Germany from the Earliest Period, Volume 4

by Wolfgang Menzel

The emperor was deeply pained by the result of the battle. To keep up, if possible, the spirits of his partisans, he wired on the evening of the 7th to Paris, with the news of the defeat, the words, "tout se peut retablir." He was mistaken. While the crown prince was crushing MacMahon at Wörth, the imperial troops were being beaten at Spicheren as well.

Thereafter the German advance was hardly checked for a moment, though the losses on both sides were heavy. On the 18th of August was fought the battle of Gravelotte, in which King William commanded in person, and though his troops suffered immense loss, they were again victorious, and forced Bazaine to shut himself up in Metz, which he subsequently surrendered. In this battle, one of the most decisive of the war, it is worth noting that the Germans outnumbered the French by more than two to one. The exact figures are uncertain, but we shall probably be correct in accepting 230,000 as the strength of the Germans, and in estimating the French outside of Metz at 110,000.

We now come to Sedan. With the army of Bazaine beleaguered, there remained, in the opinion of the German chiefs—an opinion not justified by events—only the army of MacMahon. To remove that army from the path which led to Paris was the task intrusted to the crown prince. MacMahon, meanwhile, after his defeat at Wörth, had fallen back with the disordered remnants of his army on Chalons, there to reorganize and strengthen it. Much progress had been made in both respects, when, after the result of the battle of Gravelotte had been known in Paris, he received instructions from the Count of Palikao to march with the four army corps at his disposal northward toward the Meuse, and to give a hand to the beleaguered Bazaine.

MacMahon prepared to obey. But circumstances ordered otherwise. On the night of August 31st, accompanied by the emperor—who, having transferred his authority to the Empress Eugenie and his command to Bazaine, followed the army as mere spectator—MacMahon reached Sedan, and there ranged his troops so as to meet an attack which he foresaw inevitable, and fatal too. Placing his strongest force to the east, his right wing was at Bazeilles and the left at Illy. The ground in front of his main defence was naturally strong, the entire front being covered by the Givonne rivulet, and the slopes to that rivulet, on the French side of it.

The possibility that the French marshal would accept battle at Sedan had been considered at the German headquarters on the night of the 31st, and arrangements had been made to meet his wishes. The army of the crown prince of Saxony (the Fourth Army) occupied the right of the German forces, the Bavarian Corps formed the centre, and the Prussians the left wing. The advanced troops of the army were ranged in the following order. On the right stood the Twelfth Corps, then the Fourth Prussian Corps, the Prussian Guards, and finally the Fourth Cavalry Division, their backs to Remilly. From this point they were linked to the First and Second Bavarian Corps, opposite Bazeilles; they, in turn, to the Eleventh and Fifth Corps; and they, at Dom-le-Mesnil, to the Würtembergers. The Sixth Prussian Corps was placed in reserve between Attigny and Le Chene.

A word now as to the nature of the ground on which the impending battle was to be fought. Sedan lies in the most beautiful part of the valley of the Meuse, amid terraced heights, covered with trees, and, within close distance, the villages of Donchery, Iges, Villette, Glaire, Daigny, Bazeilles, and others. Along the Meuse, on the left bank, ran the main road from Donchery through Frenois, crossing the river at the suburb Torcy, and there traversing Sedan. The character of the locality may best be described as a ground covered with fruit gardens and vineyards, narrow streets shut in by stone walls, the roads overhung by forests, the egress from which was in many places steep and abrupt. Such was the ground. One word now as to the troops.

The German army before Sedan counted, all told, 240,000 men; the French 180,000. But the disparity in numbers was the least of the differences between the two armies. The one was flushed with victory, the other dispirited by defeat. The one had absolute confidence in their generals and their officers, the other had the most supreme contempt for theirs. The one had marched from Metz on a settled plan, to be modified according to circumstances, the drift of which was apparent to the meanest soldier; the other had been marched hither and thither, now toward Montmedy, now toward Paris, then again back toward Montmedy, losing much time; the men eager for a pitched battle, then suddenly surprised through the carelessness of their commanders, and compelled at last to take refuge in a town from which there was no issue. There was hardly an officer of rank who knew aught about the country in which he found himself. The men were longing to fight to the death, but they, one and all, distrusted their leaders. It did not tend, moreover, to the encouragement of the army to see the now phantom emperor, without authority to command even a corporal's guard, dragged about the country, more as a pageant than a sovereign. He, poor man, was much to be pitied. He keenly felt his position, and longed for the day when he might, in a great battle, meet the glorious death which France might accept as an atonement for his misfortunes.

The battle began at daybreak on the morning of the 1st of September. Under cover of a brisk artillery fire, the Bavarians advanced, and opened, at six o'clock, a very heavy musketry fire on Bazeilles. The masonry buildings of this village were all armed and occupied, and they were defended very valiantly. The defenders drove back the enemy as they advanced and kept them at bay for two hours. Then the Saxons came up to the aid of the Bavarians, and forced the first position. Still the defence continued, and the clocks were striking ten when the Bavarians succeeded in entering the place. Even then a house-to-house defence prolonged the battle, and it was not until every house but one[2] had been either stormed or burned that the Germans could call the village, or the ruins which remained of it, their own. Meanwhile, on the other points of their defensive position; at Floing, St. Menges, Fleigneux, Illy, and, on the extreme left, at Iges, where a sharp bend of the Meuse forms a peninsula of the ground round which it slowly rolls; the French had been making a gallant struggle. In their ranks, even in advance of them, attended finally by a single aide-de-camp, all the others having been killed, was the emperor, cool, calm, and full of sorrow, earnestly longing for the shell or the bullet which should give a soldier's finish to his career. MacMahon, too, was there, doing all that a general could do to encourage his men. The enemy were, however, gradually but surely making way. To hedge the French within the narrowest compass, the Fifth and Eleventh Corps of the Third Army had crossed the Meuse to the left of Sedan, and were marching now to roll up the French left. But before their attack had been felt, an event had occurred full of significance for the French army.

Early in the day, while yet the Bavarians were fighting to get possession of Bazeilles, Marshal MacMahon was so severely wounded that he had to be carried from the field into Sedan. He made over the command of the army to General Ducrot. That general had even before recognized the impossibility of maintaining the position before Sedan against the superior numbers of the German army, and had seen that the one chance of saving his army was to fall back on Mezieres. He at once, then, on assuming command, issued orders to that effect. But it was already too late. The march by the defile of St. Albert had been indeed possible at any time during the night or in the very early morning. But it was now no longer so. The German troops swarmed in the plains of Donchery, and the route by Carignan could only be gained by passing over the bodies of a more numerous and still living foe. Still Ducrot had given the order, and the staff officers did their utmost to cause it to be obeyed. The crowded streets of Sedan were being vacated, when suddenly the orders were countermanded. General Wimpffen had arrived from Paris the previous day to replace the incapable De Failly in command of the Fifth Corps, carrying in his pocket an order from the Minister of War to assume the command-in-chief in the event of any accident to MacMahon. The emperor had no voice in the matter, for, while the regency of the empress existed, he no longer represented the government. The two generals met, and, after a somewhat lively discussion, Ducrot was forced to acknowledge the authority of the minister. Wimpffen then assumed command. His first act was to countermand the order to retreat on Mezieres, and to direct the troops to reassume the positions they had occupied when MacMahon had been wounded. This order was carried out as far as was possible.

Meanwhile the Germans were pressing more and more those positions. About midday the Guards, having made their way step by step, each one bravely contested, gave their hand to the left wing of the Third Army. Then Illy and Floing, which had been defended with extraordinary tenacity, as the keys of the advanced French position, were stormed. The conquest of those heights completed the investment of Sedan. There was now no possible egress for the French. Their soldiers retreated into the town and the suburbs, while five hundred German guns hurled their missiles, their round shot and their shells, against the walls and the crowded masses behind them.