LITMIR.BIZ

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one another; and on the 23rd their cavalry gleaned news of priceless value, namely, that MacMahon's army had left Châlons. On the next day the great camp was found deserted.

In fact, MacMahon had undertaken a task of terrible difficulty. On taking over the command at Châlons, where Napoleon III. arrived from Metz on the 16th, he found hopeless disorder not only among his own beaten troops, but among many of the newcomers; the worst were the Garde Mobile, many regiments of whom greeted the Emperor with shouts of À Paris. To meet the Germans in the open plains of Champagne with forces so incoherent and dispirited was sheer madness; and a council of war on the 17th came to the conclusion to fall back on the capital and operate within its outer forts--a step which might enable the army to regain confidence, repress any rising in the capital, and perhaps inflict checks on the Germans, until the provinces rose en masse against the invaders. But at this very time the Empress-Regent and the Palikao Ministry at Paris came to an exactly contrary decision, on the ground that the return of the Emperor with MacMahon's army would look like personal cowardice and a mean desertion of Bazaine at Metz. The Empress was for fighting à outrance, and her Government issued orders for a national rising and the enrolling of bodies of irregulars, or francs-tireurs, to harass the Germans[43].

      Their decision was telegraphed to Napoleon III. at Châlons. Against his own better judgment the Emperor yielded to political considerations--that mill-stone around the neck of the French army in 1870--and decided to strike out to the north with MacMahon's army, and by way of Montmédy stretch a hand to Bazaine, who, on his side, was expected to make for that rendezvous. On the 21st, therefore, they marched to Reims. There the Emperor received a despatch which Bazaine had been able to get through the enemies' lines on the 19th, stating that the Germans were making their way in on Metz, but that he (Bazaine) hoped to break away towards Montmédy and so join MacMahon's army. (This, it will be observed, was after Gravelotte had been lost.) Napoleon III. thereupon replied: "Received yours of the 19th at Reims; am going towards Montmédy; shall be on the Aisne the day after to-morrow, and there will act according to circumstances to come to your aid." Bazaine did not receive this message until August 30, and then made only two weak efforts to break out on the north (August 31-September 1). The Marshal's action in sending that message must be pronounced one of the most fatal in the whole war. It led the Emperor and MacMahon to a false belief as to the position at Metz, and furnished a potent argument to the Empress and Palikao at Paris to urge a march towards Montmédy at all costs.

      Doubtfully MacMahon led his straggling array from Reims in a north-easterly direction towards Stenay on the Meuse. Rain checked his progress, and dispirited the troops; but on the 27th August, while about half-way between the Aisne and the Meuse, his outposts touched those of the enemy. They were, in fact, those of the Prussian Crown Prince, whose army was about to cross the northern roads over the Argonne, the line of hills that saw the French stem the Prussian invasion in 1792. Far different was the state of affairs now. National enthusiasm, organisation, enterprise--all were on the side of the invaders. As has been pointed out, their horsemen found out on the 23rd that the Châlons camp was deserted; on the next day their scouts found out from a Parisian newspaper that MacMahon was at Reims; and, on the day following, newspaper tidings that had come round by way of London revealed the secret that MacMahon was striving to reach Bazaine.

      How it came about that this news escaped the eye of the censor has not been explained. If it was the work of an English journalist, that does not absolve the official censorship from the charge of gross carelessness in leaving even a loophole for the transmission of important secrets. Newspaper correspondents, of course, are the natural enemies of Governments in time of war; and the experience of the year 1870 shows that the fate of Empires may depend on the efficacy of the arrangements for controlling them. As a proof of the superiority of the German organisation, or of the higher patriotism of their newspapers, we may mention that no tidings of urgent importance leaked out through the German Press. This may have been due to a solemn declaration made by German newspaper editors and correspondents that they would never reveal such secrets; but, from what we know of the fierce competition of newspapers for priority of news, it is reasonable to suppose that the German Government took very good care that none came in their way.

      As a result of the excellent scouting of their cavalry and of the slipshod Press arrangements of the French Government, the German Army of the Meuse, on the 26th, took a general turn towards the north-west. This movement brought its outposts near to the southernmost divisions of MacMahon, and sent through that Marshal's staff the foreboding thrill felt by the commander of an unseaworthy craft at the oncoming of the first gust of a cyclone. He saw the madness of holding on his present course and issued orders for a retreat to Mézières, a fortress on the Meuse below Sedan. Once more, however, the Palikao Ministry intervened to forbid this salutary move--the only way out of imminent danger--and ordered him to march to the relief of Bazaine. At this crisis Napoleon III. showed the good sense which seemed to have deserted the French politicians: he advised the Marshal not to obey this order if he thought it dangerous. Nevertheless, MacMahon decided to yield to the supposed interests of the dynasty, which the Emperor was ready to sacrifice to the higher claims of the safety of France. Their rôles were thus curiously reversed. The Emperor reasoned as a sound patriot and a good strategist. MacMahon must have felt the same promptings, but obedience to the Empress and the Ministry, or chivalrous regard for Bazaine, overcame his scruples. He decided to plod on towards the Meuse.

      The Germans were now on the alert to entrap this army that exposed its flank in a long line of march near to the Belgian frontier. Their ubiquitous horsemen captured French despatches which showed them the intended moves in MacMahon's desperate game; Moltke hurried up every available division; and the elder of the two Alvenslebens had the honour of surprising de Failly's corps amidst the woods of the Ardennes near Beaumont, as they were in the midst of a meal. The French rallied and offered a brisk defence, but finally fell back in confusion northwards on Mouzon, with the loss of 2000 prisoners and 42 guns (August 30).

      This mishap, the lack of provisions, and the fatigue and demoralisation of his troops, caused MacMahon on the 31st to fall back on Sedan, a little town in the valley of the Meuse. It is surrounded by ramparts planned by the great Vauban, but, being commanded by wooded heights, it no longer has the importance that it possessed before the age of long-range guns of precision. The chief strength of the position for defence lay in the deep loop of the river below the town, the dense Garenne Wood to the north-east, and the hollow formed by the Givonne brook on the east, with the important village of Bazeilles. It is therefore not surprising that von Moltke, on seeing the French forces concentrating in this hollow, remarked to von Blumenthal, Chief of the Staff: "Now we have them in a trap; to-morrow we must cross over the Meuse early in the morning."

The Emperor and MacMahon seem even then, on the afternoon of the 31st, to have hoped to give their weary troops a brief rest, supply them with provisions and stores from the fortress, and on the morrow, or the 2nd, make their escape by way of Mézières. Possibly they might have done so on that night, and certainly they could have reached the Belgian frontier, only some six miles distant, and there laid down their arms to the Belgian troops whom the resourceful Bismarck had set on the qui vive. To remain quiet even for a day in Sedan was to court disaster; yet passivity characterised the French headquarters and the whole army on that afternoon and evening. True, MacMahon gave orders for the bridge over the Meuse at Donchéry to be blown up, but the engine-driver who took the engineers charged with this important task, lost his nerve when German shells whizzed about his engine, and drove off before the powder and tools could be deposited. A second party, sent later on, found that bridge in the possession of the enemy. On the east side, above Sedan, the Bavarians seized the railway bridge south of Bazeilles, driving off the French who sought to blow it up[44].

      Over the Donchéry bridge and two pontoon bridges constructed below that village the Germans poured their troops before dawn of September 1, and as the morning fog of that day slowly lifted, their columns were seen working round the north of the deep loop of the Meuse, thus cutting off escape on the west and north-west. Meanwhile, on the other side of the town, von der Tann's Bavarians had begun the fight. Pressing in on Bazeilles so as to hinder

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