The German leaders forthwith resolved, and acted on the resolve, to take the largest advantage of success. When the broadening day showed that the French were encamped under the guns of the forts, and that they did not betray the faintest symptom of fighting for egress on any side, the place was deliberately invested. On the 18th, the cavalry had cut the telegraph between Metz and Thionville, and partially injured the railway between Thionville and Longuyon; and the French had hardly repaired the wire on the 19th before it was again severed. Soon the blockade was so far completed that only adventurous scouts were able at rare intervals to work their way through the German lines. As early as the forenoon of the 19th, the King had decided to form what came to be called the “Army of the Meuse” out of the Corps which were not needed to uphold the investment of Metz, and thus place himself in a condition to assail the French Army collecting at Chalons. The new organization was composed of the Guard, the 4th and the 12th Corps, and the 5th and 6th Divisions of Cavalry; and this formidable force was put under the command of the Crown Prince of Saxony, who had shown himself to be an able soldier. Consequently, there remained behind to invest Bazaine, seven Corps d’Armée and a Division of Reserved under General von Kummer, which had marched up from Saarlouis, and was then actually before Metz on the right bank of the Moselle east of and below the town. The main strength, six Corps, were posted on the left or western bank, and the supreme command was intrusted to Prince Frederick Charles. Not a moment was lost in distributing the troops so that they could support each other, and in sealing up the avenues of access to the place. A bridge over the Moselle, covered by a tête de pont was constructed above and below Metz; defensive positions were selected and intrenched, and throughout the whole circuit, in suitable places, heavy solid works, as well as lighter obstructions, were begun. If the enemy tried to reach Thionville by the left bank he was to find an organized defensive position in his path, and the troops beyond the Moselle were to assail his right flank. If he endeavoured to pass on the other shore, similar means would be applied to bar his way. Field works would arrest his attack, and his left flank in that case would be struck. Egress to the west was to be opposed by abbatis, trenches and other obstacles. Remilly, then the terminus of the railway, and the site of a great magazine, was to be specially guarded; but if any “eccentric” movement were attempted on the eastern area, the Generals were to evade an engagement with superior forces. It is not necessary to enter more minutely into the blockade of Metz, which henceforth becomes subordinate to the main story. We have followed, so far, the fortunes or misfortunes of the Army now surrounded by vigilant, skilful and valiant foes; but the active interest of the campaign lies in other fields, and bears us along to an undreamed-of and astounding end.
The King Marches Westward.
One Army had been literally imprisoned, another remained at large, and behind it were the vast resources of France. Three Marshals were cooped up in the cage on the Moselle; one, MacMahon, and the Emperor were still in the field; and upon the forces with them it was resolved to advance at once, because prudence required that they should be shattered before they could be completely organized, and while the moral effect of the resounding blows struck in Alsace and Lorraine had lost none of its terrible power. Therefore the King and General von Moltke started on the morrow of victory to march on Paris through the plains of Champagne. The newly-constituted Army of the Meuse, on the 20th, was in line between Commercy and Briey, moving towards Verdun on a broad front, with the cavalry so well forward that on the 22nd the Guard Uhlans were over the Meuse. At the same time the Crown Prince of Prussia, who had continued his march from the Meurthe and Upper Moselle, was astride the Meuse between Void and Gondrecourt, with infantry in front at Ligny and a cavalry patrol as far forward as Vitry. His columns had passed by roads south of Toul, from the Moselle valley on to the Ornain, and as Toul refused to surrender when, a little later, it was bombarded by field guns, a small detachment was left to invest it until captured French garrison guns could be hauled up from Marsal. On the 23rd the Meuse Army was up to the right bank of the river, and the whole of the Third had entered the basin of the Ornain. Both Armies advanced the next day further westward and continued the movement on the 25th—a critical day on which they attained positions it becomes necessary to note more minutely. The 12th Corps, having failed on the 24th to carry Verdun by a coup de main, halted at Dombasle on the 25th, with its cavalry at Clermont in Argonne and Sainte-Menehould. The Guard was on the Aisne at Triaucourt, the 4th near by at Laheycourt, the Second Bavarians on their left front, at Possesse, the 5th Corps near Heiltz l’Evêque, the Würtemberg Division at Sermaize on the Ornain, the 11th Corps close to Vitry on the Marne, the 6th Corps at Vassy on the Blaise, and the First Bavarians at Bar le Duc, whither the King had come on the 24th, by way of Commercy, from Pont à Mousson. Thus the whole force was marching direct on Chalons, left in front; that is, the Third Army, as a rule, was a march in advance of the Saxon Crown Prince.
The Cavalry Operations.
During the period occupied in reaching these towns and villages the cavalry had been actively employed scouting far in advance and on the flanks; and what they did forms the most interesting and instructive portion of the story. As early as the 17th a troop of Hussars captured a French courrier at Commercy, and from his despatches learned that the Cavalry of Canrobert’s Corps had been left behind at Chalons, that Paris was being placed in a state of defence, that all men between 25 and 35 had been called under arms, and that a 12th and 13th Corps were to be formed. Another patrol was able to ascertain that at least part of De Failly’s troops had retreated by Charmes, and that other hostile bodies had gone by Vaudemont and Neufchateau; they were hurrying to the railway station at the latter place and at Chaumont. At Ménil sur Saulx, on the 18th, the indefatigable horsemen seized many letters, and a telegram from M. Chevreau, Minister of the Interior, stating that the Emperor had reached Chalons on the 17th—he really arrived there on the evening of the 16th, having driven from Gravelotte in the morning—and that “considerable forces” were being collected in the famous camp on the dusty and windy plains of Champagne. Thus, day after day, the mounted parties preceded the infantry, spreading far and wide on all sides, so that as early as the 19th some Hussars actually rode within sight of French infantry retreating from St. Dizier, and on the 21st captured men belonging to the 5th Corps near Vitry. The next day the 2nd Cavalry Division rode out from four-and-twenty to six-and-thirty miles, entering, among other places, Chaumont, where, from the station books, they learned that De Failly’s infantry had gone on, three days only before, in twenty trains, while Brahaut’s Cavalry followed the road. On the 23rd the 4th Division of Cavalry had passed St. Dizier and ridden into the villages to the east of Chalons itself. Thence Dragoons were sent forward and these picked up information to the effect that the French Army had quitted the great camp. Reports to this effect had already reached head-quarters, and had moved Von Moltke to tell General von Blumenthal, the Crown Prince’s chief of the staff, that it would be most desirable to have prompt information showing whither the enemy had gone. The 4th Cavalry Division, which, on the 24th, was at Chalons camp, now abandoned, burnt, and desolate, pushed a party towards Reims, and there found that the French Army had departed in an easterly direction. Before this vital information arrived at the great head-quarters the King and Von Moltke had determined that the two Armies should, at least for the time, still move westward on the lines appointed; and on the evening of the 25th, therefore, they occupied the positions already described. But at this moment the Army of MacMahon stood halted at Rhetel, Attigny, and Vouziers, within two marches of the Meuse, between Stenay and Sedan!
In order to learn why they were there we must turn to the camp at Chalons, which had been the scene of dramatic events, fluctuating councils, and fatal decisions, the fitting forerunners of an unparalleled disaster.
The Emperor at Chalons and Reims.
Immediately after the first defeats befell the French Armies on the frontier, General Montauban, Comte de Palikao, summoned by the Empress, found himself abruptly made the head of a Government. He took, of course, the post of Minister of War. The Empress had been Regent from the day when the Emperor quitted Paris, and she exercised, or appeared to do so, a great influence on the course of events. The first act of the new Minister was to collect the materials out of which might be formed a fresh Army, a task in the execution of which he displayed considerable energy. The rapid march of the invader had intercepted, as we have related, one infantry division of Canrobert’s Corps, all his cavalry “except a squadron,” as he pathetically exclaimed, and more than half of his artillery. These remained in the camp of Chalons, and the Army formed was composed of these men, the 12th Corps, one division of which consisted of Marine Infantry; then the 1st and 5th Corps, which had come at racing speed from Alsace; and finally of the 7th from Belfort, which reached Chalons by way of Paris. There were in addition two regiments of Chasseurs d’Afrique, and subsequently a third—Margueritte’s gallant brigade. General Lebrun estimates that the aggregates, including non-combatants, amounted to about 130,000 men. It will be duly noted that this Army came almost from the four winds, driven thither by the terrible pressure of defeat, and that many of the new troops were recruits, without discipline or training. They were collected together on an open plain, and had barely assembled before the vivacious German cavalry were reported to be and, though in small force, were close at hand. When the Emperor arrived on the night of the 16th, by far the greater part of the troops were still distant; some speeding on their way from Chaumont and Joinville, others travelling from Belfort, and some from Cherbourg and Paris. They dropped into the camp in succession after the 17th, and we may note that the 7th Corps never entered Chalons at all, but was sent on to Reims, which it reached on the 21st. Out of this assembly of soldiers Marshal MacMahon had to organize an Army. Moreover, the intendants, charged with the duty of supplying the troops, had only just come up. To increase the confusion many thousand Mobiles, who had been at an early date sent thither from Paris, behaved so badly—some reports of their ape-like tricks are almost incredible—that they were speedily returned to the capital, although the Emperor and Marshal Canrobert, who had commanded them, would have preferred, the former for political reasons, that they should be distributed in the northern garrison towns. Nothing more need be said of the Army of Chalons except that, although it contained some admirable troops, none finer than the Marines, whose only fault was that they could not march, yet that it was unfit to engage in any adventure whatever, especially one so perilous and toilsome as that into which it was soon plunged.
Weary, perturbed, broken in health and spirits, yet outwardly serene, Napoleon III. slept on the night of the 16th in the pavilion of the camp, which he had often visited when it was orderly and brilliant, which he now revisited as a fugitive, passing silently, almost furtively, through its disorder and gloom. With him was Prince Jerome Napoleon, who saw the fortunes of his house, like Balzac’s peau de chagrin, shrinking visibly day by day, and whose fertile mind was alive with expedients to avert the fatal hour. He resented the bigotry of the Empress, who would not surrender Rome as a bribe to the Italian Court; he was pondering over and, indeed, openly suggesting the abdication of the Emperor. Sleeping also in that pavilion was the youth, Louis, who is barely mentioned in the French accounts after the 2nd of August; whose public life began in the tumult of a national catastrophe and ended so tragically among the savage Zulus.