My Days of Adventure / The Fall of France, 1870-71

by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

Bismarck was in no way inclined to allow the negotiations for an anti-Prussian alliance to mature. They dragged on for a considerable time, but the Government of Napoleon III was not particularly disturbed thereat, as it felt certain that victory would attend the French arms at the outset, and that Italy and Austria would eventually give support. Bismarck, however, precipitated events. Already in the previous year Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen had been a candidate for the throne of Spain. That candidature had been withdrawn in order to avert a conflict between France and Germany; but now it was revived at Bismarck's instigation in order to bring about one.

I have said, I think, enough to show—in fairness to Germany—that the war of 1870 was not an unprovoked attack on France. The incidents—such as the Ems affair—which directly led up to it were after all only of secondary importance, although they bulked so largely at the time of their occurrence. I well remember the great excitement which prevailed in Paris during the few anxious days when to the man in the street the question of peace or war seemed to be trembling in the balance, though in reality that question was already virtually decided upon both sides. Judging by all that has been revealed to us during the last forty years, I do not think that M. Emile Ollivier, the Prime Minister, would have been able to modify the decision of the fateful council held at Saint Cloud even if he had attended it. Possessed by many delusions, the bulk of the imperial councillors were too confident of success to draw back, and, besides, Bismarck and Moltke were not disposed to let France draw back. They were ready, and they knew right well that opportunity is a fine thing.

It was on July 15 that the Duc de Gramont, the Imperial Minister of Foreign Affairs, read his memorable statement to the Legislative Body, and two days later a formal declaration of war was signed. Paris at once became delirious with enthusiasm, though, as we know by all the telegrams from the Prefects of the departments, the provinces generally desired that peace might be preserved.

Resident in Paris, and knowing at that time very little about the rest of France—for I had merely stayed during my summer holidays at such seaside resorts as Trouville, Deauville, Beuzeval, St. Malo, and St. Servan—I undoubtedly caught the Parisian fever, and I dare say that I sometimes joined in the universal chorus of "À Berlin!" Mere lad as I was, in spite of my precocity, I shared also the universal confidence in the French army. In that confidence many English military men participated. Only those who, like Captain Hozier of The Times, had closely watched Prussian methods during the Seven Weeks' War in 1866, clearly realized that the North German kingdom possessed a thoroughly well organized fighting machine, led by officers of the greatest ability, and capable of effecting something like a revolution in the art of war.

France was currently thought stronger than she really was. Of the good physique of her men there could be no doubt. Everybody who witnessed the great military pageants of those times was impressed by the bearing of the troops and their efficiency under arms. And nobody anticipated that they would be so inferior to the Germans in numbers as proved to be the case, and that the generals would show themselves so inferior in mental calibre to the commanders of the opposing forces. The Paris garrison, it is true, was no real criterion of the French army generally, though foreigners were apt to judge the latter by what they saw of it in the capital. The troops stationed there were mostly picked men, the garrison being very largely composed of the Imperial Guard. The latter always made a brilliant display, not merely by reason of its somewhat showy uniforms, recalling at times those of the First Empire, but also by the men's fine physique and their general military proficiency. They certainly fought well in some of the earlier battles of the war. Their commander was General Bourbaki, a fine soldierly looking man, the grandson of a Greek pilot who acted as intermediary between Napoleon I and his brother Joseph, at the time of the former's expedition to Egypt. It was this original Bourbaki who carried to Napoleon Joseph's secret letters reporting Josephine's misconduct in her husband's absence, misconduct which Napoleon condoned at the time, though it would have entitled him to a divorce nine years before he decided on one.

With the spectacle of the Imperial Guard constantly before their eyes, the Parisians of July, 1870, could not believe in the possibility of defeat, and, moreover, at the first moment it was not believed that the Southern German States would join North Germany against France. Napoleon III and his confidential advisers well knew, however, what to think on that point, and the delusions of the man in the street departed when, on July 20, Bavaria, Würtemberg, Baden, and Hesse-Darmstadt announced their intention of supporting Prussia and the North German Confederation. Still, this did not dismay the Parisians, and the shouts of "To Berlin! To Berlin!" were as frequent as ever.

It had long been one of my dreams to see and participate in the great drama of war. All boys, I suppose, come into the world with pugnacious instincts. There must be few, too, who never "play at soldiers." My own interest in warfare and soldiering had been steadily fanned from my earliest childhood. In the first place, I had been incessantly confronted by all the scenes of war depicted in the Illustrated Times and the Illustrated London News, those journals being posted to me regularly every week whilst I was still only a little chap at Eastbourne. Further, the career of my uncle, Frank Vizetelly, exercised a strange fascination over me. Born in Fleet Street in September, 1830, he was the youngest of my father's three brothers. Educated with Gustave Doré, he became an artist for the illustrated Press, and, in 1850, represented the Illustrated Times as war-artist in Italy, being a part of the time with the French and at other moments with the Sardinian forces. That was the first of his many campaigns. His services being afterwards secured by the Illustrated London News, he next accompanied Garibaldi from Palermo to Naples. Then, at the outbreak of the Civil War in the United States, he repaired thither with Howard Russell, and, on finding obstacles placed in his way on the Federal side, travelled "underground" to Richmond and joined the Confederates. The late Duke of Devonshire, the late Lord Wolseley, and Francis Lawley were among his successive companions. At one time he and the first-named shared the same tent and lent socks and shirts to one another.

Now and again, however, Frank Vizetelly came to England after running the blockade, stayed a few weeks in London, and then departed for America once more, yet again running the blockade on his way. This he did on at least three occasions. His next campaign was the war of 1866, when he was with the Austrian commander Benedek. For a few years afterwards he remained in London assisting his eldest brother James to run what was probably the first of the society journals, Echoes of the Clubs, to which Mortimer Collins and the late Sir Edmund Monson largely contributed. However, Frank Vizetelly went back to America once again, this time with Wolseley on the Red River Expedition. Later, he was with Don Carlos in Spain and with the French in Tunis, whence he proceeded to Egypt. He died on the field of duty, meeting his death when Hicks Pasha's little army was annihilated in the denies of Kashgil, in the Soudan.

Now, in the earlier years, when Frank Vizetelly returned from Italy or America, he was often at my father's house at Kensington, and I heard him talk of Napoleon III, MacMahon, Garibaldi, Victor Emmanuel, Cialdini, Robert Lee, Longstreet, Stonewall Jackson, and Captain Semmes. Between-times I saw all the engravings prepared after his sketches, and I regarded him and them with a kind of childish reverence. I can picture him still, a hale, bluff, tall, and burly-looking man, with short dark hair, blue eyes and a big ruddy moustache. He was far away the best known member of our family in my younger days, when anonymity in journalism was an almost universal rule. In the same way, however, as everybody had heard of Howard Russell, the war correspondent of the Times, so most people had heard of Frank Vizetelly, the war-artist of the Illustrated. He was, by-the-by, in the service of the Graphic when he was killed.

I well remember being alternately amused and disgusted by a French theatrical delineation of an English war correspondent, given in a spectacular military piece which I witnessed a short time after my first arrival in Paris. It was called "The Siege of Pekin," and had been concocted by Mocquard, the Emperor Napoleon's secretary. All the "comic business" in the affair was supplied by a so-called war correspondent of the Times, who strutted about in a tropical helmet embellished with a green Derby veil, and was provided with a portable desk and a huge umbrella. This red-nosed and red-whiskered individual was for ever talking of having to do this and that for "the first paper of the first country in the world," and, in order to obtain a better view of an engagement, he deliberately planted himself between the French and Chinese combatants. I should doubtless have derived more amusement from his tomfoolery had I not already known that English war correspondents did not behave in any such idiotic manner, and I came away from the performance with strong feelings of resentment respecting so outrageous a caricature of a profession counting among its members the uncle whom I so much admired.