By this time, the Third Army, except the 6th Corps, and the Baden Division which had been directed upon Strasburg, had made its way through the defiles of the Vosges, had emerged into the valley of the Upper Saar, and was, therefore, in direct communication with the Second Army; so that the German host occupied a wide region extending from Sarrebourg to villages in front of Metz; yet at the vital points the Corps stood near enough to support each other should it be necessary to assemble on a field of battle. The passage of the Vosges had been obstructed only by nature and the forts of Bitsche and Phalsbourg. These were turned, and the hardships of cross roads and restricted supplies had been overcome. The divisions trickled through the valleys on a broad front, gathering up as they touched the Saar and the country of lakes about Fenestrange. As Phalsbourg did not command the railway, that important highway fell into the hands of the Germans. The tunnels in the Zorn valley west of Saverne had not been destroyed, and the whole line was complete, yet it could not be used for the transport of troops and stores until a later period. On the 13th, when the First Army was closing in on the French outside Metz, and the Second heading for the Moselle, the Third quitted the Upper Saar, and, once more expanding, approached on a broad front the valley of the Meurthe. During the next day, when their comrades were hotly engaged with the enemy, they reached the banks of that stream, and their forward cavalry rode into the streets of Lunéville and Nancy, the old capital of Lorraine. At this critical moment, Marshal MacMahon was hastening to Chalons; De Failly, after having been ordered hither and thither from hour to hour, had received final orders—he was to join the Marshal; but Douay’s 7th Corps, although Dumont’s Division had arrived, increasing the total to about 20,000 men and 90 guns, had not yet been, and was not for three days, directed from Belfort upon the great camp in the plains of Champagne.
CHAPTER VII.
VON MOLTKE KEEPS THE WHIP HAND.
Weary of his task, weakened in body by a painful malady, depressed in mind by a series of disasters, and worried by advice from Paris, the Emperor Napoleon, on the evening of the 12th of August, transferred to Marshal Bazaine the burden which he could no longer bear. Whatever may have been his other aptitudes, he was not born to command Armies in the field nor had he that power of selection which may enable an inferior to choose and clothe with his authority a superior man. Had a Radetzky, instead of an Emperor, commanded the Austrian Army in 1859 it is probable that the stability of the “dynasty” would have been tried by defeat and the unity of Italy deferred until a later day. Whether the Emperor Napoleon recognized his incompetence, or whether, as he often did, he yielded to pressure, matters little except to the students of character. He nominally gave up the command, yet retained a certain indefinite control, and he placed at the head of his Army a Marshal who, although the senior in rank to the recently promoted Marshal Lebœuf, the late Chief of the Staff, was still the junior of Marshal Canrobert; both, fortunately, were loyal men, and the latter ready to serve under his junior. Yet it is doubtful whether Bazaine ever exercised that moral ascendency which is essential at all times, and never more so than at a crisis when the fate of Armies depends not only on wise direction, but prompt and willing obedience. The Marshal, appointed on the 12th, did not take up his command until the next day, and then he was required to remedy in less than twenty-four hours the deep-seated mischief produced by a fortnight of terrible blundering. His special task was to transport the Army over the Moselle. Four days earlier that might have been done without a shot being fired, because even if the German horse had come up to look on they must have been idle spectators as their infantry comrades were far in the rear. The fatal error was committed when the Emperor did not overrule all opposition, and, adhering with unswerving firmness to his first thought, neither halt, ponder, nor rest until the Moselle flowed between him and his foes. The military position on the morning of the 7th dictated that step; his adversaries believed or surmised that he would take it, because it was the right step to take. Nor can we doubt that, as Commander-in-Chief, Louis Napoleon, who had a little of “le flair militaire,” saw at once the proper course, but that, as Emperor, he dared not, on reflection, run the risk. It was a false calculation, even from a political standpoint, because, so long as he was in the field with, or at the head of an Army, his republican and monarchical enemies would not have moved, and time would have been gained. By retiring promptly over the Moselle, and leaving Metz to defend itself, he might have been defeated in battle or manœuvred back upon Paris; but there would have been no Sedan and no Metz, and even the Parisians would have hesitated to plunge headlong into civil war when a French Army was still afoot, and a formidable host of invaders, pressing on its weaker array, was “trampling the sacred soil.” The fate of the campaign about Metz was, then, really decided when the Emperor did not avail himself of the days of grace, beat down all opposition, and compel his Marshals and Generals to march their troops over the Moselle. Neither Bazaine nor any one officer present with the Army is entitled to be called a great captain; but whatever he was, the blame of failure does not rest on him alone; it must be shared, in a far greater degree, by those who preceded him in command. It is necessary to insist on this fact, because one of the most valuable lessons taught by the campaign would be lost were the capital error committed by the Imperial Staff, when the order for retreat was countermanded and five days were wasted in abortive operations, not described with the emphasis it deserves. Campaigns have been lost as much by postponed retreats as by rash advances; and it was the ill-fortune of the French Generals in August, 1870, to present egregious examples of both forms of fatal error.
The French Propose to Move.
When Marshal Bazaine took over the command, on the morning of the 13th, he was required to do in haste what his superiors might have done at leisure. The prolonged indecision of the Imperial mind, held in suspense down to the last moment and against its better judgment, between the alternative of attack or retreat, was disastrous; no margin was allowed for error of design, error in execution, and—the unforeseen. The Emperor had ordered Coffinières, the Governor of Metz, to build as many bridges as he could above and below the place, and the General declares, what no one disputes, that he did construct from twelve to fifteen bridges, which provided seven lines of march over the stream. He also mined the permanent bridges above the fortress, so that on the 12th facilities for crossing abounded, and the means of destruction were prepared. Then came in the unforeseen. Rain had fallen heavily, and consequently the Moselle rose, flowed over the trestle bridges, damaged the rafts, disconnected the pontoons with the banks, and spread far and wide over the approaches. In short, the increase in the volume of water was so great and unusual, if not unparalleled, that the calamity was attributed to the Germans—they must, it was said, have destroyed the sluices near Marsal and have allowed the lake water of that region free access to the Moselle—as if they did not wish to cross the river themselves! Be the cause what it might, there was the obstruction; so that the first information received by the Marshal was that the retreat, which he had been ordered to execute, could not begin until the next day, except by Canrobert’s 6th Corps, which was near permanent bridges. Consequently, the Army remained another day on the right bank. The Corps were in position between forts Queleu and St. Julien, Frossard on the right, Decaen in the centre, and De Ladmirault on the left, the Guard being in rear of the centre behind Borny, where Marshal Bazaine had set up his head-quarters. Practically the line was a curve extending from the Seille to the banks of Moselle below Metz; and the defensive obstacles were a watercourse with steep banks, patches of dense woods, two châteaus, or country houses, which were readily made defensible, and of course the villages and farms scattered over the pleasant fields. The main body of the Army was covered throughout its front by outposts thrown forward towards the Metz-Saarbrück railway on the right, beyond the brook in the centre, and about Vremy, Nouilly, and Servigny on the left. So they stood all day, some of them aware that the Germans were dangerously near; more who were anxious to get over the river; and yet others who would have staked everything upon the risk of a battle, so intolerable is suspense to men of ardent and excitable temperaments. The night passed over quickly, and on the 14th, yet not until a late hour in the forenoon, the Corps began to file off to the rear. Canrobert was already across; Frossard sent his guns and horsemen over the town bridges, while his infantry splashed through the meadows and over the partially submerged temporary constructions; and leaving Grenier’s division to cover his retreat, De Ladmirault set out for the left bank over the Isle Chambière. The Marshal at Borny, with his old Corps, now under Decaen, and having the Guard in support, remained to protect the extensive and perilous movement to the rear in the face of a watchful and intrepid enemy.
Released on the evening of the 12th from the imperative orders which held him fast, and directed to move forward upon the French Nied, General von Steinmetz advanced the next day with characteristic alacrity. Two Corps, the 7th and the 1st, were posted on a short line between Pange and Les Etangs, the 8th being held back at Varize on the German Nied, and the two cavalry divisions being thrown round the flanks, General von Golz, who commanded the twenty-sixth brigade, took the bold step of transferring it to the left, or French, bank of the stream, and he thus came into contact with the outposts of Decaen’s 3rd Corps. Nevertheless, along the whole line, on the evening of the 13th and morning of the 14th, each side maintained a strictly observant attitude, and held aloof from hostile action; the French because they wished to glide off unassailed, the Germans because their Commander-in-Chief desired to secure a solid footing for the Second Army on the left bank of the Moselle before the French retired. Watched as these were by keen-sighted horsemen, they could not stir without being seen; and so soon as the state of the Moselle permitted a movement to the rear, the fact was reported to the German chiefs. A Hussar party notified, about eleven, that Frossard’s outposts were falling back; a little later that the tents were down; and then that columns of all arms were retiring. So it was in the centre and on the left; Decaen’s Corps remained, but two divisions of De Ladmirault’s Corps, it was noted, were no longer on the ground they had held in the morning. General von Manteuffel, inferring that De Ladmirault might have gone to join in an attack upon the 7th Corps, at once put two divisions under arms, a fortunate precaution, though suggested by an erroneous inference. In front of the 7th Corps, the facts admitted of no misinterpretation. The enemy was plainly in retreat, and General von Golz felt that it was his duty to interrupt the process. Therefore, about half-past three, notifying his intention to the Divisional Commanders of his Corps, and requesting support from the 1st, a request promptly granted, Von Golz sprang forward to attack the French, in full reliance upon the readiness and energy with which his superiors and comrades would follow him into the fray. His bold resolve did stop the retreat, and his onset brought on, late in the afternoon,
