On the evening of the 6th of August a telegram was received at the Ministry giving news of the victory at Wörth. Half an hour later I took the good tidings still fresh and warm to a group of acquaintances who waited in a restaurant to hear how things were going. Everybody knows how willingly Germans celebrate the receipt of good news. My tidings were very good indeed, and many (perhaps most) of my friends celebrated them too long. The result was that next morning I was still in bed when the Foreign Office messenger Lorenz brought me a copy of a telegraphic despatch, according to which I was to start for headquarters immediately. Privy Councillor Hepke wrote: “Dear Doctor,—Get ready to leave for headquarters in the course of the day.” The telegram ran as follows: “Mainz, 6th of August, 7.36 P.M. Let Dr. Busch come here and bring with him a Correspondent for the National Zeitung and one for the Kreuzzeitung. Bismarck.” Hepke allowed me to select these correspondents.
I had therefore after all attained to the very height of good fortune. In a short time I had provided for all essentials, and by midday I had received my pass legitimation, and free ticket for all military trains. That evening a little after 8 o’clock I left Berlin together with the two correspondents whom the Minister wished to accompany me, namely, Herr von Ungarn-Sternberg, for the Kreuzzeitung, and Professor Constantine Roeszler for the National Zeitung. In the beginning we travelled first class, afterwards third, and finally in a freight car. There were numerous long halts, which in our impatience seemed still longer. It was only at 6 o’clock on the morning of the 9th of August that we reached Frankfurt. As we had to wait here for some hours we had time to inquire where the headquarters were now established. The local Commandant was unable to inform us, nor could the Telegraph Director say anything positive on the subject. He thought they might be still in Homburg, but more probably they had moved on to Saarbrücken.
It was midday before we again started, in a goods train, by way of Darmstadt, past the Odenwald, whose peaks were covered with heavy white fog, by Mannheim and towards Neustadt. As we proceeded our pace became gradually slower, and the stoppages, which were occasioned by seemingly endless lines of carriages transporting troops, became more and more frequent. Wherever a pause occurred in the rush of this onward wave of modern national migration, crowds hurried to the train, cheering and flourishing their hats and handkerchiefs. Food and drink were brought to the soldiers by people of all sorts and conditions, including poor old women—needy but good-hearted creatures whose poverty only allowed them to offer coffee and dry black bread.
We crossed the Rhine during the night. As day began to break we noticed a well-dressed gentleman lying near us on the floor who was speaking English to a man whom we took to be his servant. We discovered that he was a London banker named Deichmann. He also was anxious to get to headquarters in order to beg Roon’s permission to serve as a volunteer in a cavalry regiment, for which purpose he had brought his horses with him. The line being blocked near Hosbach, on Deichmann’s advice we took a country cart to Neustadt, a little town which was swarming with soldiers—Bavarian riflemen, Prussian Red Hussars, Saxon and other troops.
It was here that we took our first warm meal since our departure from Berlin. Hitherto we had had to content ourselves with cold meat, while at night our attempts to sleep on the bare wooden benches with a portmanteau for a pillow were not particularly successful. However, we were proceeding to the seat of war, and I had experienced still greater discomforts on a tour of far less importance.
After a halt of one hour at Neustadt, the train crossed the Hardt through narrow valleys and a number of tunnels, passing the defile in which Kaiserslautern lies. From this point until we reached Homburg it poured in torrents almost without cessation, so that when we arrived at that station at 10 o’clock the little place seemed to be merely a picture of night and water. As we stepped out of the train and waded through swamp and pool with our luggage on our shoulders, we stumbled over the rails and rather felt than saw our way to the inn “Zur Post.” There we found every bed occupied and not a mouthful left to eat. We ascertained however, that had even the conditions been more favourable we could not have availed ourselves of them, as we were informed that the Count had gone on with the King, and was at that moment probably in Saarbrücken. There was no time to be lost if we were to overtake him before he left Germany.
It was far from pleasant to have to turn out once more into the deluge, but we were encouraged to take our fate philosophically by considering the still worse fate of others. In the tap-room of the “Post” the guests slept on chairs enveloped in a thick steam redolent of tobacco, beer, and smoking lamps and the still more pungent odour of damp clothes and leather. In a hollow near the station we saw the watchfire of a large camp half quenched by the rain—Saxon countrymen of ours, if we were rightly informed. While wading our way back to the train we caught the gleam of the helmets and arms of a Prussian battalion which stood in the pouring rain opposite the railway hotel. Thoroughly drenched and not a little tired, we at length found shelter in a waggon, where Deichmann cleared a corner of the floor on which we too could lie, and found a few handfuls of straw to serve us as a pillow. My other two companions were not so fortunate. They had to manage as best they could on the top of boxes and packages with the postmen and transport soldiers. It was evident that the poor Professor, who had grown very quiet, was considerably affected by these hardships.
About 1 o’clock the train set itself slowly in motion. By daybreak, after several stoppages, we reached the outskirts of a small town with a beautiful old church. A mill lay in the valley through which we could also see the windings of the road that led to Saarbrücken. We were told that this town was only two or three miles off, so that we were near our journey’s end. Our locomotive, however, seemed to be quite out of breath, and as the headquarters might at any moment leave Saarbrücken and cross the frontier, where we could get no railway transport and in all probability no other means of conveyance, our impatience and anxiety increased, and our tempers were not improved by a clouded sky and drizzling rain. Having waited in vain nearly two hours for the train to start, Deichmann again came to our rescue. After a short disappearance he returned with a miller who had arranged to carry us to the town in his own trap. The prudent fellow, however, made Deichmann promise that the soldiers should not take his horses from him.
During the drive the miller told us that the Prussians were understood to have already pushed on their outposts as far as the neighbourhood of Metz. Between 9 and 10 o’clock we reached Sanct Johann, a suburb of Saarbrücken, where we noticed very few signs of the French cannonade a few days ago, although it otherwise presented a lively and varied picture of war times. A huddled and confused mass of canteen carts, baggage waggons, soldiers on horse and foot, and ambulance attendants with their red crosses, &c., filled the streets. Some Hessian dragoon and artillery regiments marched through, the cavalrymen singing, “Morgenroth leuchtest mir zum fruehen Tod!” (Dawn, thou lightest me to an early grave).
At the hotel where we put up I heard that the Chancellor was still in the town, and lodged at the house of a merchant and manufacturer named Haldy. I had therefore missed nothing by all our delays, and had fortunately at length reached harbour. Not a minute too soon, however, as on going to report my arrival I was informed by Count Bismarck-Bohlen, the Minister’s cousin, that they intended to move on shortly after midday. I bade good-bye to my companions from Berlin, as there was no room for them in the Chancellor’s suite, and also to our London friend, whose patriotic offer General Roon was regretfully obliged to decline. After providing for the safety of my luggage, I presented myself to the Count, who was just leaving to call upon the King. I then went to the Bureau to ascertain if I could be of any assistance. There was plenty to do. Every one had his hands full, and I was immediately told off to make a translation for the King of Queen Victoria’s Speech from the Throne, which had just arrived. I was highly interested by a declaration contained in a despatch to St. Petersburg, which I had to dictate to one of our deciphering clerks, although at the time I could not quite understand it. It was to the effect that we should not be satisfied with the mere fall of Napoleon.