BAZAINE AND METZ.
A letter of Count Von Moltke has recently been published, showing that the question of the conquest of France was under consideration by the Count and Bismarck as early as August of 1866. It is demonstrated that these two powerful spirits were already preparing, aye, had already prepared, to trip the Emperor Louis Napoleon, throwing him and his Empire into a common ruin. The letter also proves that the plan of the North-German Confederation, under the leadership of Prussia, with German unity and a German Empire just beyond, was already clearly in mind by the far-sighted leaders who surrounded King William in 1866. Count Von Moltke shows that it was possible and practicable at that date, and within a period of two or three weeks, to throw upon the French border so tremendous an army that resistance would be impossible. The antecedents of the Franco-Prussian War had been clearly thought out by the German masters at a time when Louis Napoleon was still tinkering with his quixotical Empire in Mexico.
When the war between France and Germany actually broke out, four years later. Germany was prepared, and France was unprepared for the conflict. Louis Napoleon did not know that Germany was prepared. He actually thought that he could break into the German borders, fight his way victoriously to the capital, make his headquarters in Berlin, and dictate a peace in the manner of his uncle. It was the most fallacious dream that a really astute man ever indulged in. From the first day of actual contact with the Germans, the dream of the Emperor began to be dissipated. Within five days (August 14-18, 1870,) three murderous battles were fought on French soil, the first at Courcelles, the next at Vionville, and the third at Gravelotte. In all of these the French fought bravely, and in all were defeated disastrously, with tremendous losses.
By these great victories, the Germans were able to separate the two divisions of the French army. The northern division, under command of the Emperor and MacMahon, began to recede toward Sedan, while the more powerful army, under Marshal Bazaine, numbering 173,000 men, was forced somewhat to the south, and pressed by the division of Prince Frederick Charles, until the French, in an evil day, entered the fortified town of Metz, and suffered themselves to be helplessly cooped up. There was perhaps never another great army so safely and hopelessly disposed of!
Metz, after Antwerp, is the strongest fortress in Europe. It is situated at the junction of the rivers Seille and Moselle. It is the capital of the province of Lorraine, destined to be lost by France and gained by Germany in the struggle that was now on. The place was of great historical importance. Here the Roman invaders had established themselves in the time of the conquest of Gaul. It was called by the conquerors, first Mediomatrica, and afterward Divodurum. Its importance, on the very crest of the watershed between the Teutonic and Gallic races, was noted in the early years of our era, and to the present day that importance continues for the same reason as of old. Metz is on the line of a conflict of races which has not yet, after so many centuries, been finally decided.
The position is one of great strategic importance. But such were the military conditions at the end of August, 1870, that to occupy Metz with one of the greatest armies of modern times was the most serious disaster that could befall the French cause. Bazaine's army was needed, not in a fortified town, but in the field. It was a tremendous force. The army that Prince Frederick Charles locked up in Metz could have marched from Parthia to Spain against the resistance of the whole Roman Empire, at the high noon of that imperial power! It could have marched from end to end of the Southern Confederacy in the palmiest day of that Confederacy, and could not have been seriously impeded! And yet this tremendous force was pent up and shut in, as if under seal, while King William and the Crown Prince and Bismarck and Von Moltke hunted down the French Emperor and his remaining forces, brought them to bay, and compelled a surrender.
This was accomplished by the first of September. The Empire of Napoleon went to pieces. The Third Republic was instituted. The Empress fled with the Prince Imperial to England, while her humbled lord was established by his captors at the castle of Wilhelmshohe. Republican France found herself in possession of a political chaos which could hardly be stilled. She also found herself in possession of a splendid army of more than one hundred and seventy thousand men shut up helplessly in Metz. The situation was highly dramatic. The Republic said that Bazaine should break out, but the Marshal said that he could not. What he said was true. The Germans held him fast. But the Republic believed, as it still believes, that Bazaine, loyal to the fallen Emperor rather than to his country, wished to handle his army in such a manner as should compel the restoration of the Empire, under the auspices of the German conquerors.
This idea was hateful above all things to the French Republicans. September wore away, and more than half of October; but still the siege of Metz was not concluded. Vainly did the new Republic of France strive to extricate herself. Vainly did she raise new armies. Vainly did she look for the escape of Bazaine. Finally, on the twenty-seventh of October, that commander surrendered Metz and his army to the Germans. It was the most tremendous capitulation known in history. Never before was so powerful an army surrendered to an enemy. The actual number of French soldiers covered by the capitulation was fully one hundred and seventy thousand! The prostration of France was complete, and her humiliation extreme.
Bazaine became the Black Beast of the public imagination. A tribunal was organized at Paris, under the presidency of the Duc d'Aumale, son of Louis Philippe—the same who with the Prince de Joinville had been on McClellan's staff during the peninsular campaign in our Civil War. Before this court Bazaine was haled as a traitor to his country. He was tried, convicted and condemned to degradation and death. It was only by the most strenuous efforts in his behalf that a commutation of the sentence to imprisonment for twenty years was obtained.
The Marshal was accordingly incarcerated in a prison at Cannes, whither he was sent in December of 1873, and from which he effected his escape in the following August. He succeeded in making his way to Madrid, and took up his residence there. He sought assiduously by writings and argument and appeal to reverse the judgment of his countrymen and of the world with regard to the justice of his sentence; but he could not succeed. It is probably true that the greatest surrender of military forces known in the history of the world was brought about by the preference of the commanding general of the conquered army for an Emperor who was already dethroned, as against a true devotion to his country. There was also in the case a measure of incapacity. Bazaine was no match as a military commander for the powerful genius of Von Moltke and the persistency of Frederick Charles and the more than two hundred thousand resolute Germans who surrounded him, and brought him and his army to irretrievable ruin.