with von Moltke, Bismarck, and Blumenthal, at the village of Donchéry, sought to gain easy terms by appealing to their generosity and by arguing that this would end the war and earn the gratitude of France. To all appeals for permission to let the captive army go to Algeria, or to lay down its arms in Belgium, the Germans were deaf,--Bismarck at length plainly saying that the French were an envious and jealous people on whose gratitude it would be idle to count. De Wimpffen then threatened to renew the fight rather than surrender, to which von Moltke grimly assented, but Bismarck again interposed to bring about a prolongation of the truce. Early on the morrow, Napoleon himself drove out to Donchéry in the hope of seeing the King. The Bismarckian Boswell has given us a glimpse of him as he then appeared: "The look in his light grey eyes was somewhat soft and dreamy, like that of people who have lived too fast." [In his case, we may remark, this was induced by the painful disease which never left him all through the campaign, and carried him off three years later.] "He wore his cap a little on the right, to which side his head also inclined. His short legs were out of proportion to the long upper body. His whole appearance was a little unsoldier-like. The man looked too soft--I might say too spongy--for the uniform he wore."
Bismarck, the stalwart Teuton who had wrecked his policy at all points, met him at Donchéry and foiled his wish to see the King, declaring this to be impossible until the terms of the capitulation were settled. The Emperor then had a conversation with the Chancellor in a little cottage belonging to a weaver. Seating themselves on two rush-bottomed chairs beside the one deal table, they conversed on the greatest affairs of State. The Emperor said he had not sought this war--"he had been driven into it by the pressure of public opinion. I replied" (wrote Bismarck) "that neither had any one with us wished for war--the King least of all[50]." Napoleon then pleaded for generous terms, but admitted that he, as a prisoner, could not fix them; they must be arranged with de Wimpffen. About ten o'clock the latter agreed to an unconditional surrender for the rank and file of the French army, but those officers who bound themselves by their word of honour (in writing) not to fight again during the present war were to be set free. Napoleon then had an interview with the King. What transpired is not known, but when the Emperor came out "his eyes" (wrote Bismarck) "were full of tears."
The fallen monarch accepted the King's offer of the castle of Wilhelmshöhe near Cassel for his residence up to the end of the war; it was the abode on which Jerome Bonaparte had spent millions of thalers, wrung from Westphalian burghers, during his brief sovereignty in 1807-1813. Thither his nephew set out two days after the catastrophe of Sedan. And this, as it seems, was the end of a dynasty whose rise to power dated from the thrilling events of the Bridge of Lodi, Arcola, Rivoli, and the Pyramids. The French losses on September 1 were about 3000 killed, 14,000 wounded, and 21,000 prisoners. On the next day there surrendered 83,000 prisoners by virtue of the capitulation, along with 419 field-pieces and 139 cannon of the fortress. Some 3000 had escaped, through the gap in the German lines on the north-east, to the Belgian frontier, and there laid down their arms.
The news of this unparalleled disaster began to leak out at Paris late on the 2nd; on the morrow, when details were known, crowds thronged into the streets shouting "Down with the Empire! Long live the Republic!" Power still remained with the Empress-Regent and the Palikao Ministry. All must admit that the Empress Eugénie did what was possible in this hopeless position. She appealed to that charming literary man, M. Prosper Mérimée, to go to his friend, M. Thiers (at whom we shall glance presently), and beg him to form a Ministry that would save the Empire for the young Prince Imperial. M. Thiers politely but firmly refused to give a helping hand to the dynasty which he looked on as the author of his country's ruin.
On that day the Empress also summoned the Chambers--the Senate and the Corps Législatif--a vain expedient, for in times of crisis the French look to a man, not to Chambers. The Empire had no man at hand. General Trochu, Governor of Paris, was suspected of being a Republican--at any rate he let matters take their course. On the 4th, vast crowds filled the streets; a rush was made to the Chamber, where various compromises were being discussed; the doors were forced, and amid wild excitement a proposal to dethrone the Napoleonic dynasty was put. Two Republican deputies, Gambetta and Jules Favre, declared that the Hôtel de Ville was the fit place to declare the Republic. There, accordingly, it was proclaimed, the deputies for the city of Paris taking office as the Government of National Defence. They were just in time to prevent Socialists like Blanqui, Flourens, and Henri Rochefort from installing the "Commune" in power. The Empress and the Prince Imperial at once fled, and, apart from a protest by the Senate, no voice was raised in defence of the Empire. Jules Favre who took up the burden of Foreign Affairs in the new Government of National Defence was able to say in his circular note of September 6 that "the Revolution of September 4 took place without the shedding of a drop of blood or the loss of liberty to a single person[51]."
That fact shows the unreality of Bonapartist rule in France. At bottom Napoleon III.'s ascendancy was due to several causes, that told against possible rivals rather than directly in his favour. Hatred of the socialists, whose rash political experiments had led to the bloody days of street fighting in Paris in June 1848, counted for much. Added to this was the unpopularity of the House of Orleans after the sordid and uninteresting rule of Louis Philippe (1830-48). The antiquated royalism of the Elder or Legitimist branch of that ill-starred dynasty made it equally an impossibility. Louis Napoleon promised to do what his predecessors, Monarchical and Republican, had signally failed to do, namely, to reconcile the claims of liberty and order at home and uphold the prestige of France abroad. For the first ten years the glamour of his name, the skill with which he promoted the material prosperity of France, and the successes of his early wars, promised to build up a lasting power. But then came the days of failing health and tottering prestige--of financial scandals, of the Mexican blunder, of the humiliation before the rising power of Prussia. To retrieve matters he toyed with democracy in France, and finally allowed his Ministers to throw down a challenge to Prussia; for, in the words of a French historian, the conditions on which he held power "condemned him to be brilliant[52]."
Failing at Sedan, he lost all; and he knew it. His reign, in fact, was one long disaster for France. The canker of moral corruption began to weaken her public life when the creatures of whom he made use in the coup d'état of 1851 crept into place and power. The flashy sensationalism of his policy, setting the tone for Parisian society, was fatal to the honest unseen drudgery which builds up a solid edifice alike in public and in private life. Even the better qualities of his nature told against ultimate success. As has been shown, his vague but generous ideas on Nationality drew French policy away from the paths of obvious self-interest after the year 1864, and gave an easy victory to the keen and objective statecraft of Bismarck. That he loved France as sincerely as he believed in the power of the Bonapartist tradition to help her, can scarcely admit of doubt. His conduct during the war of 1870 showed him to be disinterested, while his vision was clearer than that of the Generals about him. But in the field of high policy, as in the moral events that make or mar a nation's life, his influence told heavily against the welfare of France; and he must have carried into exile the consciousness that his complex nature and ill-matched strivings had but served to bring his dynasty and his country to an unexampled overthrow.
It may be well to notice here an event of world-wide importance, which came as a sequel to the military collapse of France. Italians had always looked to the day when Rome would be the national capital. The great Napoleon during his time of exile at St. Helena had uttered the prophetic words: "Italy isolated between her natural limits is destined to form a great and powerful nation. . . . Rome will without doubt be chosen by the Italians as their capital." The political and economic needs of the present, coinciding herein with the voice of tradition, always so strong in Italian hearts, pointed imperiously to Rome as the only possible centre of national life.
As was pointed out in the Introduction, Pius IX. after the years of revolution, 1848-49, felt the need of French troops in his capital, and his harsh and reactionary policy (or rather, that of his masterful Secretary of State, Antonelli) before long completely alienated the feelings of his subjects.
After the master-mind of Cavour was removed by death, (June 1861), the patriots struggled desperately, but in vain, to rid Rome of the presence of foreign troops and win her for the national cause. Garibaldi's raids of 1862 and 1867 were foiled, the one by Italian, the other by French troops; and the latter case, which led to the sharp fight of Mentana, effaced any feelings of gratitude to Napoleon III. for his earlier help, which survived after his appropriation of Savoy and Nice. Thus matters remained in 1867-70, the Pope relying on the support of French bayonets to coerce his own subjects. Clearly this was a state of things which could not continue. The first great shock must always bring down a political edifice which rests not on its own foundations, but on external buttresses. These were suddenly withdrawn by the war of 1870. Early in August, Napoleon ordered all his troops to leave the Papal States; and the downfall of his power a month later absolved Victor Emmanuel from the claims of gratitude which he still felt towards his ally of 1859.
At once the forward wing of the Italian national party took action in a way that either forced, or more probably encouraged, Victor Emmanuel's Government to step in under the pretext of preventing the creation of a Roman Republic. The King invited Pius IX. to assent to the peaceful occupation of Rome by the royal troops, and on receiving the expected refusal, moved forward 35,000 soldiers. The resistance of the 11,000 Papal troops proved to be mainly a matter of form. The wall near the Porta Pia soon crumbled before the Italian cannon, and after a brief struggle at the breach, the white flag was hoisted at the bidding of the Pope (Sept. 20).
Thus fell the temporal power of the Papacy. The event aroused comparatively little notice in that year of marvels, but its results have been momentous. At the time there was a general sense of relief, if not of joy, in Italy, that the national movement had reached its goal, albeit in so tame and uninspiring a manner. Rome had long been a prey to political reaction, accompanied by police supervision of the most exasperating kind. The plébiscite as to the future government gave 133,681 votes for Victor Emmanuel's rule, and only 1507 negative votes[53].
Now, for the first time since the days of Napoleon I. and of the short-lived Republic for which Mazzini and Garibaldi worked and fought so nobly in 1849, the Eternal City began to experience the benefits of progressive rule. The royal government soon proved to be very far from perfect. Favouritism, the multiplication of sinecures, municipal corruption, and the prosaic inroads of builders and speculators, soon helped to mar the work of political reconstruction, and began to arouse a certain amount of regret for the more picturesque times of the Papal rule. A sentimental reaction of this kind is certain to occur in all cases of political change, especially in a city where tradition and emotion so long held sway.
The consciences of the faithful were also troubled when the fiat of the Pope went forth excommunicating the robber-king and all his chief abettors in the work of sacrilege. Sons of the Church throughout Italy were bidden to hold no intercourse with the interlopers and to take no part in elections to the Italian Parliament which thenceforth met in Rome. The schism between the Vatican and the King's Court and Government was never to be bridged over; and even to-day it constitutes one of the most perplexing problems of Italy.
Despite the fact that Rome and Italy gained little of that mental and moral stimulus which might have resulted from the completion of the national movement solely by the action of the people themselves, the fact nevertheless remains that Rome needed Italy and Italy needed Rome. The disappointment loudly expressed by idealists, sentimentalists, and reactionaries must not blind us to the fact that the Italians, and above all the Romans, have benefited by the advent of unity, political freedom, and civic responsibility. It may well be that, in acting as the leader of a constitutional people, the Eternal City will little by little develop higher gifts than those nurtured under Papal tutelage, and perhaps as beneficent to Humanity as those which, in the ancient world, bestowed laws on Europe.
As Mazzini always insisted, political progress, to be sound, must be based ultimately on moral progress. It is of its very nature slow, and is therefore apt to escape the eyes of the moralist or cynic who dwells on the untoward signs of the present. But the Rome for which Mazzini and his compatriots yearned and struggled can hardly fail ultimately to rise to the height of her ancient traditions and of that noble prophecy of Dante: "There is the seat of empire. There never was, and there never will be, a people endowed with such capacity to acquire command, with more vigour to maintain it, and more gentleness in its exercise, than the Italian nation, and especially the Holy Roman people." The lines with which Mr. Swinburne closed his "Dedication" of Songs before Sunrise to Joseph Mazzini are worthy of finding a place side by side with the words of the mediaeval seer:--
Yea, even she as at first,
Yea, she alone and none other,
Shall cast down, shall build up, shall bring home,
Slake earth's hunger and thirst,
Lighten, and lead as a mother;
First name of the world's names, Rome.
FOOTNOTES:
[43] See General Lebrun's Guerre de 1870: Bazailles-Sedan, for an account of his corps of MacMahon's army.
In view of the events of the late Boer War, it is worth noting that the Germans never acknowledged the francs-tireurs as soldiers, and forthwith issued an order ending with the words, "They are amenable to martial law and liable to be sentenced to death" (Maurice, Franco-German War, p. 215).
[44] Moltke, The Franco-German War, vol. i. p. 114. Hooper, The Campaign of Sedan, p. 296.
[45] Maurice, The Franco-German War, p. 235.
[46] See Lebrun's Guerre de 1870: Bazeilles-Sédan, for these disputes.
[47] M. Busch, Bismarck in the Franco-German War, vol. i. p. 114.
[48] Lebrun (op. cit. pp. 126-127; also Appendix D) maintains that de Bauffremont then led the charge, de Gallifet leading only the 3rd Chasseurs d'Afrique.
[49] Lebrun, op. cit. pp. 130 et seq. for the disputes about surrender.
[50] Busch, Bismarck on the Franco-German War, vol. i. p. 109. Contrast this statement with his later efforts (Reminiscences, vol. ii. pp. 95-100) to prove that he helped to bring on war.
[51] Gabriel Hanotaux, Contemporary France, vol. i. p. 14 (Eng. edit.)
[52] Said in 1852 by an eminent Frenchman to our countryman, Nassau Senior (Journals, ii. ad fin).
[53] Countess Cesaresco, The Liberation of Italy, p. 411.