FRANCO-GERMAN WAR (1870-1871). The victories of Prussia in 1866 over the Austrians and their German allies (see [Seven Weeks’ War]) rendered it evident to the statesmen and soldiers of France that a struggle between the two nations could only be a question of time. Army reforms were at once undertaken, and measures were initiated in France to place the armament and equipment of the troops on a level with the requirements of the times. The chassepot, a new breech-loading rifle, immensely superior to the Prussian needle-gun, was issued; the artillery trains were thoroughly overhauled, and a new machine-gun, the mitrailleuse, from which much was expected, introduced. Wide schemes of reorganization (due mainly to Marshal Niel) were set in motion, and, since these required time to mature, recourse was had to foreign alliances in the hope of delaying the impending rupture. In the first week of June 1870, General Lebrun, as a confidential agent of the emperor Napoleon III., was sent to Vienna to concert a plan of joint operations with Austria against Prussia. Italy was also to be included in the alliance, and it was agreed that in case of hostilities the French armies should concentrate in northern Bavaria, where the Austrians and Italians were to join them, and the whole immense army thus formed should march via Jena on Berlin. To what extent Austria and Italy committed themselves to this scheme remains uncertain, but that the emperor Napoleon believed in their bona fides is beyond doubt.

Whether the plan was betrayed to Prussia is also uncertain, and almost immaterial, for Moltke’s plans were based on an accurate estimate of the time it would take Austria to mobilize and on the effect of a series of victories on French soil. At any rate Moltke was not taken into Bismarck’s confidence in the affair of Ems in July 1870, and it is to be presumed that the chancellor had already satisfied himself that the schemes of operations prepared by the chief of the General Staff fully provided against all eventualities. These schemes were founded on Clausewitz’s view of the objects to be pursued in a war against France—in the first place the defeat of the French field armies and in the second the occupation of Paris. On these lines plans for the strategic deployment of the Prussian army were prepared by the General Staff and kept up to date year by year as fresh circumstances (e.g. the co-operation of the minor German armies) arose and new means of communication came into existence. The campaign was actually opened on a revise of 1868-1869, to which was added, on the 6th of May 1870, a secret memorandum for the General Staff.

Under the German organization then existing the preliminary to all active operations was of necessity full and complete mobilization. Then followed transport by road and rail to the line selected for the “strategic deployment,” and it was essential that no part of these operations should be disturbed by action on the part of the enemy. But no such delay imposed itself of necessity upon the French, and a vigorous offensive was so much Strategic deployment of the German armies. in harmony with their traditions that the German plan had to be framed so as to meet such emergencies. On the whole, Moltke concluded that the enemy could not undertake this offensive before the eighth day after mobilization. At that date about five French army corps (150,000 men) could be collected near Metz, and two corps (70,000) near Strassburg; and as it was six days’ march from Metz to the Rhine, no serious attack could be delivered before the fourteenth day, by which day it could be met by superior forces near Kirchheimbolanden. Since, however, the transport of the bulk of the Prussian forces could not begin till the ninth day, their ultimate line of detrainment need not be fixed until the French plans were disclosed, and, as it was important to strike at the earliest moment possible, the deployment was provisionally fixed to be beyond the Rhine on the line Wittlich-Neunkirchen-Landau. Of the thirteen North German corps three had to be left behind to guard the eastern frontier and the coast, one other, the VIII., was practically on the ground already and could concentrate by road, and the remaining nine were distributed to the nine through railway lines available. These ten corps were grouped in three armies, and as the French might violate Belgian neutrality or endeavour to break into southern Germany, two corps (Prussian Guard and Saxon XII. corps) were temporarily held back at a central position around Mainz, whence they could move rapidly up or down the Rhine valley. If Belgian neutrality remained unmolested, the reserve would join the III. army on the left wing, giving it a two to one superiority over its adversary; all three armies would then wheel to the right and combine in an effort to force the French army into a decisive battle on the Saar on or about the twenty-third day. As in this wheel the army on the right formed the pivot and was required only to stand fast, two corps only were allotted to it; two corps for the present formed the III. army, and the remaining five were assigned to the II. army in the centre.

When (16th-17th July) the South German states decided to throw in their lot with the rest, their three corps were allotted to the III. army, the Guards and Saxons to the II. army, whilst the three corps originally left behind were finally distributed one to each army, so that up to the investment of Metz the order of battle was as follows:

Headquarters:
The king of Prussia (General v. Moltke, chief of staff).
I. Army:
General v. Steinmetz
(C. of S., v. Sperling)		(I. corps, v. Manteuffel)
VII.   ” v. Zastrow
VIII.   ” v. Goeben
(1st) and 3rd cavalry divisions
Total 85,000
II. Army:
Prince Frederick Charles
(C. of S., v. Stiehle)		Guard Pr. August of Württemberg
(II. corps, v. Fransecky)
III.   ”   v. Alvensleben II.
IV.   ”   v. Alvensleben I.
IX.   ”   v. Manstein
X.   ”   v. Voigts-Rhetz
XII.   ”   (Saxons) crown prince of Saxony
5th and 6th cavalry divisions
Total 210,000
III. Army:
crown prince of Prussia
(C. of S., v. Blumenthal)		V. corps, v. Kirchbach
(VI.)   ”   v. Tümpling
XI.   ”   v. Bose
I. Bavarian, v. der Tann
II.   ”   v. Hartmann
Württemberg div. v. Werder
Baden div.
(2nd) and 4th cavalry divisions
Total 180,000
———
Grand Total 475,000
(The units within brackets were those at first retained in Germany.)

On the French side no such plan of operations was in existence when on the night of the 15th of July Krieg mobil was telegraphed all over Prussia. An outline scheme had indeed been prepared as a basis for agreement with Austria and Positions of the French forces. Italy, but practically no details were fixed, and the troops were without transport and supplies. Nevertheless, since speed was the essence of the contract, the troops were hurried up without waiting for their reserves, and delivered, as Moltke had foreseen, just where the lie of the railways and convenience of temporary supply dictated, and the Prussian Intelligence Department was able to inform Moltke on the 22nd of July (seventh day of mobilization) that the French stood from right to left in the following order, on or near the frontier:

1st corpsMarshal MacMahon, duke of Magenta, Strassburg
5th corpsGeneral de Failly, Saargemünd and Bitche
2nd corpsGeneral Frossard, St Avold
4th corpsGeneral de Ladmirault, Thionville
   With, behind them:
3rd corpsMarshal Bazaine, Metz
GuardGeneral Bourbaki, Nancy
6th corpsMarshal Canrobert, Châlons
7th corpsGeneral Félix Douay, Belfort

If therefore they began a forward movement on the 23rd (eighth day) the case foreseen by Moltke had arisen, and it became necessary to detrain the II. army upon the Rhine. Without waiting for further confirmation of this intelligence, Moltke, with the consent of the king, altered the arrangements accordingly, a decision which, though foreseen, exercised the gravest influence on the course of events. As it happened this decision was premature, for the French could not yet move. Supply trains had to be organized by requisition from the inhabitants, and even arms and ammunition procured for such reserves as had succeeded in joining. Nevertheless, by almost superhuman exertions on the part of the railways and administrative services, all essential deficiencies were made good, and by the 28th of July (13th day) the troops had received all that was absolutely indispensable and might well have been led against the enemy, who, thanks to Moltke’s premature action, were for the moment at a very serious disadvantage. But the French generals were unequal to their responsibilities. It is now clear that, had the great Napoleon and his marshals been in command, they would have made light of the want of cooking pots, cholera belts, &c., and, by a series of rapid marches, would have concentrated odds of at least three to one upon the heads of the Prussian columns as they struggled through the defiles of the Hardt, and won a victory whose political results might well have proved decisive.

To meet this pressing danger, which came to his knowledge during the course of the 29th, Moltke sent a confidential staff officer, Colonel v. Verdy du Vernois, to the III. army to impress upon the crown prince the necessity of an immediate advance to distract the enemy’s attention from the I. and II. armies; but, like the French generals, the crown prince pleaded that he could not move until his trains were complete. Fortunately for the Germans, the French intelligence service not only failed to inform the staff of this extraordinary opportunity, but it allowed itself to be hypnotized by the most amazing rumours. In imagination they saw armies of 100,000 men behind every forest, and, to guard against these dangers, the French troops were marched and counter-marched along the frontiers in the vain hope of discovering an ideal defensive position which should afford full scope to the power of their new weapons.

As these delays were exerting a most unfavourable effect on public opinion not only in France but throughout Europe, the emperor decided on the 1st of August to initiate a movement towards the Saar, chiefly as a guarantee of good faith to the Austrians and Italians.