CHAPTER XIX.
WHY THE FRENCH WERE BEATEN IN 1870.
Everyone accounted for our disasters of 1870 after his own fashion. The most ingenious theories were brought forward, and we very well know why we believe it to be indispensable and patriotic to learn German.
"Ah!" cried some, "if we had only known German, we should not have been defeated." And forthwith instruction in German was decreed obligatory.
"That is not it," said others, "it is our geography, of which we did not know even the rudiments, that has been the cause of all the evil. On leaving Paris, our officers, ignorant of the meanders of the Seine, thought that they were beating a retreat each time they came to a fresh bend of that river." And the study of geography received a fillip.
Others again would have it to be that if the visors of our soldier's képis had not been lifted upward in front, the Prussians would have had a warm time of it. Down came the visors without delay.
I pass over the pious people, who saw in our disasters only the just chastisement of our faults, and will only give the opinion of Thomas Carlyle. This philosopher, whom the hazard of birth had made English, but who was a perfect German, cried out that "Germanic virtues had triumphed over Gallic vices."
Some few worthy folks, perfectly destitute of genius, but possessing an ounce or two of common sense, attributed our defeats to the fact that the Germans had an army of 1,200,000 men, whereas our own forces scarcely numbered 350,000. I fancy it is these latter that history will show to have been in the right.
The virtuous Germans that vanquished us, were they, after all, so clever at geography and French? This is how they learnt the geography they required, and how they made themselves understood in French:
A few Uhlans would approach to within a respectful distance of a village. There they would seize upon the first peasant, old man, or child, that passed, place a pistol to his throat, and after asking, "Are there any French soldiers in your village?" would say: "Show us the way to such and such place, and tell us the names of all the people around here, who have wine in their cellars, or hay in their barns. And you had better take care to tell the truth, or we will blow your brains out, and set fire to the four corners of your village."