He had seen superior officers invaded at their own tables under the tent of the Café Meyer, by private soldiers, and veterans throwing themselves back in their chairs with elbows squared in the presence of their officers, looking defiantly upon them, and shouting, "A bottle!" The waiters came obsequiously to wait upon them for fear of a scene, whilst the officers pretending to hear and see nothing, seemed to him the worst thing he had seen yet. Yet it was deserved; for these officers—officers of rank—knew no more about the roads, paths, streams and rivers of the country than their soldiers, who knew nothing at all. They did not even know the way from Phalsbourg to Sarrebourg by the high-road, which a child of eight might know.
He had heard a staff-officer ask if Sarrebourg was an open town; he had seen whole battalions halting upon that road, not knowing whether they were right.
We should ourselves see these deplorable things next day, for our retreating soldiers did nothing but turn and turn again ten times upon the same roads, around the same mountains, and ended by returning to the same spot again so tired, exhausted, and starved, that the Prussians, if they had come, would only have had to pick them up at their leisure.
Yet George had one moment's satisfaction in this melancholy disorganization; it was to see, as he told us, those sixty men of the 56th halt in good order upon the place, and there rest their flag against a tree. The lieutenant who commanded them made them lie on the ground, near their rifles, and almost immediately they fell asleep in the midst of the seething crowd. The young officer himself went quietly to sit alone at a small table at the café.
"He," said my cousin, "had a map cut into squares, which he began to study in detail. It gave me pleasure to look at him; he reminded me of our naval officers. He knew something! And whilst his men were asleep, and his rescued flag was standing there, he watched, after all this terrible defeat. Colonels, commanders, were arriving depressed and wearied; the lieutenant did not stir. At last he folded up his map and put it back into his pocket, then he went to lie down in the midst of his men, and soon fell asleep too. He," said my cousin, "was an officer! As for the rest, I look upon them as the cause of our ruin: they have never commanded, they have never learned. There is no want of able men in the artillery and engineers; but they are only there to do their part: they command only their own arm, and are compelled to obey superior orders, even when those orders have no sense in them."
One thing which made my cousin tremble with anger, was to learn that the Emperor had the supreme command, and that nothing might be done without taking his Majesty's instructions at headquarters: not a bridge might be blown up, not a tunnel, before receiving his Majesty's permission!
"What is the use of sending or receiving despatches?" said George. "I only hope our honest man will be found to have given orders to blow up the Archeviller tunnel, or the Prussians will overrun the whole of France; they will convey their guns, their munitions of war, their provisions, and their men by railway, whilst our poor soldiers will drag along on foot and perish miserably!"
Listening to him our distress increased more and more.
He had seen in the place a few guns saved from capture, with their horses fearfully mangled, and already so thin with overwork, that one might have thought they had come from the farthest end of Russia. And all these men, coming and going, laid themselves down in a line under the walls to sleep, at the risk of being run over a hundred times.
The doors and windows of all the houses were open; the soldiers might be seen densely crowded in the side streets, the passages, the rooms, the vestibules and yards, busily eating. The townspeople gave them all they had; the poorest shed tears that they had nothing to give, so many poor wretches inspired pity; they were so commiserated that they had been beaten. In richer houses they were cooking from morning till night; when one troop was satisfied another took their place.