ROSSEL REPLACES CLUSERET—THE RIVALRIES—THE DEFENCE OF THE FORT OF ISSY.
The last act of the second Executive Commission was to name Rossel delegate at War. On the same evening (the 30th April) it sent for him. He came at once, recited the history of famous sieges, and promised to make Paris impregnable. No one asked him for a written plan, and there and then, as on the stage, his nomination was signed. He forthwith wrote to the Council, "I accept these difficult functions, but I want your entire support in order not to succumb under the weight of these circumstances."
Rossel knew these circumstances through and through. For twenty-five days chief of the general staff, he was the best-informed man in Paris as to all her military resources. He was familiar with the members of the Council, of the Central Committee, the officers, the effective forces, the character of the troops he undertook to lead.
At the outset he struck a wrong chord in his answer to the Versaillese officer who had summoned the fort of Issy to surrender. "My dear comrade, the first time you permit yourself to send us such an insolent summons, I shall have your flag of truce shot. Your devoted comrade." The cynical levity smacked of the condottiere. Certainly he who threatened to shoot an innocent soldier, and bestowed his dear, his devoted comrade upon a collaborator of Gallifet, was foreign to the great heart of Paris and her civil war.
No man understood Paris, the National Guard, less than Rossel. He imagined that the Père Duchesne was the real mouthpiece of the workmen. Hardly raised to the Ministry, he spoke of putting the National Guard into barracks, of cannonading the runaways; he wanted to dismember the legions and form them into regiments, with colonels named by himself. The Central Committee, to which the chefs-de-légion belonged, protested, and the battalions complained to the Council, which sent for Rossel. He set forth his project in a professional way in sober, precise words, so different from the Pyatical declamations, that the Council believed it beheld a man and was charmed. Still his project was the breaking-up of the National Guard, and the Council no more than the Executive Commission got a general plan of defence from him. He certainly demanded that the municipalities should be charged with concentration of arms, the horses, and prosecution of the refractory, but he made no condition sine quâ non.
He sent in no report on the military situation. He gave orders for the construction of a second enceinte of barricades, and of three citadels at Montmartre, the Trocadéro, and the Panthéon, but never personally concerned himself about their execution. He extended the command of General Wroblewski over all troops and forts on the left bank, but three days after restricted it again to bestow it upon La Cécilia, who had none of the qualities necessary in a superior commander. He never gave the generals any instructions for attack or defence. Despite certain fits and starts, he had in reality so little energy that he named Eudes commander of the second active reserve at the very moment when, against formal orders, this latter left the fort of Issy, which he had commanded since the reoccupation.
The Versaillese had recommenced firing with perfect fury. The shells, the bombs, battered the casemates, the grapeshot paved the trenches with iron. In the night of the 1st-2nd, the Versaillese, always proceeding by nocturnal surprises, attacked the station of Clamart, which was taken almost without a struggle, and the castle of Issy, which they had to conquer foot by foot. On the morning of the 2nd the fort again found itself in the same situation as three days before. A part of the village of Issy was even in the hands of the soldiers. During the day the francs-tireurs of Paris dislodged them at the point of the bayonet. Eudes, who in vain demanded reinforcements, went to the War Office to declare that he would not remain if Wetzel were not discharged. Wetzel was replaced by La Cécilia, but Eudes did not return to the fort, and left the command to the chief of his staff.
Thus since the 3rd it was evident that everything would go on as under Cluseret, and the Central Committee grew bolder. It had been thrown more and more into the shade, for the Commission of War kept it at a distance. Its sittings, more and more confused and void, were little attended—by about ten members, sometimes even by less. The enterprise of Rossel against the legions gave it back a little authority and daring. On the 3rd, in accord with the chefs-de-légion, they resolved to ask the Council for the direction and administration of the War Office. Rossel got wind of the affair, and had one of its members arrested; the others in great numbers, the chefs-de-légion with their sabres at their sides, went up to the Hôtel-de-Ville, where they were received by Félix Pyat, deeply moved by the odd conceit that they came to lay hands on him. "Nothing is getting along at the War Office," said they. "All the services are in disorder. The Central Committee offers itself to direct them. The delegate will conduct the operations, the Committee will see to the administration." Félix Pyat approved of the idea and submitted it to the Council. The minority took umbrage at the pretensions of the Committee, and even spoke of having them arrested. The majority left the matter to the Committee of Public Safety, which issued a decree admitting the co-operation of the Central Committee. Rossel accepted the situation and announced it to the chiefs of corps. The Commission of War continued, in spite of all this, to squabble with the Committee.
Our men paid dearly for these small cabinet revolutions. Tired out, badly commanded, they were negligent of their watches, and thus exposed to every surprise. The most terrible one took place in the night of the 3rd-4th May at the redoubt of the Moulin Saquet, held by 500 men at this moment. They were sleeping in their tents, when the Versaillese, having seized the sentinels, entered the redoubt and butchered about fifty Federals. The soldiers pierced the tents with their bayonets, slashing the corpses, and then made off with five pieces and 200 prisoners. The captain of the 55th was accused of having betrayed the watchword. The truth is not known, as—incredible fact!—the Council never inquired into the affair.
M. Thiers announced this "elegant coup-de-main"[147] in a bantering despatch to the effect that they had killed two hundred men; that "such was the victory the Commune might announce in its bulletins." The prisoners, taken to Versailles, were received by the elegant rabble who killed time in the cafés of St. Germain, now become the headquarters of high-life prostitution, or who went to the heights to see the shells battering the walls and the Parisians. But what were these insipid amusements by the side of a convoy of prisoners, whom they could beat, spit upon, and revile, a thousand times renewing the agonies of Mathô?