British Quarterly Review, American Edition, Vol. LIII / January and April, 1871

by Various

Persons not versed in military science will at once conclude from this brief narrative that Trochu was an incompetent chief. They will say that he ought to have cut his way out at all hazards without a second thought, and that he missed a fine opportunity during any of the first three days of December. They will point also to the means he possessed for concentrating on interior lines, and pouring an overwhelming mass of men on certain selected points; and they will insist that nothing but skill was wanting to France on this occasion. We do not wholly condemn the assertions; but considerations of the gravest kind must be borne in mind on the other side. It is a maxim of the art of war that an invested fortress must be relieved by the efforts of an army without combined with those of the garrison within; for, in the first place, it is extremely difficult for the garrison unaided to break through the entrenchments formed by the besiegers; and, in the second, if the garrison breaks through, it is liable to destruction unless it is received into the arms, as it were, of a friendly force. The case of a great city like Paris is no exception to this principle, or at least only in a slight degree; for it would have been an arduous task for Ducrot to have stormed the German lines in any event; and, if he had, what was he to have done with from 80,000 to 100,000 men, when he had got out in the open country, with scanty supplies, and without a base? There were special reasons also why, in this instance, Trochu should wait for the Army of the Loire, for if it arrived, the Army of Paris would be enabled to make its way out without running any serious risk; and, in that case, combined with the relieving force, it might expect to do the Germans immense injury, as they drew off from the investing circle. In acting, therefore, as he did, Trochu was not the temporizing fool he has been called by certain detractors; and it must be added that he adhered strictly to the recognised rules of military science. Nevertheless, had he been a chief of genius, we think he would have taken the bolder course, and have endeavoured, on the 1st and 2nd of December, to have broken through the German entrenchments. For, in the first place, he could not reckon, with anything even approaching certainty, that the Army of the Loire could reach Paris; and, that being so, he should perhaps have relied upon himself and his army alone. And, in the second place, it so happened that if his army could once sever the lines, it would not be exposed to a want of supplies, even if no assistance came from outside, for had he seized the great German depôts a few miles off on the Strasburg Railway, it would have found everything which it could have needed. Admitting, therefore, all that can be said, Trochu perhaps showed himself too wedded to mere rules and general notions in not having made a great effort with Ducrot at this critical moment; and had he struck with his whole force, that effort might have been successful.

The failure of Ducrot's great sortie, and the defeats of the Army of the Loire near Orleans, were cruel and lasting disasters to France. In another part of the theatre of operations, the balance of fortune hung more evenly, though the ultimate issue was not very different. The discomfited forces of D'Aurelles, as we have seen, were broken into three parts, the centre and wings divided from each other; and even after the battles of the first days of December, the centre and right, driven across the Loire, retreated hastily to Bourges and Nevers, while the left remained on the north bank of the river, clinging to Marchenoir and the adjoining country. The Grand Duke of Mecklenburg and Von der Tann, with about 35,000 or 40,000 men, were detached to destroy this isolated wing, while Prince Frederic Charles pursued the main body, and a series of operations ensued which throw a ray of lustre on the French arms. The commander of the broken French left was a general who, though before unknown, has since given proof of no common talents, and in fact seems to us to be entitled to no mean rank among able captains. Chanzy, in a series of obstinate encounters, confronted and baffled his victorious foes with a force hardly superior in numbers; and after disputing the difficult country between Beaugency and Vendôme, effected at last his retreat to Le Mans, where he joined the friendly Army of the West, and succeeded in obtaining large reinforcements. This retreat was executed with great skill, and was made exactly on the right points; and that Chanzy was able to gain his goal in the face of the Grand Duke and of Von der Tann, and subsequently of a corps of Prince Frederic Charles, moved up from the Loire to overpower him, does honour to his ability and judgment. A lull now took place in the operations along the zone of country to the south of Paris; but from the North an unsuccessful attempt to relieve the beleaguered capital was made. For some weeks the French Army of the North had been in a state of comparative order, and though it had been defeated in November, it had been entrusted to an experienced commander, who had done much to improve its discipline. In the third week of December, General Faidherbe advanced to attack at Pont Noyelles a part of the German Army of the North, his object being, should he win the battle, to press forward and march to Paris. This engagement, however, proved indecisive, and Faidherbe in a few days retired into the chain of fortresses on the Belgian frontier, his antagonist, Von Goeben, holding him in check along the line of the Somme and its affluents. Meanwhile Trochu, doubtless informed from without of the intentions of Faidherbe, had made another effort on the 21st to attack the German lines to the north; but though he achieved a certain amount of success, he again declined to strike more decisively, when it had become apparent that he was not to expect the assistance of a relieving army. The French captured several outlying positions on the great northern and eastern roads, and held them for two or three days; but there being no sign of Faidherbe's approach, they once more retired, having effected nothing.

While these combats had been taking place, the belligerents had been making great exertions to increase their forces and renew the war. The German commanders had discovered that France had developed resources of which they had no previous conception, and that Paris was stronger and better provisioned than they could possibly have imagined; and though as yet they had been victorious, they felt their position to be insecure, bound as they were to the besieged capital, and, in the depth of a severe winter, exposed to the attacks of all the French armies converging on them from every side. In fact, in a strategic point of view their situation was extremely critical; for if a single one of the covering armies were broken through by a relieving force, which thus could reach the line of investment, they might have been compelled to raise the siege, and might, perhaps, suffer a series of disasters. This danger was, therefore, to be averted; and as the covering armies had lost enormously from cold, hardship, and field-service, and the besiegers' ranks had also been thinned, it was necessary to make very large additions to the strength of the invading forces. Vast reinforcements were accordingly despatched across the Rhine to all points of the war; Prince Frederic Charles, the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg, and Von der Tann received thousands of recruits; the armies of Von Goeben and Werder were replenished to a considerable extent, and the corps selected to protect the different lines of the communications were increased by important reserves. In this way about 200,000 men were joined to the armies already in France; and at the same time no pains were spared to accelerate the arrival of siege trains before Paris, in order to open fire on the defences. This task, however, was extremely difficult, on account of the distance from the frontier, and the state of the roads; and though, during more than two months, heavy guns had been gradually sent up, it was not until near the end of December that batteries, more nearly adequate to the purpose, had been constructed and armed. Meantime, the French had been equally energetic, but the results obtained had been very inferior. Recruits, indeed, had been despatched in masses to increase the bulk of the provincial armies; munitions of war were obtained in quantities, and nothing, it must be said, was left undone which patriotism and devotion could accomplish. But though the divided parts of the Army of the Loire, and though the Armies of the North and the East became very formidable in mere numbers, the accession of raw and unformed levies, without proper military organization, did not much augment their real power; and as many of the best soldiers in the force commanded by D'Aurelles had perished in the recent engagements, it is not improbable that the strength of France was hardly greater towards the end of December than it had been three weeks previously, whereas that of Germany had increased to a degree that made the German generals masters of the situation in all its aspects.

Such, about Christmas, was the relative strength and condition of the belligerent armies. At this moment, Prince Frederic Charles, Von der Tann, and the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg, held a central position between Orleans and Chartres, having Chanzy in advance of Le Mans, and the remainder of the Army of the Loire rallied by Bourbaki at Bourges and Nevers; Faidherbe was held in check by Von Goeben; to the east Werder, who had been told off after the fall of Strasburg to overrun the south, was confronted by the French Army of the East, with an irregular force under Garibaldi; and, as we have seen, the vast circle of the covering armies was more formidable than it had been at any preceding time. In this state of things an extraordinary scheme was formed for the French provincial armies, and ultimately for the relief of Paris, which we can only describe as the extreme of rashness. Werder had for some time invested Belfort, while part of his forces lay in Franche Comté; and as he had not more than 50,000 men, and Bourbaki was at no great distance with perhaps not less than 120,000, an opportunity seemed given to strike a blow, which it was hoped might crush this foe, and even change the aspect of the contest. If Bourbaki were to assail Werder from Bourges and Nevers, he would probably destroy him; and if so, he could relieve Belfort, and furthermore, by a bold advance on Nancy and Luneville, fall upon the great line of German communications from Strasburg to Paris along the main railway. But a stroke of this kind would in all probability compel the siege of Paris to be raised, for the Germans could not so easily subsist if their supplies were cut off or even interrupted; and if they were obliged to retire, the paramount object of French strategy would be attained by this single operation. The movement of Bourbaki, too, was not only promising in itself, for it was difficult to imagine that he would not crush Werder, which, being done, all the rest would follow; but, properly conceived, it need not endanger the French armies in other parts of the theatre. Let it be granted that the withdrawal of Bourbaki would relieve Prince Frederic Charles of an enemy, would the Prince, Von der Tann, and the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg turn round and fall in full force on Chanzy? And, even if they did, would not Chanzy, with his large army in position at Le Mans, be strong enough to baffle their efforts? And even supposing Chanzy defeated, how little was to be thought of a defeat provided Bourbaki relieved Paris by seizing and cutting the German communications? Besides, was it not very conceivable that Prince Frederic Charles would pursue Bourbaki, in which case that commander would escape him, and that he would not think of attacking Chanzy?

Such was their plan, and, we repeat, it was, under the circumstances, simply insensate. No one will deny that to overwhelm Werder, to effect the raising of the siege of Belfort, and to sever the communications of the Germans, were desirable objects for the French; and had Bourbaki reached in force the main railway from Strasburg to Paris, this might have caused the relief of the capital. But, in the actual state of the French armies—raw, ill-provided, and ill-disciplined—a movement like this was extremely difficult, and far from likely to be at all successful, even as regards the mere reaching Belfort; and it was open to the decisive objection that it enabled Prince Frederic Charles to oppose all his forces to Chanzy and overwhelm him, in conjunction with his German colleagues. The scheme, therefore, exposed the French on one side to certain disaster, and, on the other, was really far from hopeful; and it not only made it almost impossible to expect the relief of Paris, but it might lead to terrible results should Bourbaki fail or prove a bad General, In an unfortunate hour for France, however, this reckless project was adopted; and in the first days of January, Bourbaki broke up from Bourges and Nevers to reach Franche Comté, and made his way to his first point, Belfort. The operations that ensued were just such as might have been foreseen. The instant that Prince Frederic Charles had ascertained that Bourbaki's army was on its way to the distant east, he turned rapidly upon Chanzy, and directed his own reinforced corps, with those of Von der Tann and the Grand Duke, to converge without delay on Le Mans and overwhelm his French antagonist. The movement began in the first days of January; and as the united German armies were probably 140,000 strong, whereas Chanzy was hardly superior in mere numbers, and had little but undisciplined levies in his ranks, the issue was not for a moment doubtful. Chanzy, who had made a feint forward, and had threatened the Prince before Vendôme, found himself pressed by an irresistible enemy, and fell back at once on Le Mans, not having been, we believe, informed of the project which had detached Bourbaki. His retreat was conducted with marked ability, his German foes closing in on all sides, and endeavouring to cut him off from his point; and nothing save his judicious foresight enabled him to save even a part of his army. Chanzy had fortified a strong position before Le Mans, on the river Huisne—so strong that it has been compared to Torres Vedras by an eye-witness—and he succeeded in making a stand on this, and even baffling his enemy for a time. The contest, however, was too unequal; his lines were turned on the night of the 11th; Le Mans was captured the next day; and Chanzy's army, beaten and demoralized, lost, it is said, 20,000 prisoners.

While these events had been in progress, Bourbaki had been making his way across the rugged and hilly country which divides Burgundy from Franche Comté. The cold of the winter was intense; and his divisions, composed of young recruits, ill-clothed, ill-fed, and ill-disciplined, suffered cruelly, and were half demoralized before they saw even the face of an enemy. At Dijon he obtained reinforcements drawn from the French Army of the East, and with a force, nominally 140,000 strong, with from 300 to 400 guns, he proceeded through the intricate defiles, between the rivers Ognon and Doubs, which lead to the hills around Belfort. The march of his weak and untrained columns, confined to a single narrow route, was necessarily extremely slow; and it is decisive against Bourbaki's generalship that, at a time when speed was of the greatest importance, he did not advance by four or five roads, and thus make expedition possible. The French army, worn out and harassed, and especially wanting in staff officers, moved at the rate of four or five miles a day only, and the result was that it completely failed to cut off Werder, as had been expected, and that that general was enabled to retreat leisurely and cover Belfort. A rear-guard engagement took place at Villersexel, on the 6th of January, and it was not until the 14th that Bourbaki reached the Lisaine—a tributary of the Doubs in front of the fortress—where he found Werder's army drawn up in entrenched positions, and awaiting its foe. A series of combats ensued, in which the raw and bad French troops, although numerically three to one, were unable to gain any success; and, on the 18th, Bourbaki retreated, having lost from 8,000 to 10,000 men, and having met nothing but heavy disaster. His army, baffled and half starving, began to disband and go to pieces; and, as he retreated by the narrow defiles by which he had before advanced, he did not reach Besançon till the 22nd. Meanwhile Von Moltke had been directing a terrible and decisive stroke against him. As soon as the great German commander had become aware of Bourbaki's movements, he massed a force of some 50,000 men between Auxerre and Chatillon-sur-Seine, and launched it across the hills of Burgundy upon the flank and rear of the Frenchman, while Werder, pressing forward from the Lisaine, advanced against him through Franche Comté. By the 24th of January, four German divisions had passed Dijon and reached Dôle on the Doubs, to the south of Besançon, while a large part of Werder's forces were threatening Bourbaki from the north; and thus the unfortunate French army was already almost completely hemmed in by its vigorous and indefatigable pursuers. The disgrace of a second Sedan flashed across the mind of the French commander, and in a paroxysm of despair he shot himself, unable to brave the impending peril. His army, a mere dissolving mass, rolled out helplessly from Besançon, and endeavoured to make its way southward, but finding all the roads occupied, it turned aside and crossed the Swiss frontier. There the starving mob of disbanding fugitives was obliged helplessly to lay down its arms.

Such was the end of the expedition, ill-planned and still worse executed. The detachment of Bourbaki to the east caused the overthrow of Chanzy at Le Mans, by setting Prince Frederic Charles free; and the bad state of Bourbaki's army, and even more, his deplorable conduct, led to the catastrophe we have described. What, indeed, could have been more unwise than to have moved in a single column only, when celerity was the first consideration; and what could have been more shameful than the management of the retreat to Besançon, and the rash act which left an army at that place without a commander? These things are simply without excuse; yet it must be added that the condition of Bourbaki's troops made it very improbable that he could, under any circumstance, have accomplished the task which he undertook, at least that he could ever have reached the great line of the German communications; and accordingly, even when it seemed most promising, the whole enterprise cannot be justified. The result might have been very different if the forces of Bourbaki and Chanzy had been concentrated for a vigorous attack on Prince Frederic Charles and his colleagues on the line between Orleans, Vendome, and Chartres. Had this been done the French would have largely outnumbered their foes, and even had they failed and been defeated, they would have been able to make good their retreat without incurring a terrible disaster. The more we study the operations of the French armies in the month of January, the more we see how ill-devised they were; while, on the other hand, the strategy of the Germans—of Werder, in the stand he made on the Lisaine, and of Von Moltke in surrounding Bourbaki—is deserving of the highest admiration; and, though no one would think of comparing the young French troops with their veteran foes, it is not the less true that the final issue was decided in the main by generalship. Everywhere else in the theatre of war, while these disasters were taking place, the fortunes of France were in calamitous eclipse. The German Army of the North was taking the fortresses on her north-eastern frontier without difficulty by a brief bombardment, the old bastions of Vauban's time being useless against modern heavy guns, and the triple barrier of Louis XIV. was thus broken down from within, and the Northern Departments laid open. Faidherbe had fought two battles in a vain attempt to resist the invaders; but, though he gained some success at Bapaume, over a small part of Von Goeben's army, he had been unable to follow it up, and soon afterwards he was defeated with great and ruinous loss at St. Quentin—an ominous name in French annals. After this disaster the French Army of the North was no longer able to keep the field. Faidherbe took refuge in Lille and Cambrai, and the tide of German invasion flowed irresistibly to the borders of Artois and Hainault.

Meanwhile the progress of the great siege had been tending to its inevitable conclusion. On the 27th of December, the German batteries commenced the reduction of the outwork constructed by Trochu on Mont Avron, and in two days it was silenced and destroyed, the defences being feeble and incomplete. This roused the spirits of the besiegers; and as, by this time, their siege trains had come up in considerable numbers, fire was opened on the southern and eastern forts, and for some weeks was kept up with vigour. The distance, however, of the attacking batteries from the defences of Paris was very great, nor was their artillery powerful; and it cannot be said that they succeeded in making a serious or lasting impression. In fact, the forts, and even the ramparts, were armed with rather stronger ordnance, and they maintained a combat at least equal to that of the heavy guns that were directed against them. The bombardment of the city was next attempted, and shells were poured into its streets and squares; but as the extreme range of the German guns extended only to one bank of the Seine, no great damage, fortunately, was done, and, as often has happened in other cases, the effect on the spirits of the population was rather to stimulate than to alarm. 'You might as well have pelted Paris with bottles,' was the remark of an intelligent eye-witness, and there can be no doubt that the active siege of the capital was a complete failure. Meantime, however, famine was doing the work which fire and sword could not have accomplished. The city had been amply provisioned, but, at the end of four months and a half, it was reduced to the extreme of misery. For many weeks horseflesh had been the only animal food of the population; the bread doled out in scanty rations was a vile compound of bran and rye; the mortality among the old and young was appalling; the supply of fuel had fallen short, and that in the depths of a fearful winter. On the 19th of January, Trochu made a last effort against the besiegers' lines, but, as might have been anticipated, it failed, his troops having lost all courage and worth. By this time all hope of relief from the provincial armies had been frustrated, and at last, on the 130th day of the siege, the proud capital was subdued by famine. The line of the defences was almost uninjured; and, unquestionably, Paris would have held out for months, nay, perhaps might have proved impregnable, had the citizens possessed the means of subsistence.

The fall of Paris brought to a close the internecine strife between France and Germany. The extraordinary disasters of January, indeed (especially the ruin of Bourbaki's army), had made resistance no longer possible; and, in all probability, had the war gone on, the vanquished country would have been overrun. Those who, like ourselves, were of opinion that the expected surrender of the capital need not necessarily terminate the struggle, could not have anticipated the fatal strategy which annihilated the provincial armies of France in futile movements and desperate efforts. We believe the National Assembly was right in accepting the conditions of the Germans, harsh and relentless as these were; and we applaud the patriotism of M. Thiers in bowing before the doom of fate, and offer him our respect and sympathy. Our space has been already outrun, and we cannot make any general remarks on the mighty conflict which has just closed.

As regards its consequences, we can only hazard two or three anticipations of the future. Those who believed in the moderation and civilization of the gigantic power of which Bismark has been the creator must have been disappointed at the German terms; but as we are not among the credulous, we cannot say that we have been surprised. The annexation, however, of Alsace and Lorraine against the will of two millions of the brave inhabitants of those provinces, the dismemberment of France, and her spoliation, and, above all, the evident understanding between the autocrats of Russia and Germany, are simply the triumphs of brute force—perpetual menaces to the peace of Europe. As regards France, her destiny is uncertain; and it remains to be seen whether, as of old, she will rise superior to misfortune, or whether, like Spain, she will henceforth decline and sink into an inferior power. If, as we think, the first alternative is that which history will yet witness, France certainly will renew the combat, and endeavour to regain from her pitiless foe, not only her strategic position, but the conquered territories. To effect this purpose she will avail herself of any alliances, however abnormal—and for this she is not to be condemned. From this point of view, also, the prospect for England is not reassuring. France, however, if she would renew her strength, must first learn self-government, and to combat anarchy and revolution; and, deeply as we sympathise with her, she would, we believe, achieve more if she were to attain these great ends than if she were to avenge Sedan by a second Jena, and march once more in triumph to Berlin.