The Downfall (La Débâcle): A Story of the Horrors of War

by Émile Zola

And those were his last words. He expired with his stubborn head still erect and his eyes open, gazing on the battle. Flies were already buzzing around and settling on Françoise's shapeless head, whilst little Auguste, lying in bed, a prey to feverish delirium, was calling and asking for something to drink in a low, supplicating voice: 'Wake up, get up, mother—I'm thirsty, I'm so thirsty.'

However, General Ducrot's orders were peremptory, and the officers had to command a retreat, lamenting that they were prevented from profiting by the advantage they had just gained. Plainly enough, the new commander, full of fears with regard to the enemy's turning movement, was disposed to sacrifice everything to a mad attempt to escape his clutches. So the Place de l'Eglise was evacuated, the troops fell back from lane to lane, and the road was soon empty. Women could be heard wailing and sobbing, and men swore and shook their fists in their anger at being thus abandoned. Many of them shut themselves in their houses, determined to defend them and die.

'Oh! I'm not going off like that!' exclaimed Weiss, quite beside himself. 'I prefer to leave my carcase here. We'll see if they'll come to smash my furniture and drink my wine.'

He had completely given himself up to his rage, to the unquenchable fury of battle. The thought of the foreigner entering his house, sitting in his chair, and drinking out of his glass made his whole body revolt, and drove away all thoughts of his accustomed life, his wife, and his business affairs, all the prudence that he usually displayed like a sensible petty bourgeois. And now he shut himself, barricaded himself, inside his house, walking up and down like a caged animal, proceeding from room to room, and making sure that every aperture was properly closed. He counted his cartridges, and found he had about forty left. Then, as he was giving a last glance over towards the Meuse to make certain that no attack was to be feared by way of the meadows, the spectacle furnished by the hills on the left bank once more arrested his attention. The position of the German batteries was clearly indicated by the puffs of smoke ascending from them; and above the formidable battery of Frénois, on the verge of a little wood on the Marfée hill, he again espied that same cluster of uniforms which he had already seen, but now looking larger than on the previous occasion, and so brilliant in the broad sunlight that, on placing his folders in front of his spectacles, he could distinguish the gold or brass of epaulettes and helmets.

'The dirty blackguards! The dirty blackguards!' he repeated, shaking his fist at the group.

It was King William of Prussia who was perched up there, on the Marfée hill, with his staff. He had already, at seven o'clock, arrived there from Vendresse, where he had slept, and there he was, well out of harm's way, with the valley of the Meuse, the whole unbounded battlefield spread out below him. The vast panorama extended from one horizon to another, and he looked down upon it from the hill as upon a gala performance from a throne reared in some gigantic court-box.

Sedan, with the geometrical lines of its fortifications bathed on the south and the west by the flooded meadows and the river, stood out in the centre against the dark background of the Ardennes Forest, which draped the horizon as with a curtain of antique greenery. Houses were already blazing at Bazeilles, where all was misty with the dust of battle. Then, on the east, from La Moncelle to Givonne, only a few regiments of the Twelfth and First French Corps could be seen, looking like lines of insects as they crossed the stubble, and now and again disappearing in a narrow valley where some hamlets were also hidden; and, farther on, the ground rose again, and pale-tinted fields could be perceived, blotched with the green mass of the Chevalier Wood. The Seventh French Corps was especially well in view on the north, with its regiments represented by numerous black specks moving hither and thither over the plateau of Floing, a broad band of dark grey soil, which descended from the little wood of La Garenne to the herbage on the river bank. Beyond were Floing, St. Menges, Fleigneux, and Illy, all the villages scattered across the surging expanse, quite a rugged region, intersected by steep escarpments. And on the left, also, was the loop of the Meuse, with its slow waters glittering like new silver in the clear sunlight, and its long languid bend forming the peninsula of Iges, and intercepting all communication with Mézières save on one point, where, between the farther bank and the impassable forest, there opened the only entrance to the defile of St. Albert.

The hundred thousand men and the five hundred guns of the French army were heaped together, brought to bay within the triangle; and when the King of Prussia turned his eyes westward he perceived another plain, that of Donchery, with bare fields spreading out towards Briancourt, Marancourt, and Vrignes-aux-Bois, an infinite expanse of grey soil dusty under the blue sky; and when he turned to the east he also beheld, confronting the confined French lines, another immense open expanse, with an abundance of villages, first Douzy and Carignan, and then, ascending northwards, Rubécourt, Pourru-aux-Bois, Francheval, and Villers-Cernay, till at last there came La Chapelle, near the Belgian frontier. And all this surrounding ground belonged to him, and as he pushed forward at his pleasure the two hundred and fifty thousand men and the eight hundred guns of his armies, he could, at one glance, survey their invading march. The Eleventh German Army Corps was, on the one hand, already advancing on St. Menges, whilst the Fifth Corps was at Vrignes-aux-Bois, and the division of Wurtembergers was waiting near Donchery; and although, on the other side, the King's view was somewhat obstructed by the trees and hills, it was yet easy for him to realise the movements that were being accomplished. He had just seen the Twelfth German Corps enter the Chevalier Wood, and he knew that the Guard must by this time have reached Villers-Cernay. And the army of the Crown Prince of Prussia on the left, and the army of the Crown Prince of Saxony on the right, formed, as it were, the two branches of the vice which were opening and ascending with irresistible force to meet over yonder; whilst on their side the two Bavarian Army Corps were rushing upon Bazeilles.

And, at King William's feet, the German batteries, disposed in an almost uninterrupted line from Remilly to Frénois, were now thundering without cessation, covering La Moncelle and Daigny with shells, and sweeping the plateaux on the north with other projectiles which passed right over the town of Sedan. As yet it was hardly more than eight in the morning, and the King was already waiting for the inevitable result of the battle, his eyes fixed on the gigantic chessboard before him, his mind busy with the movements of that human dust, the bellicose madness of those few black specks which here and there dotted the surface of smiling and eternal nature.