No such bold and prudent use was made of the French cavalry by Marshal MacMahon, whom we left with his Army still lingering near the Aisne. The misgivings which oppressed him at Reims did not diminish during his halt at Rhetel; and they deepened as he moved towards the Meuse. But no doubts, based on the absence of intelligence from or concerning Bazaine and the difficulty of supplying the Army, will account for the misuse which he made of his cavalry. The danger he had to dread lurked in the region to the south, yet after the 24th the duty of covering the exposed right flank and of gleaning exact information was imposed upon the brigade attached to the 7th Corps. For Margueritte’s division of Chasseurs d’Afrique was, on the 25th, suddenly drawn from the right and sent forward to Le Chesne in front of the centre pointing towards Sedan or Stenay; while Bonnemain’s division of heavy cavalry moved slowly close in rear of the 1st Corps, where it was useless. The incidents of the memorable 26th, when even minutes were priceless, quickly demonstrated the gravity of the error. On that day, at the close of a brief march, the 12th Corps stood at Tourteron, the 5th at Le Chesne, the 1st at Semuy, and the 7th a little east of Vouziers. Margueritte moved on to Oches, and Bonnemain’s was at Attigny, on the left bank of the Aisne.
Now Douay, who commanded the 7th Corps, had become anxious, for he was on the outward flank. He sought some security by sending a brigade, under General Bordas, to Buzancy and Grand Pré, and his strongest regiment of Hussars to scout along the two rivers which unite at Senuc. The Hussar patrols came in contact with the German, and it was one of them which emptied its carbines at the hostile and inquisitive dragoons of the 5th Cavalry Division. Retiring hastily on Grand Pré the French Hussars handed in reports which so impressed General Bordas that he at once contemplated a retreat on Buzancy, and forwarded the alarming message to his Corps Commander. General Douay instantly inferred that the dreaded German Army was not distant, and, ordering Bordas to retreat on Vouziers, he sent the baggage and provisions to the rear, and drew up his divisions in line of battle, at the junction of the roads from Grand Pré and Buzancy. Just before sunset a horseman rode up with a message that, after all, Bordas had not retired from the village which he occupied, though he believed the road to Vouziers was intercepted, and that the enemy might be upon him at any moment. The remedy applied was to send forth General Dumont with a brigade to bring him in. While Dumont marched in the darkness Douay and his staff passed the night at a bivouac fire listening eagerly to every sound, and starting up when the step of a wayfarer or the clink of a horseshoe fell on their ears. About three in the morning of the 27th Dumont brought in Bordas and his brigade, together with a few Germans who, pressing too far forward at eventide, had been captured. Nor did the effect produced by the enterprising German cavalry end here. General Douay had sent in to MacMahon a report of the exciting incidents; and with the morning light came the information that the Marshal had directed the whole Army to draw near and support the 7th Corps. So it fell out that the mere appearance of the German cavalry had arrested the French. But at the same time their leaders were also told by fugitive country folk—nothing definite could be extracted from the prisoners taken at Grand Pré—that the Prussian Crown Prince was at Sainte-Menehould, and that another army—whence derived, in what strength, or by whom commanded they could not imagine—was advancing from Varennes.
The Marshal Resolves, Hesitates, and Yields.
We now touch on the moment when the decision was adopted which impelled the French Army on its final marches towards defeat and captivity; a decision mainly due to the extreme pressure exerted by the Comte de Palikao and the Regency. Marshal MacMahon had transferred his head-quarters to Le Chesne-Populeux, a village on the canal which connects the Aisne and the Meuse. The 12th Corps was there, with the 5th in its front at Brieulles sur Bar; the 7th, as before, at Vouziers, and the 1st in its rear at Yoncq; Margueritte’s horse at Beaumont, and Bonnemain’s still about Attigny. The information placed before the Marshal by the inhabitants and his own officers seemed to justify those apprehensions which he had so strongly expressed at Reims, and he began to feel again that he was marching towards that “disaster which he wished to avoid.” In the midst of a prolonged survey of the position, he was summoned by the Emperor who, having received some authentic information, declared that the Prussian Crown Prince had turned from the road to Paris and was then advancing northwards. With Napoleon III. MacMahon remained for a long time, and came back to his head-quarters resolved to retreat upon Mézières. Indeed, he issued orders on the spot, directing all the Corps to retire behind the canal the next day, and take post at Chagny, Vendresse, and Poix. Then, at half-past eight in the evening of the 27th, he dictated to Colonel Stoffel a telegram designed for the Minister, in which he said that there was one hostile Army on the right bank of the Meuse and another marching upon the Ardennes. “I have no news of Bazaine,” he went on. “If I advance to meet him I shall be attacked in front by a part of the First and Second German Armies, which, favoured by the woods, can conceal a force superior to mine, and at the same time attacked by the Prussian Crown Prince cutting off my line of retreat. I approach Mézières to-morrow, whence I shall continue my retreat, guided by events, towards the west.” Colonel Stoffel relates that, just as he was about to carry the telegram to Colonel d’Abzac, with orders to forward it at once, General Faure, chief of the staff, came in; and MacMahon, seizing the telegram, said, “Here is a despatch which I have written to the Minister.” Faure read, and begged the Marshal not to send it, for, said he, “You will get an answer from Paris, which, perhaps, will prevent you from carrying out your new plans. You can transmit it to-morrow, when we are already on the road to Mézières.” The Marshal answered, “Send it,” and it was sent.
The reply, so shrewdly foreseen by General Faure, was handed to the Marshal about half-past one on the morning of the 28th. It was dated, “Paris, August 27, 11 p.m.,” addressed to “the Emperor,” and began with these tell-tale words, “If you abandon Bazaine,” wrote the Comte de Palikao, “‘la revolution est dans Paris,’ or Paris will revolt, and you will be attacked yourself by all the enemy’s forces.” He asserted that Paris could defend herself, that the Army must reach Bazaine; that the Prussian Crown Prince, aware of the danger to which his Army and that which blockaded Metz, was exposed by MacMahon’s turning movement, had changed front to the north. “You are at least six-and-thirty, perhaps eight-and-forty, hours in advance of him,” the Minister continued. “You have before you only a part of the forces blockading Metz, which, seeing you retire from Chalons to Reims, stretched out towards the Argonne. Your movement on Reims deceived them. Everybody here feels the necessity of extricating Bazaine, and the anxiety with which your course is followed is extreme.” The Marshal’s will broke down under this strain. He could not bear the thought that men might in future point to him as one who deserted a brother Marshal. Against his better judgment he revoked the orders already issued, enjoining a retreat upon Mézières, and put all his Corps in motion for the banks of the Meuse. To complete the narrative of this decisive event, it may here be said that, on the 28th, at Stonne, as the Marshal himself has admitted, the Emperor made a last desperate appeal against the change of plan. Another despatch from Palikao, dated half-past one in the morning of the 28th, this time addressed to the Marshal, had come to hand at Stonne. “In the name of the Council of Ministers and the Privy Council,” it said, “I request you [‘je vous demande’] to succour Bazaine—profiting by the thirty hours’ advance which you have over the Crown Prince of Prussia. I direct Vinoy’s Corps on Reims.”
It is probable that the purport, or a copy of this telegram, was sent to the Emperor, for he twice, through his own officers, reminded the Marshal that the despatches of a Minister were not orders, and that he was free to act as he thought expedient, and implored him to reflect maturely before he gave up his intention to retreat. So much must be said for Napoleon III.—that, at Metz, on the morrow of Woerth and Spicheren, and at Stonne, when the toils were fast closing round him, his military judgment was prompt and correct. But the Marshal had decided; and the prayers of an Emperor did not avail against the gloomy forecasts, the impassioned language, and the formal request or demand of a Minister of War whose telegrams exhibit the depth of his ignorance concerning the actual situation. It is not surprising that he was ill-informed, seeing how difficult it was for officers on the spot, German as well as French, to obtain exact knowledge; but it is amazing that an experienced soldier and Minister of War should not be aware of his own incompetence to direct, from his closet in Paris, an army in the field. Palikao combined the qualities of the Dutch Deputy with those of the Aulic Councillor; and the troops of Marshal MacMahon tramped on to meet their approaching ruin. The positions they attained on the 28th will be more conveniently specified later on; for it is time to follow, once more, the footsteps of the hardy and far-marching Germans, who were now across the direct path of MacMahon’s Army.
Movements of the Germans.
How, by long and laborious marches, the tough foot soldiers, almost treading on the heels of their mounted comrades, gained ground on the adversary must now be succinctly narrated. On the 26th, the 12th Corps reached Varennes, and the Saxon Prince established his head-quarters at Clermont in Argonne. The Guard went on to Dombasle, and the 4th Corps to a point beyond Fleury. Such were the marches of the Army of the Meuse. In the Third Army, the Bavarians made a wet and weary night march in the wake of the 4th Corps, attaining Triaucourt and Erize la Petite; but for the moment, the 5th, the 6th, and the Würtembergers stood fast. The reason for this apparent hesitation was that Von Moltke was not yet quite convinced. King William remained at Bar le Duc all the forenoon. Thither came the Crown Prince and General von Blumenthal from Ligny, and, at a council held in the great head-quarters, both of them declared unequivocally in favour of the northern march, urging that it would be wiser to delay the movement on Paris than run the risks of a battle in the north unless it could be fought by all the forces which could be got together. These opinions prevailed, and it was decided that the Bavarians should start at once, and that the next day the other Corps of the Third Army should proceed to Sainte-Menehould and Vavray. General von Blumenthal, indeed, had formed a strong judgment on the situation. A few hours after the consultation at head-quarters, writes Dr. William Russell in his “Diary,” “taking me into a room in which was a table covered with a large map on a scale of an inch to a mile, he (Blumenthal) said, ‘These French are lost, you see. We know they are there, and there, and there—and Mahon’s whole Army. Where can they go to? Poor foolish fellows! They must go to Belgium, or fight there and be lost;’ and he put his finger on the map between Mézières and Carignan.” It is a remarkable fact that General Longstreet judging only from the telegrams which reached the United States about this time, arrived at the same conclusion.
King William, during the afternoon, journeyed to Clermont; while the Crown Prince drove to Revigny les Vaches, which he made his head-quarters until the 28th. Before losing sight of Bar le Duc, we may quote from Dr. Russell’s pages one other sentence, which affords a brief glimpse of the great political leader in this war. In the forenoon on the 26th, the graphic Diarist “saw Count Bismarck standing in a doorway out of the rain whiffing a prodigious cigar, seemingly intent on watching the bubbles which passed along the watercourse by the side of the street;” but probably with his thoughts far away from the evanescent symbols of men’s lives. He had entered the town with the King on the 24th, and feared that the royal staff would linger there for several days, “as in Capua;” yet, in a few hours, this playful censor of delay was speeding North, like the Armies, to play a conspicuous part in a sublime tragedy at Sedan.
In his quarters at Clermont, General von Moltke still disposed of the Meuse Army and the Bavarians in a manner which would enable him to effect, if necessary, that concentration at Damvillers which we saw him meditating and devising on the afternoon of the 25th, at Bar le Duc. Thus, on the 27th, the Guard, which came up to Monfaucon, and the 4th Corps to Germonville, were each directed to throw bridges over the Meuse, so that there should be four points of passage in case of need. The Bavarians followed from the rear as far as Dombasle and Nixéville, and the other Corps of the Third Army turned frankly northward, the 5th pushing its advance-guard to Sainte-Menehould. At the same time the Saxon Corps had crossed the Meuse at Dun and established a brigade firmly in Stenay. The cavalry had been as active and as useful as ever. They had covered the march of the Saxon Corps by occupying Grand Pré, Nouart, and Buzancy, coming into contact with the French at the last-named village. General de Failly, who, early in the morning, had moved to Bar, observed hostile cavaliers beyond the stream, and sent Brahaut’s brigade to drive them off and seize prisoners. That brought on a smart skirmish, during which De Failly received orders to retreat on Brieulles; but Brahaut was driven from Buzancy by the fire of a horse battery; and the unlucky French General made no prisoners. There was no other rencontre during the day, but the German cavalry on all sides rode up close to the enemy’s posts and kept the leaders well informed. From the reports sent in, Von Moltke inferred that there had been a pause in the French movements; at all events, that none of their troops had crossed the Meuse; and, as he knew that the Saxons were in Dun and Stenay, he thought himself, at length, justified in believing it possible that he might strike MacMahon on the left bank. Consequently, he abandoned the Damvillers plan, and sent back to Metz the two Corps which had been detached from the blockading army. Therefore, while the Saxons stood fast, for one day, the Bavarians were directed to march, on the 28th, upon Varennes and Vienne le Chateau; the Guard upon Banthéville; and the 4th Corps on Montfaucon—the general direction for all the Corps being Vouziers, Buzancy, and Beaumont. During that day these orders were fulfilled, each Corps duly attaining its specified destination; the Guard and 4th Corps, before they started, taking up the bridges thrown over the Meuse. Four divisions of cavalry were out prying, through the mist, into every movement of the 5th and 7th French Corps, whose left flank, it was ascertained, was absolutely unguarded, so that the German horse looked on, and, in some cases, were misled by the astonishing confusion displayed by the enemy’s vacillating motions.