PROGRESS OF THE WAR.
How this war proceeded I need not recount. You have all read the record day by day, sorrowing for Humanity,—how, after briefest interval of preparation or hesitation, the two combatants first crossed swords at Saarbruecken, within the German frontier, and the young Prince Imperial performed his part in picking up a bullet from the field, which the Emperor promptly reported by telegraph to the Empress,—how this little military success is all that was vouchsafed to the man who began the war,—how soon thereafter victory followed, first on the hill-sides of Wissembourg and then of Woerth, shattering the army of MacMahon, to which the Empire was looking so confidently,—how another large army under Bazaine was driven within the strong fortress of Metz,—how all the fortresses, bristling with guns and frowning upon Germany, were invested,—how battle followed battle on various fields, where Death was the great conqueror,—how, with help of modern art, war showed itself to be murder by machinery,—how MacMahon, gathering together his scattered men and strengthening them with reinforcements, attempted to relieve Bazaine,—how at last, after long marches, his large army found itself shut up at Sedan with a tempest of fire beating upon its huddled ranks, so that its only safety was capitulation,—how with the capitulation of the army was the submission of the Emperor himself, who gave his sword to the King of Prussia and became prisoner of war,—and how, on the reception of this news at Paris, Louis Napoleon and his dynasty were divested of their powers and the Empire was lost in the Republic. These things you know. I need not dwell on them. Not to battles and their fearful vicissitudes, where all is incarnadined with blood, must we look, but to the ideas which prevail,—as for the measure of time we look, not to the pendulum in its oscillations, but to the clock in the tower, whose striking tells the hours. A great hour for Humanity sounded when the Republic was proclaimed. And this I say, even should it fail again; for every attempt contributes to the final triumph.
A WAR OF SURPRISES.
The war, from the pretext at its beginning to the capitulation at Sedan, has been a succession of surprises, where the author of the pretext was a constant sufferer. Nor is this strange. Falstaff says, with humorous point, "See now how wit may be made a Jack-a- lent, when't is upon ill employment!"[Footnote: Merry Wives of Windsor, Act V. Sc. 5.]—and another character, in a play of Beaumont and Fletcher, reveals the same evil destiny in stronger terms, when he says,—
"Hell gives us art to reach the depth of sin, But leaves us wretched fools, when we are in." [Footnote: Queen of Corinth, Act IV. Sc. 3.]
And this was precisely the condition of the French Empire. Germany perhaps had one surprise, at the sudden adoption of the pretext for war. But the Empire has known nothing but surprise. A fatal surprise was the promptitude with which all the German States, outside of Austrian rule, accepted the leadership of Prussia, and joined their forces to hers. Differences were forgotten,—whether the hate of Hanover, the dread of Wuertemberg, the coolness of Bavaria, the opposition of Saxony, or the impatience of the Hanse Towns at lost importance. Hanover would not rise; the other States and cities would not be detached. On the day after the reading of the War Manifesto at the French tribune, even before the King's speech to the Northern Parliament, the Southern States began to move. German unity stood firm, and this was the supreme surprise for France with which the war began. On one day the Emperor in his Official Journal declares his object to be the deliverance of Bavaria from Prussian oppression, and on the very next day the Crown Prince of Prussia, at the head of Bavarian troops, crushes an Imperial army.
Then came the manifest inferiority of the Imperial army, everywhere outnumbered, which was another surprise,—the manifest inferiority of the Imperial artillery, also a surprise,—the manifest inferiority of the Imperial generals, still a surprise. Above these was a prevailing inefficiency and improvidence, which very soon became conspicuous, and this was a surprise. The strength of Germany, as now exhibited, was a surprise. And when the German armies entered France, every step was a surprise. Wissembourg was a surprise; so was Woerth; so was Beaumont; so was Sedan. Every encounter was a surprise. Abel Douay, the French general, who fell bravely fighting at Wissembourg, the first sacrifice on the battle-field, was surprised; so was MacMahon, not only at the beginning, but at the end. He thought that the King and Crown Prince were marching on Paris. So they were,—but they turned aside for a few days to surprise a whole army of more than, a hundred thousand men, terrible with cannon and newly invented implements of war, under a Marshal of France, and with an Emperor besides. As this succession of surprises was crowned with what seemed the greatest surprise of all, there remained a greater still in the surprise of the French Empire. No Greek Nemesis with unrelenting hand ever dealt more incessantly the unavoidable blow, until the Empire fell as a dead body falls, while the Emperor became a captive and the Empress a fugitive, with their only child a fugitive also. The poet says:—
"Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy In sceptred pall come sweeping by."[Footnote: Milton, II Penseroso, 97-98.]
It has swept before the eyes of all. Beneath that sceptred pall is the dust of a great Empire, founded and ruled by Louis Napoleon; if not the dust of the Emperor also, it is because he was willing to sacrifice others rather than himself.