CHAPTER XI.
THE GRAND RIGHT WHEEL.
It has long been a well-authenticated fact that MacMahon’s march eastward from Reims took the German head-quarter staff by surprise. The reason was that they could not believe in the probability of a movement which, from their point of view, had no defence on military grounds. So that Marshal MacMahon with a fair, and General von Moltke with full knowledge of the facts, really arrived at identical conclusions when they surveyed the situation with what we may call cold scientific eyes. The influences which governed the Marshal’s decision could not be known at Bar le Duc on the 25th of August; but it was none the less apparent to the cautious Von Moltke that his adversary had committed a great error. The German was surprised, he was even somewhat embarrassed, but he never lost his presence of mind, and he was not unprepared.
Indeed, the subject had been discussed already by himself and his colleagues. As early as the 23rd, Prince Frederick Charles intercepted a letter from an officer of high rank belonging to the Metz Army. The writer expressed a confident hope that succour would soon arrive from Chalons. Thereupon the Saxon Prince was directed to keep a sharp look-out towards Reims, and break the railway between Thionville and Longuyon in more places than one. The next day, at Ligny, the Great Staff met and conferred with the Crown Prince. It was then that Quartermaster-General von Podbielski was the first to suggest that if a march from Reims towards Bazaine was barely admissible on military grounds, it might be explained by political considerations, and consequently, the General thought, the German Armies should close to their right. The reason was not deemed sufficient, and the Armies went on as pre-arranged. Not until eleven in the evening of the 24th did the wary Von Moltke consider that he had accumulated information sufficient to justify a tentative change of plans. He learned from his own cavalry patrols that Chalons had been deserted; from a Paris newspaper, captured on the 24th, that MacMahon was at Reims with 150,000 men; and finally he got a telegram, dated Paris, the 23rd, and received at Bar le Duc viâ London. “The Army of MacMahon,” it said, “is concentrated at Reims. With it are the Emperor Napoleon and the Prince. MacMahon seeks to effect a junction with Bazaine.” Still Von Moltke doubted. The straight line to Metz was barred, would the enemy venture to face the risks involved in a circuitous march close to the Belgian frontier? If he did the German Armies must plunge into the Argonne; but at present the General decided that enough would be done were the Army turned to the north-west, and were a keen watch kept upon its own right by sending the cavalry, if possible, as far as Vouziers and Buzancy. Such were the morning orders. Here it may be noted that Von Moltke spent the afternoon in framing a plan, solely for himself, based on the shrewd assumption that MacMahon might have quitted Reims on the 23rd, and might be over the Aisne already. If he moved on continuously he could not be caught on the left bank of the Meuse. Therefore Von Moltke drew out tables of marches which, had they all been performed, as they easily might have been, would have concentrated, in full time, 150,000 men at Damvillers, east of the Meuse, and within easy reach of the Army blockading Metz. Two corps, from that force, were also called on to co-operate. They did move out as far as Etain and Briey, but not being wanted they soon returned to their cantonments on the Orne and the Yron. Thus the plan was not carried out, but it was prepared, indeed, served as a basis, during the next two days, and was ready for execution; and it reveals, once more, the astonishing foresight and solid ingenuity which watched with sleepless eyes over the conduct of the German Armies.
After he had finished the scheme by means of which he intended to thwart MacMahon, in any case, fresh intelligence arrived—newspaper articles and speeches in the Chamber which declared that the French people would be covered with shame were the Army of the Rhine not relieved; and above all a telegram from London, based on a paragraph in “Le Temps,” of August 23rd, stating that MacMahon, although by such a movement he would uncover the road to Paris, had suddenly determined to help Bazaine, and that he had already quitted Reims, but that the news from Montmédy did not mention the arrival of French troops, meaning troops from Metz, in that region. Von Moltke was not deeply impressed by the articles and speeches, although he begun to give some weight to Podbielski’s shrewd remark; but the positive statement in the telegram did move him, and he and the Quartermaster-General hastened to lay the matter before the King. The result was that those definite orders were issued which produced the great right wheel and sent the whole force towards the north. Nevertheless, the strategist still insists that, on the evening of the 25th, he had no information which gave sure indications of the enemy’s whereabouts.
The Cavalry Discover the Enemy.
These were soon forthcoming. The cavalry, set in motion at dawn, over a wide space and far in advance of the new direction, were not long in regaining touch of MacMahon’s Army. For the horsemen rode out quickly, and speedily searched the country side from Dun on the Meuse to the heart of the camp at Chalons, accumulating in their excursions information almost sufficient to convince the circumspect Von Moltke. This sudden display of activity and daring is a splendid spectacle. The wind howled through the woods and swept the bare tracks, and heavy storms of rain deluged the country from Bar le Duc to Rhetel, but the swift march of these superb reiters was neither stayed by the blast, the dripping woods, nor the saturated cross-roads. No hardships, no obstacles slackened their speed, and large were the fruits of their energy, endurance, and astuteness. Here we may observe, and it is a remarkable fact, that hitherto the Saxon leader’s cavalry had been directed only towards the west. The horsemen of the Third Army had ridden within sight of Reims and on the south, or left flank, had approached closely to the Aube. Those attached to the Saxon Prince’s command had felt out to their immediate front and towards the Prussian Crown Prince’s left, but had not examined the districts to their right front. A cavalry regiment had made a tiring forced march towards Stenay, but not a trooper was directed on Grand Pré, or on Varennes, until the 25th. Yet there were French horse on Grand Pré on the 24th, and it is evident that had only one division been despatched towards and through Varennes immediately after the Saxon Prince’s troops had crossed the Meuse, above and below Verdun, the presence of MacMahon’s Army on the Aisne must have been discovered, and the report handed in at head-quarters on the morning, or at latest the afternoon, of the 25th. That would have been done had General von Schlotheim, the chief of the staff with the Meuse Army, been as careful to reconnoitre the country on his right as Von Blumenthal was to send out horsemen to the flank as well as the front of the westward moving host. It was not done, and the error of judgment involved the loss of four-and-twenty hours.
The error was promptly and amply repaired. While each corps in the mighty Army, having wheeled to the right, was tramping north in the driving rain through the muddy forest roads to gain the distant bivouacs assigned them, the cavalry divisions had come up with, watched, touched, astonished, and bewildered the French, making the 26th of August a memorable day in their camps.
Near the Meuse the ubiquitous patrols discovered troops at Buzancy; upon the central road which runs beside the Aire, the foremost squadron saw infantry and cavalry in Grand Pré; upon the Aisne, two adventurous parties pressing up close to the flank and rear of Vouziers, were able to observe and report the presence of large bodies of all arms encamped to the east of the town, and to specify the positions which they held. No attempt was made to attack, and there was no firing except a sputter of carbine-shots discharged by a French at a German patrol which had approached the left bank of the Aire near Grand Pré. The whole line of horsemen, from the Meuse to the Aisne, was in constant communication, and their scouting parties, eager to see and not be seen, found their designs favoured by the abounding woods and the undulations of the land. Thus, in one day, a thick fringe of lynx-eyed cavalry was thrust in close proximity to the adversary many miles in front of the German Corps, plodding their arduous way along the plashy tracks and by-ways of the Argonne.