w <^:e that the same candidature should never be again accepted in the future. Hereupon Hi& Majesty commanded me to reply to the Count that he approved of the withdrawal of Prince Leopold in the same sense, and to the same extent, as he had previously approved of his acceptance. The, written communication which he had received was from Prince Anton of Hohenzollern (father of Leopold), who had been authorized thereto by prince Leo- pold himself. In respect to the second point, assurance for the future, His Majesty could only refer to what he had said to the Count in the morning. Coimt Benedetti received THE FRANCO-GEUMAN WAR. 21 3 dent purpose of destroying the railroad at that point ; and on the same date, railway and telegraphic communication between France and Prussia was stopped. Count Benedetti arrived in Paris a few days before. Coming from Ems instead of Berlin, he did not re- ceive his passport. He came to give the Emperor verbal explanations. Baron Werther, the North German Min- ister, and all the members of his embassy left Paris the same day, for Berlin. Before the departure of Baron Werther, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, expressed his regret on account of the con- duct of Prussia and the course Baron Wer- ther himself had chosen to take before the final rupture of friendly relations. It is said that when the Baron returned here from Ems a few days ago, he neglected to call upon the Duke of Gramont until the latter had sent for him, and even then said " he had nothing to communicate." This coldness created great surprise. Eight days before, the Count Bismarck sent by special messenger to Baron Werther, the Ambassador of the North German Con- federation, an order to make no conce.^sion to the French Government. " Do not be too much impressed," Bismarck continues in his dispatch ; " -we are ready. Prolong the situa- tion, if possible, to the 20th of July." 'I'he French Journals argued from this, that Prussia meant war from the beginning, and only sought to gain time. About this time, great activity prevailed in the Prussian Fortresses of Rastadt, in Ba- den. The soldiers of Baden, commanded by Prussian officers, were detailed to man the ramparts and parapets, and Prince Royal Frederick William took corpmand of the armies of the States of Southern Germany. On the l8th of July, the Emperor of the French left For the seat of war, with the Prince Imperial, a mere boy. "The Em- peror, his father, wished it, and his mother, the Empress, did not object." Marshals MacMahon, Bazaine, and Canrobert, were appointed to couiniand the main divisions of the Imperial French forces. MARSHAL MACMAHON. Marshal MacMahon, who held chief com mand of the French army, has well earned the reputation of a brave and skilful soldier. His father was a Lieutenant-General in the armies of France, and had him educated at the military school of St. Cyr. At the age of nineteen, he was sub-Lieutenant in the 4th Hussars. He exchanged into a regiment bound for Africa, where, on the hill of Mon- zai. Gen. Clanzel rewarded him with the Cross of the Legion of Honor, on account of the reckless daring he had displayed. An incident in the African campaign shows his intrepid character. At the close of the suc- cessful battle of Terchia. Gen. A chard wished to send an order to Col. Rulhieres at Bli The heads of the Prussian columns ap- proached the Saar on the .'ith. Gen. Kamera found the enemy to the west of Saarbruck in strong position in the mountains near Spieh- ren, and immediately attacked him. Follow- ing the sound of the cannon portions of the divisions of Barnakow and Stupnagel came up. Gen. Geeben took command, and after a very severe fight, the position occupied by Gen. Frossard was taken by assault. Gen. Francois and Col. Renter are among the wounded. Gen. Francois died the next day. After the battle of Saarbruck, a Westpha- lian, going about to help the wounded, came upon a soldier of the Prussian infantry, who had been shot through the body, and was leaning heavily against a wall. " Will yoU' drink, comrade?" asked the Westphalian. Pale and faint, the poor fellow shook his head, and feebly indicated that he would like his lips to be moistened. When this had been done, he asked in a whisper whether the Westphalian could write. The latter at once took out his pocket-book, when the dying man, "with brightening eye," dictated the words, " Dear mother, farewell," adding the address. At this moment the Westphalian- was called by a second wounded man. When he returned lie found that his first friend had fallen back and died. An extract from another letter, which I received lately : — (Ed.) "The glory of war has a different aspect when we view it in the dim light of a hospi- tal ward, with hundreds of our fellow-crea- tures with bleeding and shattered limbs about us, and the winged Victory should be painted with crimson wings — wings dyed red with human gore. The loss of blood from some of the patients was simply enormou$!, and the six miles' journey from the field of battle must have been very trying to the poor fellows, who bore their pain with won- derful fortitude and patience, the less seri- ously wounded assisting in undressing, and in otherwise helping their more unfortunate brethren. Occasionally you hear a cry of ' Mon Dieu 1 Mon Dieu 1' and one poor fellow, with a ball right through his lungs, is gurgling out an anguished gasp for the absent doctor. Poor fellow 1 I fear the only doctor who can do him any good is that grand curer of all evils. Dr. Death. " We turn to the right and are soon on the crown of the hill, and here, God 1 what ^ THE PRANCO-CJFERMAN WAR. 49 'E 8ickenin{? sight awaits iis. There, in front, is a clean even line of dead Frenchmen, three deep, laid out with military regularity. As th^y stood in line so they fell, almost all shot through the head. Most of them have fallen forward on their faces, their arras ex- tended, some with their fingers on the trigger they never had time to pull. Some few have reeled backwards, and there is a smashed and battered face turned towards heaven. " There is another there whose face is half shot away. Surely it must be fancy — but no, it moves, and then it flashes to our mind that there may still be some living here, and ■we have a duty to do in which a neutral may engage, and we go up to him. Yes, poor fellow, he still lives, though it would almost, it seems, be the greater mercy to end that life of pain at once than attempt to save the battered remains of life he, should he live, ■will have to carry about with him. But as he lives something must be done. The ques- tion is, what ? Not a French soldier is near, not a French doctor, not one of that multi- tudinous and polyglot assemblage who sport their white Drassards' with so much com- placency in Metz. There is no help for it but to go right up to the Prussians there, and ask in (iod's name for their help for a ■wounded enemy. This is done, and with truest noble-heartedness a party of their own men and a cart are sent off with us for any wounded men we may find. Here and there we pick up another still breathing- soldier, and consign him to the kindly hands of those ■who a few hours ago were just as anxious to kill him as they are willing now to save. 'J'his is the scene of the hottest part of the fight, and the dead lie thickly around. Scarcely, however, do we see a Prussian. They have already removed them, and their •u'ounded have been cared for some hours ago. "There lies a Chasseur de Vincennes. Surely he must be living, his color is so good; ■nor can he be deeply wounded. Why. then, is he so still ? Hearing French voices near him he looks up, pretending to awake out of sleep. For about sixteen hours he has lain there in mortal funk — no other word will do — and the wretched coward appeals to Tis to deliver hira from the hands of the Prussians. I am sorely tempted to call them up and give the wretched animal into their custody; but then they would have to keep hira. and he certainly is not worth his keep, so the counsels of ray French friend prevail, and we pick the creature up. He is so stiff from his seeming death that he can scarcely stand. We call a couple of peasants, and he leans on them as though seriously wounded ; and thus we lead him away. *' A well-to-do-looking farmer stops us and tells us there are some wounded up by the wood yonder ; so across the fields we go. and here we find a heap of dead, and amongst them three poor soldiers, who have lain there since about 3 o'clock yesterday, unable to move, without a particle of food, or, above all, without a drop of water. One of us goes back to Borny to seek some help, whilst tho other stays and tries to give some relief to the cramped and stiffened limbs, or at any rate a few kindly words of hope and encour- agement. An hour's waiting brings a long country cart, with plenty of straw in it, and we lifted the poor fellows into the shaky vehicle, and jolt them over the fields as gently as possible, yet still with horrible agony to their crushed and bleeding limbs. At last we reach the road, and progress is somewhat easier, passing on our way we see another poor fellow whom it would be dangerous to lift into such a cart as ours. He needs those beautiful stretchers which are so scientifically constructed, but which are all where the doctors are, in Metz. doing nothing. Nor can we do anything for him now, poor fellow. He would probably die on the road, and meanwhile would cause an» increased agony to those we are already transporting. All we can do is to build a bower of branches to keep off the blazing sun, and send word when we get to Metz to hava him brougiit in if he should live that long." THE BATTLE OF FOEBACH. The official account of the action at Forbach is as follows : " On the forenoon of August 6, the 7th Corps d' Armee pushed its vanguard to Herchenbach, 1^ German miles northwest of Saarbruck, with outposts stretching as far as the river Saar. The preceding night the enemy had evacuated its position on tho drilling-ground of Saarbruck. "Toward noon the Cavalry Division under General Rheinhaben passed through the towa, Two squadrons formed the van. The moment they reached the highest point of the drilling- ground, and became visible to spectators on the south, they were fired at from the hills near Spicheren. " The drilling-ground ridge overhangs a deep valley stretching towards Forbach and Spicheren, and bordered on the other side by the steep and partly wooded heijiht named after the latter village. These hillt*, rising in almost perpendicular ascent several hundred feet above the valley, form a natural fortress, which needed no addition from art to be all but impregnable. Like so many bastions, the mountains project into the valley, facing it on all sides, and affording the strongest imaginable position for defence. French officers who were taken prisoners on this s|)ot confess to having smiled at the idea of the Prussians attacking them in this stronghold. There was not a man in the '2d French Corps who was not persuaded in his own mind that to attempt the Spicheren hills must lead to the utter annihilation of the besiegers. " Between 12 and 1 the 14th Division arrived at Saarbruck. Immediately proceed- ing south, it encountered a strong force of the enemy in the valley between Saarbruck and Spicheren. and opened fire forthwith. Upon this General Frossard, who was in the 60 THE FRANOO-CfERMAN WAR, act of -withdrawing a portion of his troops ■when the Prussians arrived, turned round and reoccupied the Spicheren hills with his entire force. A division of the 3d Corps, i;nder General Bazaine, came up in time to support him. " The 14th Division at first had to deal ■with far superior numbers. To limit the attack to the enemy's front would have been useless. General von Kamecke, therefore, while engaging the front, also attempted to turn the left flank of the enemy by Stiring ; but the five battalions he could spare for this operation were too weak to make an impres- sion upon the much stronger numbers of the French. Two successive attacks on his left were repulsed by General Frossard. Toward 3 o'clock, when all the troops of the division were under fire, the engagement assumed a very sharp and serious aspect. '' Eventually, however, the roar of the cannon attracted several other Prussian detachments. The division under General von Barkenow was the first to be drawn to the spot. Two of its batteries came dashing up at full speed to relieve their struggling comrades. They were promptly followed by the 40th Infantry, under Colonel Rex, and three squadrons of the 9th Hussars. At this moment the vanguard of the .5th Division was espied on the Winterberg Hill. General Stulpnagel, whose van had been stationed at Sultibach the same morning, had been ordered by General von Alvensleben to inarch his entire division in the direction from which the sound of cannon proceeded. Two batteries advanced in a forced march on the high road. The infantry were partly sent by rail from Nuenkirchen to Saarbruck. " At about 3.30 o'clock the Division Kam- ecke had been sufficientl y reinforced to enable General von Goeben, who had arrived in the xneantime and assumed the command, to make a vigorous onslaught on the enemy's front. The chief aim of the attack was the wooded portion of the declivity. The 40th Infantry, supported on its right by troops of the I4th Division, and on its left by four battalions of the 5th Division, made the assault. A reserve was formed of some battalions of the 5th and 16th Divisions, as they came up. " The charge was a success. The wood was occupied, the enemy expelled. Penetrating further, always on the ascent, the troops pushed the French before them as far as the southern outskirts of the wood. Here the French made a stand, and, combining the three arms of the service for a united attack, endeavored to retrieve the day. But our infantry were not to be shaken. At this juncture the artillery of the 5th Division accomplished a rare and most daring feat. Two batteries literally clambered up the hill of Spicheren by a narrow and precipitous anountain path. With their help a fresh iittack of the enemy was repulsed. A flank attack directed against our left from AisUn- gea and Spicheren was warded ofiF in time by battalions of the 5th Division stationed in reserve. " '{'he fighting, which for hours had been conducted with the utmost obstinacy on both sides, now reached its climax. Once more the enemy, superior still in numbers, rallied his entire forces for a grand and impetuous charge. It was his third attack after we had occupied the wood. But, like the precediiig ones, this last effort was shortened by the imperturbable calmness of our infantry and artillery. Like waves dashing and breaking against a rock, the enemy's battalions were scattered by our gallant troops. After this last failure the enemy beat a rapid retreat ; fifty-two French battalions, with the artil- lery of an entire corps, stationed in an al- most unassailable position, had thus been defeated by twenty-seven Prussian battal- ions, supported by but the artillery of one division. It was a brilliant victory, indeed. We had everything against us — numbers, guns, and the nature of the locality ; yet we prevailed. " Darkness fast setting in afi'orded its valu- able aid to the enemy in e0"ecting his re- treat. To cover this backward movement, the French artillery were stationed on the hills skirting the battle-field on the south, where they kept up a continuous but harm- less fire for a considerable time. " The ground was too difiBcult for the cav- alry to take any part in the action. Never- theless, the fruits of the victory were very remarkable. The corps under General Fros- sard, being entirely demoralized, dispersed. The road it took in its hasty flight was marked by numerous wagons with pro- visions and clothing ; the woods were filled with hosts of stragglers, wandering about in a purposeless way, and large stores and quantities of goods of every description fell into our hands. " While the battle was raging at Spicheren Hill, the 13th Division crossed the Saar at Werden, occupied Forbach, seized vast mag- azines of food and clothing, and thus forced General Frossard, whose retreat was covered by two divisions of General Bazaine, which had come up for the purpose, to withdraw to the southwest and leave free the road to St. Avoid. "The losses were very serious on both sides. The 5th Division alone has 230 dead, and about 1,800 wounded. The I'ith Infan- try has 32 ofiQcers and 800 men dead or wounded; next to this the 40th, 8th, 48th, 39th, and 74th have suffered most. The bat- teries, too, have encountered terrible loss. The number of killed and wounded on the enemy's side was at least equal to our own. The unwounded prisoners in our hands al- ready exceed 2,000, and were increasing hourly. We have also captured forty pon- toons, and the tents of the camp." THE BATTLES ABOUND METZ. Meanwhile the valley of the Moselle had become the scene of stirring events. The THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. 51 Prussian ri^lit. as already stated, liad followed the retroatini;: French under Frossard after the battle of Forbacli until they were close npon the Moselle, in which threatening position they awaited tlie arrival of the Prussian centre, under Prince Frederick Charles. 'I'he latter, strikinsr the Moselle near Pont-a-Mousson, crossed that stream on Sunday, August 14, with the object of turn- ing the French right, and cutting off com- munications with MacMahon, who had, as already stated, abandoned Nancy on the 13th and hastened westward towards Chalons, closely followed by the Prussian left under the Crown Prince. The abandonment of the line of the Moselle was the first thing determined ixpon by Ba- zaine after his increased authority under the Palikao administration. On Sunday. August 14, he began the movement of his army across the ^loselle, in the immediate vicinity of Metz, where he had collected it on the 12th. Before he had accomplished his purpose, however, the 1st and 7th Prussian Corps of General von Steinmetz's command fell upon his rear, and a serious engagement ensued, at the end of which the entire French army had succeeded in effecting the passage of the stream. But, while the Prussians Buffered a loss quite out of proportion to that inflicted on the French, the westward move- ment of the latter was materially delayed, and the first object of the Prussians practi- cally accomplished. On Monday, the 15th, the army of General von Steinmetz having crossed the Moselle, the hostile forces were engaged principally in manoeuvring for position; but there appears to have been two distinct and deter- mined engagements, and on the following day, the 16ih, there was a protracted and bloody contest. The fighting was continued on the 17th, and the struggle for the posses- sion of the roads from Metz to Verdun culminated on the 18th, in the great battle of Gravelotte. By thi.s time the original positions of the hostile armies were reversed, the Prussians facing east and the French west. The final struggle lasted from 10 o'clock in the morning until 9 in the evening. It was the battle of Sadowa, fought over again. At the opening, the junction between Prince Frederick Charles and General von Steinmetz had not been effected. The French were between two fires, but that of \'on Steinmetz did not become effective until evening, when he swept down from the north- east, and, turning the right flank of the enemy, decided the fortunes of the field. Bazaine was thrown back on Metz, his com- munications with Paris were cut off, and the Crown Prince was left at liberty to pursue his advance towards the capital, without the danger of encountering any opposition other than could be presented by MacMahon's demoralized force and the new levies that were being gathered at Chalons. THE BATTLE OF GKAVELOTTE. One of the most important battles of the war in France was that which took place near Metz, on Thursday, the 18th of August, between the forces under command of' Mar- shal Bazaine and the armies of the Prince Royal of Prussia and General Steinmetz, the result of which was the penning up of the French within the fortifications of that stronghold. From the hill the entire sweep of the Prussian and French centre could be seen, and a considerable part of their wings, and where, at the time, were the headquarters of the King. The great representative men of Prussia, soldiers and statesmen, were standing on the ground watching the conflict just begun. Among them were the King, Bismarck, General von Moltke, Prince Fred- erick Charles, Prince Carl, Prince Adalbert, and Adjutant Kranski. Lieutenant-General Sheridan, of the United States army, was also present. At the moment the French were making a most desperate effort to hold on to the last bit of the Verdun road — that between Rezonville and Gravelotte, or that part of Gravelotte which in some maps is called St. Marcel. The striiggle was desperate but unavailing, for every one man in the French army had two to cope witli, and their line was already beginning to waver. Soon it was plain that this wing, the French right, was withdrawing to a new position. 'I'his was swiftly taken up under cover of a con- tinuous fire of their artillery from the heights beyond the village. The movement was made in good order, and the position, which was reached at one o'clock and thirty minutes, would have been pronounced impregnable by nine out of ten military men. When once this movement had been effected, the French retreatuig from the pressure of the Prussian artillery fire, and the Prussians as rapidly advancing, the battle-field was no longer about Rezonville, but had been transferred and pushed forward to Gravelotte, the junc- tion of the two branching roads to Verdun. The fields in front of that village were com- pletely covered by the Prussian reserves, and interminable lines of soldiers were steadily marching onward, disappearing into the village, and emerging on the other side of it with flaming volleys, This second battle-field was less extensive than the first, and broitght the opposing forces into fearfully close quarters. The pe- culiarity of it is that it consists of two heights intersected by a deep ravine. This woody ravine is over 100 feet deep, and at the top some 300 yards wide. The side of the clasm next to Gravelotte, where the Prussians stood, is much lower than the other side^ which gradually ascends to a great height. From their commanding eminence the French held their enemies fairly beneath them, and ponrfd uporj ihem scorching tire. Th' Freuct-i stood their ground and died — th Prussians stood their ground and died — botl by hundreds, 1 had almost said thousandt 52 THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. This, for an hour or two that seemed ages, so constant was the slaughter. The hill where I stood commanded chiefly the con- flict behind the village and to the south of it. The Prussian reinforcements, coming up on their right, filed out of the Bois des Ognons ; and it was at that point, as they marched on to the field, that one could perhaps get the best idea of the magnitude of this invading army now in the heart of France. There was no break whatever for four hours in the march of men out of that wood. Birnam Wood advancing to Dunsinane Hill was not a more ominous sight to Macbeth than these men of General Goeben's army to Bazaine, shielded as they were by the woods till they were fairly within range and reach of their en- emy's guns. So the French must have felt; for between 4 and 5 o'clock they concentrated opon tha,t spot their heaviest fire, massing all available guns, and shelling the woods unre- mittingly. Their fire reached the Prussian lines and tore through them ; and, thougtj the men were steady, it was a test to which no General cares to subject his troops long. Once out from imder the trees the Prussians advanced at double-quick, '^i'he French guns had not lost the range of the wood, nor of the ground in front. Seen at a distance, through a powerftil glass, the brigade was a huge serpent bending with the undulation of the field. But it left a dark track behind it, and the glass resolved the dark track into fulling and dying and dead men. Many of those who had fallen leaped up again and ran forward a little way, striving still to go on with their comrades. Of those who went backward instead of forward there were few, though many fell as they painfully endeav- ored to follow the advance. Now and then the thick cloud which hung over the battle-field would open a little and drift away on the wind, and then the French could be seen, sorely tried. To get a better view of this part of the field, the correspon- dent went forward about half a mile, and from this new stand-point found himself not far from Malmaison. The French line on the hills was still unbroken, and, to all ap- pearances, they were having the best of the battle. . But this appearance was due, per- haps, to the fact that the French were more clearly visible on their broad height, and fighting with such singular obstinacy. They plainly silenced a Prussian battery now and then. But the Prussian line also was strength- ened by degrees on this northern point. In- fantry and artillery were brought up ; and from far in the rear — away, seemingly, in the direction of Verneville — shot and shell began reaching the French ranks. These were the men and these were the guns of Steinmetz, who there and then efiected his junction with the army of Prince Frederick Charles, and completed the investment of Metz to the northwest. Steinmetz was able to extend his line gradually further and further, until the French were outflanked and began to be threatened, as it appeared, with an attack on the rear of their extreme right wing. So lon^ as the smoke from the Prussian guns hovered only over their front, the French clung to their position. The distance from headquarters to where the Prussian flank attack stretched forward was great ; and, to add to the difficulty of clearly seeing the battle, the darkness was coming on. The puff's of smoke from the French guns mingled with the flashes, brightening as the darkness increased, receded gradually. The pillars of cloud and flame from the north as gradually and steadily approached. With that ad- vance the French fire every moment grew more slack. It was not far from nine o'clock when the ground was yielded finally on the north, and the last shots fired on that ter- rible evening were heard in that direction. So the battle raged with fluctuating suc- cess, until about half-past eight or nine in the evening, when the decisive blow was struck. When the battle of Gravel otte had actually ended, it was known that the Prus- sians held the strong heights beyond the Bois de Vaux, which command the surround- ing country to the limits of artillery range from Metz ; that two great Prussian armies lay across the only road by which Bazaine could march to Paris for its relief, or for his own escape ; that a victory greater than that of Sunday, and more decisive than the tri- umph of Tuesday, had been won ; and that, m all probability, the French army, which had fought as valiantly and as vainly as before, was now hopelessly shut up in the fortress. PARIS IN PEHIL. From first to last the engagements around Metz were claimed by the French as victo- ries, but the only foundation for this claim consisted in the alleged fact that the Prus- sians lost the greater number of men in killed and wounded, the truth of which it is impossible, even at this late day, to ascer- tain. The attempt of Bazaine to transfer his army from the neighborhood of Metz, however, was certainly foiled ; and while a portion of the united armies of Prince Fred- erick Charles and General von Steinmetz was detached to watch the French, the re- mainder were pushed forward towards the still advancing army of the Crown Prince. By the time that General Trochu assumed command of Paris, the capital was fairly per- suaded that a siege was inevitable, and every nerve was strained to prepare a determined and desperate reception for the enemy, in case they should advance to the gates of the capital. As already stated, this contingency appeared imminent, for parties of Prussian cavalry approached to within forty or fifty- miles of Paris, and at one time the eastern terminus of the railroad to Chalons and Rheims was fixed at Chateau-Thierry, but 45 miles from the capital and only half the distance to Chalons. General Trochu as- sumed the command of Paris in a proclama- THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR 53 tion issued on August 18th, and the prepara- tions for defence were steadily pressed for- ward. Laborers by the thousands swarmed upon the fortifications ; 3000 cannon, accord- mg to the French reports, were mounted upon the walls and exterior forts, manned by 15.000 well-trained cannoniers, taken for the most part from tlie navy ; a motley army of 200,000 men, in which the regular element numbered scarcely 20,000, was assembled in and around the city ; portions of the Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes were de- stroyed, to give the artillery an unimpeded command of the approaches, a large number of houses in proximity to the fortifications being demolished for the same purpose ; im- mense quantities of provisions were stored in the city, and hordes of beeves, sheep and swine collected ; the country in front of the advancing Prussians was ordered to be laid waste, and the bridges over the streams to be destroyed on their approach. The general management of these prepara- tions was entrusted to a Committee of De- fence, on which were General Trochu, Mar- shal. Vaillana, Admiral Rigault de Genouilly, Minister Jerome David. On the 23d oC Au- gust, the members of the party of the Left demanded that nine deputies be adcled to this committee. The Ministry at first resisted this demand, but on the 26th Count Napo- leon Daru, who had preceded the Duke de Graraont as Minister of Foreign Affairs imder M. Ollivier, and two Senators were added, and on the 27th it was still further strengthened by the name of the veteran Orleanist M. Thiers, to the general satisfac- tion of people of all parties. JSIacMAHON'S EFFORT TO RESCUE BAZAINE. Paris being thus occupied in preparations to take care of herself, MacMahon halted in his retreat at Chalons, and made a venture from that point towards Meziferes, with the intention of effecting a junction with Bazaine. The camp at Chalons was broken up on the 22d of August, and burned on the 2.5th, a portion of the new levies departing for the front with MacMahon, while the Garde Mo- bile of Paris, in which signs of insubordina- tion were manifest, were marched back to the capital immediately afier the departure of Trochu. The army of MacMahon had been fipread out in front of Chalons and Rheims for some days, but was finally concentrated in a general movement towards the northeast, the headquarters reaching Rethel, midway between Rheims and Meziferes, on August 2.5. While these movements were under way to the west of the Meuse, Bazaine himself was repeatedly reported as having broken through the Prussian lines around Metz, and succeeded in reopenino^ his communications with MacMahon and Paris. A small portion of Ills army, which had been cut off from the main body during the prolonged series of en- gage*nents around IN'letz, apparently suc- ceeded in accomplishing this object, but the escaping force was an inconsiderable one, if it had any existence at all, and Bazaine re- mained shut up under the guns of Metz until the final blow fell upon MacMahon at Sedan. From the morning of August 3l6t until noon on the following day, Bazaine appears to have made a last desperate attempt at pierc- ing the Prussian lines, but a portion of Prince Frederick Charles' army, under Gen. Yon Manteuffel, successfully resisted the at- tempt, and he was again hurled back upon the fortress of Metz, the engagement, which was severe as well as protracted, being styled the battle of Noiseville. The French army has been out-generalled and out-fought. At the beginning of the campaign all the conditions were in the Em- peror's favor; but Von Moltke beat him in manoeuvring as Von Steinmetz beat Fros- sard, and the Crown Prince decidedly beat MacMahon. The strategy of the Prussian left was indeed in beautiful contrast with all the French movements up to this time. In actual conflictthe superiority of the Prussians seems to have been equally marked. 'I'here have been fair standup fights and headlong charges, and the Germans have shown, in addition to their characteristic steadiness and obstinacy, all that 4lan which is sup- posed to be the distinguishing merit of the French. I shall not wonder if European armies learn the same truth which was so clearly shown in our war of the Rebellion, that young men are the best generals. The Crown Pi'ince of Prussia, who has the chief glory of the defeat of the French army, is not yet thirty-nine years old, and before he was thirty-five he had made himself a great name at Sadowa. Prince Frederick Charles, the King's nephew, who commands the Prussian right, and is esteemed the ablest of all King William's generals, is forty-two years old. Most of the fighting at Sadowa was done by his army. Nearly all the French leaders are old men. THE DOWNFALL OF CLLIVIER. All Germany was thrown into a blaze of enthusiasm by these startling victories, and all France was overwhelmed with dismay. The news of the disasters reached Paris on the 7th, and that turbulent city was seized with a paroxysm of rage and defiance. The first and foremost object of condemnatiou was the Ministry, through whose incompe- tency the people believed disaster had fallen upon the army. The Corps L^gislatif was culled together on the 9th, and a terrible scene was enacted on the opening of the ses- sion. A^ast multitudes of people surrounded the hall wherein the Deputies assembled, which was protected by a large force of regu- lar troops under Marshal Baraguay d'Hil- liers, the couniiander of Paris. 'I'liese troops were greeted with derisive shouts of "To the frontier !" and a serious encounter between them and the people was barely averted. 54 TliE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. But th-e passions of the populace were soon gratified by the result of the proceedin.o-s within the hall. When M. Ollivier ascended the tribune and announced that the deputies had been called together before the situation of the country was compromised. M. Jules Favre cried out, " Descend from the tribune ; this is shameful !" Protestations of ability on the part of the Ministry to save the coun- try were unavailinf?. M. Favre demanded that t?ie Chamber should at once assume the manarrement of affairs through an executive committee of fifteen members, a proposition which the president, M. Schneider, refused to entertain, because of its revolutionary and" unconstitutional character. A terrible scene of disorder ensued in which there were sev- eral personal conflicts. Finally M. Ollivier made a stand by resisting the demand for the order of the day, but it was carried in his face, and after a short recess he announced the resignation of the Ministry, and the selection by the Empress Regent of the Count de Palikao as the head of the new Cabinet. The new Premier selected for himself the portfolio of War, and on the following day announced as the names of his colleagues the Prince de la Tour d'Auvergne, Foreign Af- fairs; Henri Chevreau, Interior; Admiral Regault de Genouilly, (the old incumbent, and the only member of the Ollivier Ministry retained,) Marine ; Pierre Magne, Finance; Jerome David, Public Works ; Jules Brarae, Public Instruction ; M. Grand-Perret, Jus- iice; Clement Duvernois, Agriculture and Doramerce ; and M. Busson-Biliault, Presi- i!ent of the Council of State. The new Min- istry, without exception, belonged to the ex- ireme Bonapartist party, the partjr which had been overthrown to make way for the so- called "responsible" Ministry, at the head ef which Ollivier had been placed. But from the outset they seemed to possess the confi- dence of the people, and they went to work with a will to repair the shattered fortunes of France. M. Magne, who had frequently been at the head of the Department of Fi- nance before, and had been the instrument through which Napoleon had negotiated nearly all the loans of his reign, introduced and carried a measure for a new war loan of 2,500.000,000 francs, and Imperialists and Republicans vied with each other in advocat- ing measures for the placing of every able- Iwdied Frenchman under arms. The Repub- licans, le^d by Favre, Gambetta, and Kera- try, however, indulged in daily assaults upon the head of the Government, denouncing the Emperor for meddling with the management of the army, and charging the majority with the responsibility of having entered upon a war for which the country was not prepared. Marshal Bazaine was placed in chief corn- mind of the army; Le Boeuf, who, as previous Minister of War and subsequently Major-General or Chief-of-Staff of the army, was justly held accountable in great part for the Prussian victories, was deposed ; General Trochu, who liad enjoyed a high reputation as a soldier, without having an opportunity to display his ability, was named as Le Boeuf's successor, but sent at first to the camp at Chalons to organize the new levies, and from that position called back to Paris, on August 17, as Military Governor of the capital, in place of Marshal Paraguay d'llill- iers ; and throughout France, as well as in Paris, there was siich an expression of deter- mination to repel the invader, that the entire nation appeared at last to have realized the magnitude of its peril and risen to an equality with the situation. THE PEKIL or PARIS, THE POSITION OF THE CAPITAL FROM A FRENCH STAND- POINT — ITS DEFEASES — THE VULNERABLE POINT — HOW THE SIEGE MUST BE CONDUCTED. Paris is not an ordinary fortress, it is a vast intrenched camp, defended by more than half a million of men, and protected by a wall of circumvallation eighteen miles in cir- cumference,, defended by ninety-three bas- tions, and fortified in accordance with the most perfect rules of the art. Nor is this all. These strong defenses are themselves de- fended, at distances varying from one and a quarter miles to four and a half miles, by a girdle of fifteen detached forts, provided with seven great ©utworks, flanking each other, and forming a second inclosure of thirty miles in circumference, whose powerful artil- lery can sweep everything before it at a distance of six miles. Paris, finally, is defended by the Seine, by the Marne, and by a circular railroad with which all the lines in France are connected, and which renders it possible to convey troops with great rapidity to the points menaced in the outer or inner line of fortifications. A place of this extent can be subjected neither to a proper siege nor to an investment complete enough to shut out reinforcements and supplies. It can, then, only be attacked at a given point, and the question remains what is the most vulnerable point of this immense circuit. The forts of the east — Romainville, Noesy, Rosny, Nogent. and Vincennes — are very advantageously situated on the summit of a plateau, partly covered by the Marne. They form a formidable line of defence, and it would be imprudent — so the Prussian oflficei form- ally declares — to attempt an attack at this point. Nor must an attack be thoiightof on the Fort Charenton. situated to the south of the preceding, because, after its capture, it would be necessary to cross the Marne, under the triple fire of the forts of Vincennes, Ivry, and inner works of Paris. To the south of Paris and to the west of Charenton are situated the forts of Irry and Bicetre. but the siege works could only be executed under the fire of the adjoining forts. The other forts on the south — Montrouge, Vannes. and Issy — rising on the steep heights which extend from Sceaux to Versailles, are difficult of attack, and the same may be said of the citadel of Mont Valerien, the only fort which THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. tr iefends Paris on the west. Mont Valerien 8 situated at a distance of five miles from ;he fort of Isay, but counting from the latter, Paris is doubly covered by the Seine, which irst flows to the northeast, forms a bend, joins tlie forts of St. Denis, and then directs ts course to the southwest, parallel to and slightly distant from the first curve. Exactly n the middle of these bendings of the river s situated Mont Valerien. The French jould launch vessels upon the Seine, armed vith guns of heavy calibre, which would nflicl cruel havoc on the besiegers. The ■iver Seine, from Issy to St. Gloud. and aeyond Mont Valerien, is besides protected jy obstacles in the shape of wooded heights md country villas, which could easily be vdapted for purposes of defense. The efforts of the besiegers must therefore )e directed upon St. Denis, and here we jorrow the exact words of the Prussian Lieutenant-CoJonel : — " For a German be- sieging army, the points of attack of the fortifications of Paris are naturally the north md northeast. In the first place they are :he weakest, for the east front is partly jovered by the Marne. and those of the south md west are the strongest, and their attack TTiight compromise the line of retreat of the jesiegers, upon which the French army of •eserve would not fail to operate. So as not ;o expose themselves to have this cut, the jesif'gers must choose the north as the point )f attack, for their army of observation ought ;o cover the lines of retreat which will follow ;he course of the Meuse and the Seine, as hey could also be able to restore the railroads Tom Strasburg and Muhlhouse which run ilong these valleys. These roads would also serve for the transport of siege material from the Rhine fortresses, if the French positions 3aptured had not already furnished it. In my case the material must be of the very heaviest calibre. Admitting that the German array of observation should be stronger than the French army of reserve, and that the latter, held at a distance from Paris, was nnable to interrupt the siege, St. Denis should be the first point of attack. Its capture would, in fact, permit of an advance towards Montmartre on the wall of circumvallation, without being exposed to the flank and rear fire of the outer forts. Only those who start from the Seine need be regarded with any apprehension. The three forts of St. Denis and that of Aubervilliers will be simultaneously be- sieged, and a less serious attack will be made on the other forts facing east. The siege will then assume the same character as that of Sebastopol, and the siege works will have to be undertaken at the same time against a line of fortifications extending over several leagues. St. Denis is situated on the right bank of the Seine, which.^at this point, dou- bles back on its course, and forms a tongue of land whence the siege works might be taken in flank and rear. Its occupation by the besiegers becomes thus a necessity. It is difficult, but not impossible, if the Seine is crossed in the neighborhood of Argenteuil. The besiegers will then be able to command the citadel of Mont Valerien, situated upon the second tongue of land, to destroy the railroad communication of the left bank of the Seine with Paris, and to cover the attack upon St. Denis. A bridge thrown over the Seine would place them in communication with the troops operating on the right bank. In order to execute this daring plan, the Prussian strategist assigns to each corps of the invading army the place it ought to »c- cupy, and the part it will be called upoi. to play in the general plan of operations. He places 50,000 men before the three forts of St Denis, and on the tongue of lajid formed by the Seine betwt-en St. Denis and Mount Valerien. He masses 20,000 men on the north at St. Denis in order to cover the siege of this point, and to reinforce the corps isolated on both banks of the Seine. These 70,000 men are to find their material of prepa- ration to the north of St. Denis, or in the forest of Bondy. We might concentrate, he adds, 30,000 men in this forest, 20.000 at Bourget, behind La Molette, and 30,000 at Neuilly-sur-Marne, in order to occupy the routes from Metz and from Coulommiers, and sustain the besieging corps at St. Denis. The 20,000 men at Bourget would menace the fort of Aubervilliers, and might be able to besiege it. They would be scarcely two and a half miles distant from St. Denis, and would form, along with the troops posted at this point, a mass of 90,000 men. These, united with the 30,000 established in the forest of Bondy, at two and a half miles from Bourget, would be able to offer in this forest a very energetic resistance in the event of being compelled to retreat, or if they wished to act against the sallies in force of the be- ■ sieged, to which they would necessarily be exposed. On the other hand, the 30,000 men posted at Neuilly, on the right bank of the Marne, will be able to occupy the hill to the east of the fort of Rosny, and to under- take a series of attacks, not very formidable, it is true, against the forts facing east, as well as to form, with the 30,000 men, in the forest of Bondy, an army of 60,000, which could secure the path of retreat. Other 30,000 men should be placed between Neuilly- sur-Marne and Villeneuve-sur-Seine, in order to observe the roads which start from the confluence of the Seine and the Marne towards the east. Bridges established on the Marne would place these 30,000 men in com- munication with the troops established on the right bank at Neuilly. The besieging army would then number 180.000 men, but to besiege Paris this is not sufficient. To protect adequately the besiegers, a great army of observation is required. This rale is assigned by the Prussian lieutenant-colonel to the 3d Amy, whom he supposes to num- ber 120,000 men, and to whom he wishes to join a 4th army, penetrating into France by way of Switzerland. On this hypothesis, tlie §8 THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. invading army would arrive before Paris ■with an effective strength of 400.000 men. The task of the latter divisions would be to hold the French army of relief as far from Paris as possible, to intercept supplies, and to destroy the railroads which place Paris in communication with the south and west of France. DEPUTY JULES FAVRE. 5?HE MAN FOR PRESIDENT OP THE FRENCH RP.PUBLTC — A SKETCH OF HI.S CAREER A LIFE DEVOTED TO THE CAUSE OF LIBRRTV, AND UNTAINTED WITH FANATI- CISM — HIS BRILLIANT POLITICAL RECORD, AND EARNEST ANTAGONISM TO BONAPARTISM IN EVERY SHAPE. As a Arm, consistent, and constant advo- cate for more than twenty years of Repub- lican principles, M. Jules Favre occupies a leading position in the Corps L^gislatif of France. Indeed, there is but one man who has pretended to dispute with him the leader- ship of the true Republican party since Emile Ollivier went over to the Empire for the sake of making his futile experiment at constitutional government under a Bonaparte regime, and that man is M. Gambetta. Gabriel Claude Jules Favre is almost twice as old as his rival, Gambetta, having been born at Lyons on March 31, 1809. In the revolution of July, 1830, which foimd him a student at law in Paris, he took an active part, and from that day to this, through the press, at the bar, and in the different Na- tional Assemblies, he has remained a bold, un- daunted, outspoken champion of the better type of French republicanism. The inde- pendence of his character, the bitter irony of his address, and the consistent radicalism of his opinions, soon achieved for him a repu- tation, which has never been sullied by any compromise with Bonapartism other than the taking of the oath of allegiance to the Empire, when he finally entered the Corps L6gislatif. He was admitted to the bar soon after arriving at age, and during the reign of Louis Phillippe devoted himself mainly to the practice of his profession. It was not until after the Revolution of Febru- ary, 1848, that he entered office for the first time. He then became Secretary-General to the Minister of the Interior, and in that capa- city was called on to write the circular to the Commissioners of the Provisional Govern- ment and the famous " Bulletins " of 1848. He was soon transferred to the Under-Secre- taryship for Foreign Affairs, and, being elected a member of the Assembly, voted for the prosecution of Louis Blanc and Caussi- diere, for their complicity in the insurrection of June, 1848 ; refused to join in the vote of thanks to General Cavaignac ; and resolutely opposed the expedition to Rome in Decem- ber, 1848, by which Louis Napoleon incurred the hostility of the leading republicans with whom he had theretofore affHiated. He op- posed the elevation of the Bonaparte adven- turer to the Presidency, and after that event became his strenuous antagonist in the National Assembly. The implication of Ledrn-Rollin in the plot to overthrow the Prince President rendered it necessary for the leader of the " Mountain " party to seek safety in England, after which Jules Favre succeeded to the leadership. By the cotip d'etat he was driven into re- tirement, as he refused to take the oath of allegiance to the new Constitution on being elected a member of the Counseil-General of Loire-et-Rhone. He then devoted himself for some years to his profession, and as one of the counsel of Orsini, in October, 18ii8, created an immense sensation by the bold- ness and eloquence of his defence of the reckless enthusiast who had attempted the life of the Emperor. But he entered the Corps L6gislatif the same year, taking the oath of allegiance to the empire which he de- tested ; and since that time, by successive re-elections in 1863 and 1869, has signalized himself by an unswerving antagonism of the Imperial policy. He was one of the original "five" opposition members, has advocated the complete liberty of the press, opposed the " law of deportation," fought against French interference in the Italian war of in- dependence against Austria, in 18.o9. and in 1864 severely assailed the ill-starred Mexican venture of the Emperor. In 1837, he pub- lished a work entitled " Contemporaneous Biography," and since that time many of his famous speeches, and several pamphlets have been given to the public in a permanent form. In August, 1860, and again in 1861, he was elected hatonnier or president of the order of advocates at Paris, a fitting recog- nition of his high standing in the profession; and in May, 1867, he became a member of the French Academy. When Napoleon showed signs of yielding something to the pressure of public opinion, after the general elections of May. 1869. M. Favre's name came to be mentioned promi- nently in connection with Ollivier's as the head of the responsible ministry which was about to be installed. But he soon dispelled the possibility of the scheme by declaring his dissatisfaction with the proposed "con- stitutional regime." " So long," he wrote in September last, " as the press is amenable to judges only, and not to a jury ; so long as there is no guarantee for individual liberty ; so long as elections are not free, and the mayors are not elected by the populations ; so long as an enormous standing army weighs upon our budget, we si: uld be the most contemptible people on earth if w© were satisfied." So he succeeded to the posi- tion vacated by Ollivier, on the latter's ac- cession to power. On the 25th of June last, just before the war-cloud gathered over .Europe, M. Favre delivered a famous speech in the Chamber, in which he was as unmerciful to the first empire as to the second. While supporting a proposal of the Left that the municipalities should be allowed to elect their mayors, he asserted that the inherent rights of the THE rilANCO-GERMAK WAR. 59 aunicipalitiest, recognized as early as tlie ■-hirtoeuth century, had been stamped out by the first Napoleon. Dazzled by tlie glit- ter of his military glory, France was still under the inOuence of his tyrannical ideas, under the false impression tliat a genius liud saved her from ruin, while in reality he had ruined lier and annihilated her liberties. This plain speaking created a great uproar, and when (jranier de Cassaignac, one of tlie most servile tools of the third Napoleon, mterrupted him with the declaration that the first Napoleon " covered France with institutions; you and your friends with ruins." M. Favre referred to the humiliation of France through foreign invasions, which would have been averted if liberty had held command of the army instead of despotism, declared that there was not a single man in the Chamber who would venture to assert that liberty existed under the first empire, and continued : — " I am vindicating the glory of the country against the unconscious vota- ries of despotism, who are anxious to revive traditions tvhich ivould once more bring about our degradation!'^ 'I'hese stirring words, uttered scarcely three weeks before the declaration of war against Prussia, and before there was a sign of the approaching conflict, were uncon- sciously prophetic. The rise of the HohenzoUern difficulty found M. Favre fully prepared to lead the assault upon the Ollivier Government. On tne 8th of July, when the ministry attempted to secure a postponement of the discus- sion of the question, and refused to lay be- fore the Chamber the documents relating to it, he declaied that the object of delay was to afferd an opportunity for stock-jobbing on the Bourse, and when the final declaration of war came, took his stand by the side of Thiers and Gambetta, and insisted upon the production of all the correspondence with Prussia, declaring that France could not make war on the authority of mere telegrams. But after the Fren?;h defeat at Weissenburg, he at once urged an unflinching resistance to the invader, joining with sixteen other depu- ties on the 8th of August in signing a de- mand that all France should be armed to repel the enemy. On the 9th the Corps Legislatif was re- assembled by order of the Empress, and in the exciting scene which ensued, ending in Ollivier's downfall, M. Favre played an im- portant part. Ollivier opened the session by stating that the deputies had been called to- gether bel'ore tiie situation of the country had been compromised, to which M. Favre answered that it had already been compro- mised by the incapacity of its chief. ''De- scend from the tribune," he cried out to Olli- vier; "this is shameful! In spite of its government, the country is patriotic, but it is vilely ruled." He then offered resolutions for arming every able-bodied citizen of Paris on the electoral lists, and for investing in an executive ^mmiltee of fifteen members the full powers of the Government for repelling foreign invasion In his speech in support of these propositions, M. Favre insisted that the Emperor should be recalled from the army, and that the only hope of saving the country was by wresting power from incapa- ble hands that then held it. His proposition for the assumption of supreme authority by the Corps Legislatif was declared by the President, the obsequious Schneider, to be revolutionary, and that functionary refuse<^l to submit it to a vote. The Ollivier ministry were driven from power, and on the accession of the Count de Palikao, M. Favre gave the new government his cordial support in all measures for the resistance of the invaders, continually and repeatedly urging upon it, however, t^ie ne- cessity for prompt and decisive action. He also continued to maintain that all the mis- fortunes of the country came from that fatal mismanagement to which the Chamber had been compelled to submit ; and, after the disastrous battles near Metz and the ap- proach of the Crown Prince at the head of his army towards the capital, endeavored to inspire his countrymen with patriotic zeal, denouncing as thrice accursed the citizen of France who foiinded his hopes for the future upon defeat and ruin. Such has been the career of Jules Favre — a career which is happily as free from fanati- cism as it is from treachery to the cause of liberty and justice. He has never displayed any tendencies towards the "irreconcilable" school of which Raspail and Rochefort are the types, and thus retains the confidence and respect of those who preferred stability under a Bonaparte to anarchy under a mod- ern Jacobin. In patriotism, in experience, in discretion, in ability, and in devotion to the cause of true Republicanism, Jules Favre is the foremost man in France. He com- bines perhaps in a greater degree than any of his contemporaries the elements of sta- bility and radicalism ;' and, if a republic is to rise from the ruins of the empire, his claims upon the chief magistracy of the nation are superior to those of any who may antagonize them. Whether, in the tumult of the great upheaval, his rare worth will receive its fit- ting recognition is a question which time alone can decide. THE REVOLUTION IN PARIS. CORRPCTED LIST OF THE NATIONAL DEFENSE GOVERN- MENT THE NEW MINISTRY. Paris, September 5. — The following is a corrected list of the Provision Government taking the name of the National Defense Government : — Emmanuel Arago, Cremieux, Jules Favre, Jules Ferry, Gambetta. Garnier- Pages, Glais-Bizoin, Pelletan, Ernest Picard, Rochefort, Jules Simon. The Ministry is as follows: Minister of Foreign Affairs — Jules Favre. Minister of Justice — Isaac Cremieux. Minister of the Interior — Leon Gambetta. Minister of Finance — Ernest Picard. 60 THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. Superintendent of Public Works — Pierre Dorian. Minister of Commerce — Joseph Magnin. Superintendent of Public Instruction — Jules Simon. Minister of Marine — Martin Fourichon. Minister of War — Louis Jules Trochu ; also, President of the Committee. The French Republic of 1870 has been recognized by the United States, and this comes about by the fall of Napoleon. THg DECISIVE BATTLE OP THE WAB. KARSHAL MACMAHON's WHOLE ARHT CAPTURED — THE EMPEROR SURRENDERS TO KING WILLIAM — MACMA- HON SEVERELY W.OUKDED — DESPATCH FBOU ; KING WILLIAM. Before Sedan, France, ■ Friday, Sept. 2 — 1:22 p. M. From the King to the Queen. — A capitula- tion, whereby the whole army at Sedan are prisoners of war, has just been concluded with Gen. Wimpfen, commanding, instead of Marshal MacMaJion, who is wounded. The Emperor surrendered himself to me, as he lias no command, and left everything to the Regency at Paris. His residence I shall appoint after an interview with him at a rendezvous to be fixed immediately. Under God's guidance, what a course events have taken ! THE BATTLE AND THE SUBBENDEB. THE FRENCH CUT OFF FROM MEZIERES — SEDAN COM- PLETELY SURROUNDED — THE FORTIFICATIONS CAR- RIED BY THE BAVARIANS — THE EMPEROR'S LETTER TO KING WILLIAM. (The following account I take from the New York Tribune's correspondent. This paper, during the war, had full and correct accounts of every battle, and its dispatches were copied throughout the United States. — Ed.) " The battle of Sedan began at 6 a. m. on the 1st of September. Two Prussian corps were in position on the west of Sedan, hav- ing got there by a long forced march, so as to cut off the French retreat to M6ziferes. On the south of Sedan was the First Bava- rian Corps, and on the east, across the Meuse, the Second Bavarian Corps. The Saxons were on the northeast with the Guards. I was with the King throughout the day on the hill above the Meuse, com- manding a splendid view of the valley of the river and the field. " After a tremendous battle, the Prussians caving completely surrounded Sedan, and the Bavarians having actually entered the fortifications of the city, the Emperor capitu- lated at 5:15 p. m. His letter to the king of Prussia said : " ' ,4s / cannot die at the head of my army, I lay my sivord at the feet of your Majesty. ' '•Napoleon left Sedan for the Prussian head-quarters at Vendresse, at 7 A. m. on the 2d September. MacMahon's whole army 'comprising 100,000 men, capitulated without conditions. The Prussians had 240,000 troops engaged or in reserve, the>-French 120,000." Head-quarters King of Germans, eight miles from Sedan, Thursday night Sept. 1, 1870. WHAT THE FBENCH PEISONEBS SAY. After their defeats on the 30th and Slst ult., the French retreated en masse on Sedan, and encamped around it. From what I learned from the French prisoners — of whom, as you may imagine, there was no lack in our quarter — it seems that they fully be- lieved that the road to M^ziferes would al- ways be open to them, and that therefore, in case of another defeat before Sedan, their retreat would be easily accomplished. A FOBCED HABCH. On the evening of Wednesday, from 5 to 8 o'clock, I was at the Crown Prince's quar- ters at Chemery, a village some thirteen miles from Sedan to the south-south-west on the main road. At half-past five we saw that there was a great movement among the troops encamped all around us, and we thought at first that the King was riding through the bivouacs ; but soon the 37th regiment came pouring through the village, their band playing Die Wacht am Rhein as they marched along with a swinging stride. I saw at once by the men's faces that some- thing extraordinary was going on. It was soon plain that the troops were in the light- est possible marching order. All their knap- sacks were left behind, and they were carry- ing nothing but cloaks slung around their shoulders, except that one or two hon vivants had retained their camp-kettles. But if the camp-kettles were left behind, the cartouche- cases were there — hanging heavily in front of the men's belts, unbalanced, as they ought to be, by the knapsacks. Soon I learned that the whole Prussian corps — those lent from Prince Frederick Charles' army, the Second Army, and the Crown Prince's — were making a forced march to the left in the direction of Donchery and M6ziferes, in order to shut in MacMahon's army in the west, and so drive them against the Belgian frontier. I learned from the officers of the Crown Prince's staff that at the same time, while we were watching regiment after regi- ment pass through Chemery the Saxons and the Guards, 80.000 strong on the Prussian right, under Prince Albert of Saxony, were also marching rapidly, to close on the doomed French army on the right bank of the Meuse, which they had crossed at Re- milly, on Tuesday the 30th, in the direction of La Chapelle, a small village of 930 inhabi- tants on the road from Sedan to Bouillon, m Belgium, and the last village before crossing the frontier. Anything more splendid than the men's marching, it would be impossible to imagine. I saw men lame in both feet hobbling ahuig in the ranks, kind comrades less footsore car- rying their needle-guns. Those- who were actually incapable of putting one foot before THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. 6J anotlicr. had pressed peasants' wagons and every available conveyance into service, and were followinsj in the rear, so as to be ready tor the prreat battle, which all felt sure would conic off on the morrow. The Bavarians, who. it is generally believed, do not march so well as they fight, were in the center, be- tween us at Cheraery and Sedan, encamped around the woods of La Marfce, famous for a great battle in 1641, during the wars of the League. When I had seen the last regiment dash through — for the pace at which they went can really not be called "marching" in the ordinary sense — I rode off about a quarter past eight in the evening for Vend- resse where the King's headquarters were, and where I hoped to find house-room for man and beast, especially the latter, as be- ing far the most important on the eve of a great battle. When I got within about half a mile of Yendresse, going at a steady trot, a sharp "Halt!" rang out through the clear air. I brought my horse to a stand-still, knowing that Prussian sentries are not to be trifled with. As I pulled up 20 yards off", I heard the clicks of their locks as they brought their weapons to full cock and covered me. My reply being satisfactory, I jogged on into Vendresse, and my mare and myself had soon forgotten sentinels, forced marches, and coming battles, one of us on the straw, the other on the floor. THE START FOR THE BATTLE-FIELD. At seven, Thursday morning, my servant came to wake me, saying that the King's horses were harnessing, and that His Majesty would leave in half an hour for the battle- field ; and as a cannonade had already been heard near Sedan, I jumped up, seized crusts of bread, wine, cigars, etc., and crammed them into my holster, taking my breakfast on the way. Just as I got to my horse, King William drove out in an open carriage with four horses, for Chevange, about three and a half miles south of Sedan. Much against ray will, I was compelled to allow the King's staff to precede me on the road to the scene of ac- tion, where I arrived myself soon after nine o'clock. It was impossible to ride fast, all the roads being blocked up with artillery, ammunition wagons, ambulances, etc. As I ode on to the crest of the hill which rises harply about 600 or 700 feet above the little amlet of Chevange, nestled in a grove below, A HOST GLORIOUS PANORAMA. burst on my view. As General Forsyth of the United States array remarked to me later in the day, it would have been worth the coming, merely to see so splendid a scene, without •' battle's magnificently stern array." In the lovely valley below us, from the knoll on which I stood with the King and his staff, we could see not only the whole Valley -of the Meuse (or Maas, as the Germans love to call the river that liouis XIV stole from them), but also beyond the great woods of Bois de Loup and Francheval into Belgium, and as far as the hilly forest of Numo on the other side of the frontier. Right at our feet lay the little town of Sedan, famous for its fortifications by Vauban, and as the birth- place of Turenne — the great Marshal. It is known, also, as the place where Sedan chairs originated. As we were only about two and a quarter miles from the town, we could easily distinguish its principal edifices with- out the aid of our field-glasses. On the left was a pretty church, its Gothic spire of sandstone offering a conspicuous target for the Prussian guns, had Gen. Moltke thought fit to bombard the town. To the right, ou the southeast of the church, was a large bar rack, with the fortifications of the citadel. Behind it and beyond this to the southeast again was the old chateau of Sedan, with picturesque, round-turreted towers of the sixteenth century, very useless even against four-pounder Krupp field-pieces. This build- ing, I believe, is now an arsenal. Beyond this was the citadel — the heart of Sedan — on a rising hill above the Meuse to the south- east, but completely commanded by the hills on both sides the river which runs in front of the citadel. A GRAVE FREIICH BLUNDER. The French had flooded the low meadows in the valley before coming to the railway bridge at Bazeille, in order to stop the Ger- mans from advancing on the town in that direction. With their usual stupidity (for one can find no other word for it), the French had failed to mine the bridge at Ba- zeille, and it was of immense service to the Prussians throughout the battle. The Prus- sians actually threw up earthworks on tha iron bridge itself to protect it from the French, who more than once attempted early in the day to storm the bridge, in the hope of breaking the Bavarian communicaiion between the right and left banks of the Meuse. This tiiey were unable to do ; and although their cannon-shot have almost de- molished the parapet, the bridge itself was never materially damaged. POSITION OF THE CONTENDING FORCES. On the projecting spurs of the hill, crowned by the woods of La Marfee, of which I have already spoken, the Bavarians had posted two batteries of six-pounder rifled breech-loadmg steel Krupp guns, which kept up a duello till the very end of the day with the siege guns of Sedan across the Meuse. Still further to the right flank, or rather, to the east (for our line was a circular one — a cresent at first, with Sedan on the center like the star on the Turkish standard), was an undulating plain, above the village of Bazeille. Terminating about a mile and a half from Sedan, at the woods near Rubeceurt, midway — that is to say, in a line from Bazeille north — there is a ravine watered by a tiuy brook, which was 62 THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. the scene o( the most desperate struggle and of the mest frightful slaughter of the whole battle. This stream, whose name I have forgotten, if it ever had one, runs right behind the town of Sedan. From the woods of Fleigreuse on the north behind the town, rises a hill dotted with cot- tages and fruit-laden orchards, and crowned by the wood of La Garenne which runs down to the valley of which I havejust spoken. Between this wood and the town were several French camps, their white shelter tents standing out clear among the dark fruit-trees. In these camps one could see throughout the day huge masses of troops which were never used. Even during the height of the battle, they stood as idle as Fitz John Porter's at the second battle of Bull-Run. We imagined that they must have been undisciplined Gardes Mobiles whom the French Generals dared not bring out against their enemy. To the Prussian left of these French camps, separated from them by a wooded ravine, was a long bare hill, something like one of the hills on Long Island, This hill, on which was some of the hardest fighting of the day, formed one of the keys of the position of the French army. When once its crests were covered with Prussian artillery, the whole town of Sedan was completely at the mercy of the German guns, as they were not only above the town, but the town was almost •within musket range of them. Still further to the left lay the village of Illy, set on fire early in the day by the French shells. South of this the broken railway bridge, blown up by the French to protect their right, was a conspicuous object. Right above the railway bridge on the line to M6zifere8 was the wooded hill crowded by the new and most hideous " chateau," as he calls it, of one Monsieur Pave. It was here the Crown Prince and his stafi" stood during the day, having a rather more extensive but less central view, and therefore less desirable than ours, where stood the King, Count Bismarck, Von Roon, the War Minister, Gen. Moltke, and Gens. Sheridan and For- syth — to say nothing of your correspondent. THE PKTISSIAN PLAN OF BATTLE. Having thus endeavored to give some faint idea of the scene of what is in all probability the decisive battle of the war. 1 will next give an account of the position of the difi"er- ent corps at the commencement of the ac- tion, premising that all the movements were of the simplest possible nature, the object of the Prussian generals being merely to close the crescent of troops with which they began into a circle by effecting a junction between the Saxon corps on their right and the Prus- sian corps on their left. This jmiction took place about noon, near the little village of Olley.on the Bazeille ravine, behitd Sedan, of •which I have already spoken Once their terrible circle formed and well soldered to- gether, it grew steadily smaller and smaller, until at last the fortifications of Sedan itself were entered. On the extreme right were the Saxons — one copps d'armee, with King William's Guards ; also, a corps d'armee in reserve be- hind them. The Guards had suffered terri- bly at Gravelotte, where they met the Imperial Guard ; and the King would not allow them to be again so cruelly decimated. Justice compels me to state that this ar- rangement was very far, indeed, from being pleasing to the Guards themselves, who are ever anxious to be in the forefront of the battle. The Guards and Saxons, then about 75,000 strong, were all day on the right bank of the Meuse. between Rubecourt and La Chapelle, at which latter village Prmce Albert of Saxony, who was in command of the two corps which have been formed into a httle extra army by themselves, passed the night of Thursday. The ground from Rubecourt to the Meuse was occupied by the First Bavarian Corps. The Second Bavarian Corps extended their front from near the Bazeille railway-bridge to a point on the high road from Donchery to Sedan, not far from the little village of Torcy. Below the hill on which the Crown Prince was placed, the ground from Torcy to Illy, throitgh the large village of Floing, was held by the First and Third Prussian Corps, belonging to the army of Prince Frederick Charles, and temporarily attached to the army of the Crown Prince. This was the position of the troops about 9 o'clock on Thursday morning, September 1st, and no great advance took place till later than that, for the artillery had at first all the work to do. Still further to the left, near Donchery, there were 20.000 WUrtembergers ready to cut off the French from M^ziferes, in case of their making a push for that fortress. THE FOBCES ENGAGED. The number of the Prussian troops engaged was estimated by General Moltke at 240,000, and that of the French at 120,000. We know that MacMahon had with him on Tuesday 120,000 men, that is, four corps , his own, that lately commanded by General De Failly, now under General Le Brun; that of Felix Douay, brother of General Abel Douay, killed at Weissenburg ; and a fourth corps principally composed of Garde Mobile, the name of whose commander has escape-i me. MacMahon, although woimded, com- manded in chief on the French side. It is almost needless to say that the real Commander-in-Chief of the Prussians was Von Moltke; with the Crown Prince and Prince Albert of Saxony immediately next in command. OPENING OF THE BATTLE. There were a few stray cannon shots fired, merely to obtain the range, as soon as it was- CITIZE2q-S AIS^D SOLDIERS AT WORK 01^ THE EORTIEICATIONS OF PARIS. aJurocr ttnb ^oMUn mMUn m ben fBtx\^nnmm t>on gJoril. PRINCE LEOPOLD OF HOHEXZOLLERN-SIGMARINGEN. THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. er Mglit ; bnt the real battle did not begin until C o'clock, becoming a sharp artillery fight at 9, when the batteries had each got within easy rang^. and the shells began to do serious mischief. At 11:55 the musketry fire in the valley behind Sedan, which had opened about 11:25, became exceedingly lively — being one continuous rattle, only broken by tlie loud growling of the mitrailleuses, which played with deadly effect upon the Saxon and Bava- rian columns. Gen. Sheridan, by whose side I was standing at the time, told me that he did not remember ever to have heard such a well-sustained fire of small arms. It made itself heard above the roar of the batteries at our feet. At 12 o'clock precisely the Prussian battery «f six guns on the slope above the broken railway bridge over the Meuse, near La Villette, had silenced two batteries of French guns at the foot of the bare hill already mentioned, near the village of Floing. At 12:10 the French infantry, no longer sup- ported by their artillery, were compelled to retire to Floing, and soon afterward the junction between the Saxons and Prussians behind Sedan was announced to us by Gen. Von Roon, eagerly peering through a large telescope, as being safely completed. THE 7BENCH SUSBOUNSED. ^ From this moment the result of the battle could no longer be doubtful. The French "were completely surrounded and brought to bay. At 12:25 we were all astonished to see clouds of retreating French infantry on the hill between Floing and Sedan, a Prussian battery in front of St. Menges making accu- rate practice with percussion shells among the receding ranks. The whole hill for a quarter of an hour was literally covered with Frenchmen running rapidly. Less than half an hour afterward — at 12:50 — Gen. Von Roon called our attention to another French column in full retreat to the right of Sedan, on the road leading from Bazeille to the La Garenne wood. They never halted until they came to a red-roofed house on the outskirts of Sedan itself. Al- most at the same moment Gen. Sheridan, who was using my opera-glass, asked me to look at a third French column moving up a broad, grass-covered road through the La Garenne wood, immediately above Sedan, lonbtless to support the troops defending the important Bazeille ravine to the north- east of the town. THE KET OF THE POSITION. At 1 o'clock the French batteries on the edge of the wood toward Torcy and above it opened a vigorous fire on the advancing Prussian columns of the Third Corps, whose evident intention it was to storm the hill northwest of La Garenne, and so gain the key of the position on that side. At 1 :05 yet another French battery near the wood opened on the Prussian columns, which were compelled to keep shifting their ground till ready for their final rush at the hills, in order to avoid offering so good a mark to the French shells. Shortly afterward we saw the first Prussian skirmishers on the crest of the La Garenne hills above Torcy. They did not seem to be in strength, and General Sheri- dan, standing behind me, exclaimed : "Ah ! the beggars are too weak ; they can never hold that position against all those French." The General's prophecy soon proved cor- rect, for the French advanced at least six to one ; and the Prussians were forced to re- treat dewn the hill to seek re-enforcements from the columns which were hurrying to their support. In five minutes they came back agam, this time in greater force, bnt still terribly inferior to those huge French masses. AN UNSUCCESSFUL CAYALBY CHABOE. " Good heavens I The French cuirassiers are going to charge them," cried General Sheridan; and sure enough, the regiment of cuirassiers, their helmets and breast- plates flashing in the September sun, formed m sections of squadrons and dashed down on the scattered Prussian skirmishers, without deigning to form a line. Squares are never used by the Prussians, and the infantry re- ceived the cuirassiers with a crushing " quick-fire," schnell/euer, at about a hundred yards distance, loading and firing with ex- treme rapidity, and shooting with unfailing precision into the dense French squadrons. The effect was startling. Over went horses and men in numbers, in masses, in hundreds ; and the regiment of proud French cuiras- siers went hurriedly back in dieorder ; went back faster than it came ; went back scarcely a regiment in strength, and not at all a regi- ment in form. Its comely array was sud- denly changed into shapeless and helpless crowds of flying men. CAYAIBT FUBSUED BT INFANTBT. The moment the cuirassiers turned back, the brave Prussians actually dashed forward in hot pursuit at double-quick ; infantry evidently pursuing flying cavalry. Such a thing has not often been recorded in the annals of war. I know not when an example to com- pare precisely with this has occurred There was no more striking episode in the battle. " There will be a devil of a fight for that crest before it is won or lost," said Sheridan, straining his eyes through his fieldrglass at the hrll which was not three miles from us. The full sun was shining upon that hill ; ws gazing upon it had the sun behind us. ANOTHEB FBUITLESS CAVALBT CHABOE. At 1:30 French cavalry — this time, I pre- sume, a regiment of carabiniers — made another dash at the Prussians, who, on their part, were receiving reinforcements every moment ; but the carabiniers met with the 68 THE FRANC0-GERMAN WAR. same fate as their brethren in iron jackets, and were sent to the rig^ht about with heavy loss. The Prussians took advantage of their fligiit to advance their line about 200 yards nearer the hue which the French infantry held. ANOTHER FRENCH BLUNliEK. This body of adventurous Prussians split into two portions, the two parts leaving a break of a hundred yards' in their line. We were not long in perceiving the. object of this movement, for the little white puffs from the crest behind the skirmishers, followed by a commotion in the dense French masses, show us that these "diables de .Prussiens" have contrived, heaven only knows how, to get two four-pounders up the steep ground, and have opened fire on the French. Some- thing must at this point have been very much mismanaged with the French infantry ; for. instead of attacking the Prussians, whom they still outnumbered by at least two to one. they remained in column on the hill, and though seeing their only hope of retrieving the day vanishing from before their eyes, Btill they did not stir. Then the French cavalry tried to do A LITTLE BALAKLAVA BUSINESS, tried, but without the success of the im- mortal six hundred, who took the gims on wliich they charged. The cuirassiers carne down once more, this time riding straight for the two field-pieces ; but before they came ■within 200 yards of the guns, the Prussians formed line as if on parade, and waiting till those furious French horsemen had ridden to a point not fifty yards away, they fired. The volley see7ned to us to empty the saddles of almost the whole of the lead- ing squadron. The dead so strewed the ground as to block the path of the squadron following, and close before them the direct and dangerous road they had meant to follow. Their dash at the guns became a halt. EETEEAT OF THE FRENCH. When once this last effort of the French horse had been made and had failed — failed, though pushed gallantly so far as men and horses could go — the French infantry fell swiftly back toward Sedan. It fell back be- cause it saw that the chance of its carrying that fiercely-contested hill was gone, and saw also that the Prussians holding the hill ■were crowning it with guns, so that their own line could not much longer be held facing it. In an instant, as the French re- tired, the whole slope of the ground was covered by swarms of Prussian tirailleurs, who seemed to rise oitt of the ground, and push forward by help of every slight rough- ness or depression in the surface of the hill. As fast as the French went back these active enemies followed. After the last desperate charge of the French cavalry. General Sheri- dan remarked to me that he never saw any- thing so reckless, so utterly foolish,' as that last charge. " It was sheer murder." 'I'he Prussians, after the French infantry fell back, advanced rapidly — so rapidly that the retreating squadrons of French cavalry, being too closely pressed, turned suddenly round and charged desperately once again. But it was all no use. The days of breaking squares are over. The thin blue line soon stopped the Gallic onset. It struck me as most extraordinary, that at this point the French had NEITHER ARTILLERY NOR MITRAILLEUSES, especially the latter, on the field to cover their infantry. The position was a most im- portant one and certainly worth straining every nerve to defend. One thing was clear enough, that the French infantry, after once meeting the Prussians, declined to try con- clusions with them again, and that the cavalry were seeking to encourage them by their example. About 2 o'clock still other reinforcements came to the Prussians over this long-disputed hill between Torcy and Sedan to support the regiments already established there. HAVOC AMONG THE BAVARIANS. At the time that this great coRflict was going on under Fritz's eyes, another was fought not less severe and as murderous for the Bavarians as the one I have attempted to describe, was for the French. If there was a want of Mitrailleuses on the hill above Torcy, there was certainly no lack of them iu the Bazeille ravine. On that side there was, for more than an hour, one continuous roar of musketry and mitrailleuses. Two Bava- rian officers told me that the loss in their regiments was terrific, and that it was the mitrailleuses which made the havoc. THE FRENCH FALL BACK ON SEDAN. At 2:05 in the afternoon, the French totally abandoned the hill between "^I'orcy and Sedan, and fell back on the faubourg of Caval. just outside the ramparts of the town. " Now the battle is lost for the French." said General Sheridan, to the delight of the Prussian officers. One would almost have imagined that the French had heard his words — they had hardly been uttered, when there came a lull in the firing all along the line, or rather circle ; as such it had now be come. BELGIAN NEUTRALITY. Count Bismarck chose that moment to come and have a talk with his English and American friends. I was anxious to know what the Federal Chancellor had done about the neutrality of Belgium, now threatened, and my curiosity was soon gratified. "I have told the Belgian Minister of War." said Count Bismarck, " that so long as the Bei gian troops do their utmost to disarm any number of French soldiers who may cross THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. n the frontier, I will strictly respect the neu- trality of Belgium ; but if, on the contrary, the Belgians, either through negligencs or inability, do not disarm and capture every man in French uniform who sets his foot in their country, we shall at once follow the enemy into neutral territory with our troops, considerinf? that the French have been the first to violate the Belgian soil. I have been down to have a look at the Belgian troops near the frontier," added Coimt Bismarck, " and I confess they do not inspire me with a very high opinion of their martial ardor or discipline. When they have their great coats on. one can see a great deal of paletot, but hardly any soldier." SISMABCK'S FIEST YISTAKK I asked his Excellency where he thought tiie Emperor was : " In Sedan ?" " Oh, no 1" was the reply ; " Napoleon is not very wise, but he is not so foolish as to put himself in Sedan just now." For once in hia life, Count Bismarck was wrong. At 2:45 the King came to the place where I was standing. He remarked that he thought the French were about to try to break out just beneath us in front of the Second Bava- rian Corps. At 3:50 General Sheridan told me that Napoleon and Louis were in Sedan. BSAVEST OF THE BAVASIANS. At 3:20 the Bavarians below us not only contrived to get themselves inside the fortifi- cations of Sedan, but to maintain themselves here, working their way forward from house to house. About 4, there was a great fight for the possession of the ridge above Bazeille. That carried, Sedan was swept on all sides by the Prussian cannon. This point of van- tage was carried at 4:40. When carried, there could no longer be a shade of doubt as to the ultimate fate of Sedan. A BETBOSPECTIOK. THB FINAL BLOW AT SEDAN. The general headquarters of the army of the Crown Prince, and probably the bulk of his force, advanced no further than Bar-le- Duc, but Frederick William himself is re- ported to have slept at Chalons on the night of August 27, his advance being then at a point about ten miles further west, and eighty miles from Paris. But at that time the movement of MacMahon towards M6zi^res was fully developed, and the army of the Crown Prince was turned to the right to follow him up, while the detached portion of the Prussian army around Metz was pushed towards the northwest to intercept the French advance. As soon as MacMahon had collected his forces in the neighborhood of Rethel, he began a movement directly east towards Montmedy, and daily conflicts be- tween detached portions of the hostile armies occurred, with almost unvarying success oa the Prussian side-. By the 30th of August, the whole French army was fairly in motion in the direction of Montmedy, and on tha day there was a fierce encounter with tha Prussians at Beaumont, about fourteen miles west of Montmedy, in which the corps of General de Failly was severely handled. The French were driven to the northwest upon Sedan, where the conflict became genet al on the 31st of August, and continued into the let of September. On the last day of Au- gust, it would seem that the Prussians suffered severely, but when the final struggle came on Thursday, the Ist of September, they mustered 240,000 men, while MacMahon had at the outside not more than 120,000. Although severely wounded, he still retained the chief command, the German forces being under the immediate direction of General von Moltke, with the Crown Prince Freder- ick William of Prussia, and the Crown Prinoe Albert of Saxony next in command. The corps of the Prussian commander were posted to the left, those of the Saxon to the right of the French position. The plan of attack was to effect a junction between the two, and thereby enclose the enemy in a semi- circle. This object was fully accomplished by noon, and by 3 o'clock the battle had been transformed into a rout, with the French in full flight. THE CAFITTrLATIOir OF MACUAHON. Darkness put an end to the pursuit, and on the ensuing day, September 2, the Prus- sians prepared to assault Sedan, by which the French retreat was protected. But it was not necessary. At noon. General Wimpffen, who had succeeded the disabled hero of Magenta in command, left Sedan with a flag of truce, and at half past 1 o'clock the fortress and the remnants of MacMahon's army were formally and unconditionally surrendered. When MacMahon went into the engagement on the morning of Septem- tember Ist, he had under his command, as already stated, about 120,000 men. The number who were placed hora de combai during the fight it is impossible as yet to ascertain, and it is equally impossible to estimate with accuracy the number that became prisoners of war through the cere- mony of capitulation. The Independance Beige of Brussels places the number of French in Sedan at the time of its capitula- tion at 70,660, and states that on the 4th, 1.5,000 more surrendered, while 30,000 took refuge upon the neutral soil of Belgium. But this much is certain, that the victory of Sedan, followed, as it was, by the capitula- tion of the entire French army, was one of the most brilliant on record. After all was over, the Crown Prince resumed his triumph- ant march on Paris. THE STJBBENDEB OF NAPOLEON. But it was accompanied by a circumstance which imparted to it additional lustre and importance. The Emperor Napoleon, after the vicissitudes narrated by us yesterday. 1% THE FRANCO-GEEMAN WAR. had arrived at Sedan on the 27th of August. According to some reports, the Prince Impe- rial had preceded him thither, while ethers state that he made his escape into Belgium. General Wimpffen bore with him a letter to King William from the Emperor, of which two or three versions have been published, the Paris Gaulois giving the following as its exact text : — " Having no command in the army, and having placed all my authority in the hands of the Empress as regent, I herewith surren- der my sword to the King of Prussia." While, according to other reports, the document ran thus : — " As I cannot die at the head of my army, I lay my awdid at the feet of your Majesty." But he surrendered, and at an interview with King William, who had accompanied the army of the Crown Prince in its march to the north from the neighborhood of Bar- le-Duc, held immediately after the capitula- tion of MacMahon's army, Wilhelmshof, near Cassel, was assigned as the place of his resi- dence for the time being. He started with- out delay on his journey thither, by way of Liege, through Belgium, accompanied by a Buite of one hundred persons, and an armed Prussian escort. The Prince Imperial is on the way to join him, if he was not with him at the time of his surrender, and the presence of the ex-Empress will soon render the fallen Imperial family complete. Meanwhile Paris, which for nearly nine- teen years had been awed into subjection by the terror of his bayonets and the inspiration of his name, is revelling in shouts of " Vive la Republique !" and the only semblance of French authority in France is the Provis- ional Republic, which Favre, Gambetta, and Trochu have set up on the ruins of the Bonaparte throne. Such is the history of the conflict which General Prim precipitated upon Europe by proposing Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern- Sigmaringen, as a candidate for the throne of Spain. The ex-Emperor — we have al- ready become used to the expressive prefix — resented the scheme of Prim ostensibly " as a check and a menace to France," in reality as a defiance of his well-known hostility to what he had been pleased to term the aggrandizing spirit of Prussia. He sought to throw the entire responsibility for it upon the Prussian King ; and. not content with its abandonment, demanded a guarantee that no Prussian Prince would ever be suS'ered to ascend the throne of Charles V. This humiliating demand was rejected, and Napo- leon declared that he would enforce it at the pojnt of the sword. On the 28th of July, he affi-xed the magical name of Napoleon to a proclamation in which he assumed the chief command of an army of half a million of sol- diers, whom he proposed forthwith to lead On a triumphant march upon Berlin. On the 2d of September, only five weeks after- wards, he laid his sword at the feet of King William, and surrendered himself a ptisoner- of war. Thus ends the story of the Third Napoleon and the Second Empire. Unhappily the tribulations which they have bequeathed to France are, perchance, but just begun. THINGS IN AND AROUND PARIS. TREACHERY IN HI&H PLACES. You may like to know what is considered in Paris, by those best informed, to be the truth in relation to the stories with which the air is full concerning the treachery in high places that has been practised in Prance. It was understood, sometime ago, that Marshal Leboeuf had completely de- ceived the Emperor and the Corps Legis- latif in regard to the readiness of the country for war. " We are ready," he had said, " and by ' ready ' I mean that if the war were to last a year we should not have to buy as much as a button for a gaiter." This was bad enough ; but it now appears that the wife of the Marshal, who is a Prussian, ob- tained from her husband the full particulars of the plan of military operations which had been decided upon, and then found means to communicate this invaluable information to Bismarck^ and through him to Von Moltke. Thus, when the game of war began, the Prussians were in the condition of a player who knew all the cards in liis opponent's hand and exactly how he intended to play them. That success should follow an ad- vantage so great as this, was only what was to be expected. This, however, is not all. The Gaulois has made public what was whis- pered about Paris all last week — namely, that a mysterious prisoner was incarcerated at Vinceimes, whose identity was so care- fully concealed that the ordinary wardens of the fort were not allowed to see him. Opinion is divided as to whether this reproduction of the man in the iron mask is Leboeuf, Roche- fort, or the author of the false news published on the Bourse three weeks ago, and no Joseph or Daniel has arisen to interpret the mystery. But some arrests have been made of female spies, of whose identity there is no doubt. The first was no less a personage than Madame la Comtesse de Behague — " the luxurious syren who boasted of having the King of Prussia, the Prince, and the Grand Duke of Baden at her feet." ANOTHER SPY STORY. In a Strasbourg hotel some Algerian tirail- leurs, officers, soils officers, and privates were at breakfast, the first they had eaten in peace for a week. An intruder came in with many bows and begged permission to place himself at table, ofiering to pay his share. " You don't know me, but I am not quite a stranger to the great army family. Captain Brunet, Twenty-one ©f the line, is known to some of you, I dare say. He is my very dearest friend, almost my brother," 2 < =• !2i THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. 75 Nobodf knew Captain Brunet, btit hi? name was a passport among soldiers. The stranger took his cotelette, and was chatting easily with his companions when an ofiBcer of the Twenty-first came in : " Parbleu 1 here is the very man to tell you all about your friend. Lieutenant, allow us to present a friend of one of yours; you know Captain Brunet?" " What Brunet ? " " Brunet of the Twenty, first." "No such man in our regiment since I joined it ten years ago." The stranger is confused. His lively tone is changed. Some Turcos asked the lieutenant: "Are you sure there was no such man as Captain Brunet?" "Just as sure as that you are standing there," "Why, then, he must be ," and they began to close round the stranger. "Monsieur is in my company," said the captain of tirailleurs, a solid man. " Go on with your breakfast, sir ; shall I hand you the cheese? Take some of this conserve." Coffee and chasse — breakfast was over. The big tirailleur called for the bill and paid. Taking the stranger's arm, he walked out- side on to the sidewalk, drew his revolver, and blew out the spy's brains THE FATE OF SPIES IN WAR. [ From the Jewish Leader. ] It is a deplorable fact that a good number of spies have up to this moment been era- ployed in the war which is now being car- ried on between the two great European Pow- ers. Those who carry out this treacherous system are severely punished when caught, for what is a spy else than a secret assassin, owing to whose paid treason targe masses of soldiers often perish, whereas they might have preserved their lives in honest, open combat ? If we read in the Scripture of spies, the mission with which they were entrusted is not, by any means, comparable or analogous with the functions performed by the treach- erous individuals of our times, above referred to. Yet it has been recorded that these spies were disagreeable to Moses, and he only con- sented to send out spies in order to tranquil- ize the turbulent and refractory people as to the condition of the country. Moses cannot have cared about the reports which these spies would bring him, as hia trust in God mus}, have rendered them a matter of indif- ference to him. The aim and object of Joshua in sending out the two spies to Jericho was equally to reanimate and encourage the dismayed hearts of Israel by favorable intelligence (thus we understand the comment of Kimchi). Also, the missions of the messengers to Ai (Joshua 7) was only for the purpose of tranquillizing the people about the selection of no more than three thousand warriors for the expedi- tion against that city. That this expedition miscarried proves that it was not the inten- tion of Joshua to gather such information as could be favorable to him. The two messengers whom David sent otit to seek Saul (1 Samuel xxvi. 5) were no spies of whom David availed himself in or. der to do any harm to King Saul. In lik« manner the Meraglim of Absalom (2 Sam- uel XV. 1(1) were nothing but messengers to the different tribes. Even the raesaengers of the tribe of Dan to the house of Micah were not sent out as spies. FRENCH MILITART YANITT. The French papers call the attention of the military authorities to the excellent sys- tem adopted by the enemy in its reconnnis- sances.and say that while French commanders are nearly always taken by surprise, the Prus- sians are perfectly well-informed of the where- abouts of their adversaries. This is. in a great degree, owing to the vanity of the French officers, who think that they can af- ford to despise all information and every suggestion not coming from one of them- selves. Before Woerth, a captain on outpost duty was warned by the peasants that a, body of Uhlans were cutting the telegraph wires and destroying the railroad. His only answer was: What's that to me — Qii'e-st c« que ca me fait — we are not fighting with tha telegraph, are we ? It is very different on the other side ; there no piece of information is disregarded, and a detachment at once proceeds to investigate the truth of every report. The reconnois- sances are made by small bodies of picked horsemen under the command of a chief of intelligence, who can always find among hia troopers some one who has been born near the frontier, or whose trade previous to the war had brought him into relations witli the country and its inhabitants. With such a guide it is impossible to make mistakes, and as each scout is furnished with a colored print of the various uniforms in the French army, he is able to inform the authorities exactly what they wish to know. ••THE SOLDIER'S PIPE." " RESPECTKDIiLT DEDICATED TO SMOKERS." It would be unjust, considering all the abuse levelled at tobacco-smokers, and how often they are solemnly told that tobacco destroys all their energies, not to admit that the success of the Germans in the present war is rather a feather in the smoker's cap. These misguided men seem to live on to- bacco ; The Uhlans, who in little parties of three or four trot gaily in advance and take possession of fortified towns, invariably carry pipes in their mouths. The Mayor of eacli town is directed to find cigars for everybody before anything else is done. The German troops, it is stated, think but little of a scar- city of provisions — they fight as well with- out their dinner as with it — but tobacco is indispensable to them. On the whole, we fear experience shows that a smoking army is capable of greater endurance and of mak- ing greater efforts than a non-smoking army. The gun without the pipe would be of .littli avail, nor can we bo much surprised at thit 76 THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. •when we reflect that the quantity of foul air ■we are called upon to inhale in this world is probably far more injurious to health than the tobacco smoke, which, althoujjh it acts as an antidote to the poison of the atmos- phere, gets no thanks for its pains, but only reproachful language. ENGLAND AND TEANCE. M. LOUIS BLANC ON ENGLISH OPINION. Writing: to Le Temps, under date of Au- gust 23, M. Louis Blanc remarks : " In the critical circumstances in which we are placed it is necessary above all things that we should have courage to look on boldly into our position. To shut our eyes with indif- ference woiild be a crime. To be wanting in courage would be an opprobrium, but to nourish illusions would be almost an act of idiocy. In order to place ourselves in a po- sition to meet danger, the first condition is to comprehend its extent. It would, indeed, be a strange transformation of the French nation if it had lost its heroic habit of adapt- ing its energies to its perils. Those who might be disposed to veil the dangers in or- der to give heart to the nation, calumniate and outrage it. When we come to examine the picture of our position as it is presented by the more or less official journals which are publiehed in Paris, in contrast with that presented by the English press, a fear is aroused lest France should be ignorant of how seriously she is menaced, and how im- portant it is for her safety that she should again become her old self. The English do not know — and yet history exists to teach them — of what the great arm of France is capable, when they regard her condition as desperate. In the first place, nothing that bears an official French character obtains the slightest credence. Every telegram signed by the King of Prussia is accepted in Eng- land as an article of faith. Every telegram announcing that our army has gained a suc- cess is literally regarded as naught. When the conflicting doubts of the murderous bat- tle of the 16th were received here, we read upon the placards of the newspapers : ' Great victory of the Prussians. The French claim a victory.' In other words, the Prussians had conquered because they said so. As to the French, the probability was, that they were lyiug. For a Frenchman living in England is not this heart-breaking ? 'I'here is no one here that does not svappose that for Napoleon it is a question of life or death to conceal reverses which are the consequences of his imprudence, his incapacity, and his blind and foolish precipitation. There is no one who does not say : ' Every defeat sus- tained by those soldiers of France, whose al- most superhuman intrepidity seemed to do yiolence to victory, is a formidable accusa- tion directed against the Empire.* " It is necessary, therefore, that the black side af things should be concealed at any Aost. The safety of the Empire depends upon it, and the Emperor knows it. There lies in part the secret of the incredulity un- fortunately only too intelligible against which are powerless the most formal asser- tions of the authorized depositaries of power in France. They would be "believed if it could be imagined that they had no other anxiety than to save the country. They are not believed, because the anxiety to save the country is thought to be complicated with a desire to preserve the dynasty." HIS VIEW. Bismarck said, " We wish to retain the sympathy of the United States, and yet we find it gradually receding from us. now that France has been declared a Republic. It is but natural that a Republic so great as the United States of America should ?yrapathize with a younger one, but do not the people of those United States make a mistake in their impetuosity to be on ' the right side ?' We would wish to treat for peace, and with a proper representative for France would we do so, but we can never recognize a ' gutter Republic,' made up from the mob, and led by men whose ambitious aim is distinction and lucrative 'positions." SONG OF THE GERMAN SOLDIERS IN ALSACE. Air. — " ICH HATTE EINEN CaMERAD." In Alsace, over the Rhine, There lives a Brother of mine ; It grieves my soul ts say He hath forgot the day TVe were one laud and line. Dear Brother, torn apart. Is 't true that changed thou art? ' The French have clapped on thee Red breeches, as we see ; Have they Frenchified thy heart? Hai k I that's the Prussian drum, ' And it tells the tiine has come. We have made one " Germany," One " Dentschland." firm and free And our civil strifes are dumb. Thee also, fighting sore, Ankle-deep in Gormao gore. We have won. Ah, Bicther dear I Thou ait Ge'-man — dost thou hear ? Thoy shall never part us more. "Who made this song of mine? Two comrades by the Rhine; — i A Suabian man began it, And a Pdmeranian sang it, In Alsace on the Rhine. THE TERRIBLE UHLANS. Capt. Jeannerod, the correspondent of Le Temps, writing from M6ziferes-Charleville, after the battles at Metz, of the conduct of the German troops, says that the reports of the Prussian doings are necessarily much exaggerated, but that isolated acts of violence have occurred, to which the alarm felt is in some degree traceable. Here is an incident which he relates illustrative of these ex- aggerations : "A Prussian soldier was lying on the ground in a field ; a doctor, near at hand, bandaged his wounds, and, having finislied THE FRANCO-GERMAN "WAR. V was about to mount his horse, when a Uh- lan came up and shot him Ihroufi^h the nead with a pistol. Enormous as this seems it must be true, for everywhere 1 have heard tlie same story. One of my informants was an old dragoon of the Guard, one of the rare survivors of his regiment, which was anni- hilated in the battle of the 16th. ' We have been crushed,' he said, 'but each one of us hiul si ruck down three : and now, since they have fired upon the doctors, no more quar- ter ! 1 met one this morning, lost in a wood. He had thrown away his gun. crying, ' Friend, friend!' 'No friend,' 1 replied, and ran my sword through his body.' Some Chasseurs d'Afrique haVe also declared in my presence ' No more quarter.' * * * Evidently the war between the two armies is assuming a charac- ter of fury and of extermination. * * * The Uhlan will deserve, after this war, to hold the «ame rank in the Prussian army as the Zou- ave does with us. 'The Uhlans are every- where,' said a young peasant to me. Mounted upon excellent horses, fovxr or five of them arrive in a village, and the whole canton knows that evening that the Prussians have arrived, though the corps d'armee may be l^ kilometres off. But that is unknown ; and hence the dread of firing upon these four or five Ulilans, lest, for a single enemy thus dis- patched, a whole commune might be put to fire and sword. So much for the terror pro- <]uced by Prussian arms ; but they also know how to caress the people. In the environs of Metz, nothing is spoken of but the Prus- sian organization, and the facility with which it adapts itself, for the moment, to the local customs of the country that is invaded. They have even gone so far as to promise to the employes of the Sarreguemines Railroad to niaiutuin them on their present footing, though this is very superior to the condition of similar employes in Rhenish Prussia. In the towns, small and large, wherever their conduct will be talked of, the same dexterous handling is shown. Half from policy, half from natural inclination, the conduct of the enemy in certain localities has left nothing to be complained of. As against the villages burnt on the hills of Gravelotte, other cases are cited where the inhabitants were quickly reassured. A young peasant girl said before me that it was very wrong to be frightened ; that the enemy had been very gentle and con- siderate, had taken nothing, but contented themselves with asking for what they wanted, and paying what was asked. And the peas- ant girl added one thing which was very sad, but which ought to be made known : ' Our own soldiers did a great deal more mischief.' " THE PKINCESS ALICE AT HOME. THE HOSPITAL AT DARMSTADT. A correspondent of The Pall Mall Gazette, "who visited the hospital for the wounded at Darmstadt, which is under the special charge ■ of the Princess Alice, writes : " Certainly, ' aothing can be more admirably managed; and of those I have seen as yet it is the brightest, airiest, and most cheerful. The principal building is a permanent one of stone and glass — an ex-conservatory. It stands in charming gardens, with their flower-beds, and shrubberies, and fountains, which, as the Princess says, the Frenchmen gallantly tell her remind them of the water- works of Versailles. Through these are scattered a number of succursales — wooden pavilions where the double rows of beds stand at ample intervals, with canvas doors at the ends, to be looped up at will, and with openings in the roof, protected from the wet, but open to the wind. The Princess says the French strongly protest against the fresh air, while the Germans, on the contrary, very sensibly welcome it as the best of specifics. She ought to be mistress of the inward senti- ments of the patients, for they all seem to take her into their inmost confidence. It was worth a journey from England alone to see the faces of the sufferers lighten up as they reflected the sisterly smiles on her. As she passed along and stopped and spoke to each, the invalid laid himself back on his pil- low with an expression of absolute bien ctre, and for the moment seemed to find something more than an anodyne for his pain. Her passing along the wards applied the most in- fallible of tests to the cases. If her presence did not smooth the pain-wrinkles out of a man's face, or bring something like tran- quillity to his drawn mouth, and cause a flash of light to his eye, you were quite sure to hear he was in an extremely bad way. Nor was it with the wounded alone she seemed the animating spirit of the place. Nurses and doctors and convalescents walk- ing about all addressed her with the same cordial familiarity — only tempered by their evident reverence and love. The truth is, and one sees it everywhere else as in Darm- stadt, this war has not merely made Germany a nation, but a li'mily, and a thorough fanjily feeling pervades North and South, high and low alike. Nothing seems regarded as a sac- rifice, and the humblest work that can serve the great national cause is regarded as a pleasure and honor. The theatre at May- ence is given over to preparations for the hospital service, and the ladies of the place, old and young, go to work day and night in batches and in gangs, in the coarsest ma- terials and roughest work. Here at Darm stadt no small portion of the Palace is devoted to the same purpose, and the work- rooms conmiunicate directly with the Prin- cess' apartments. There are piles of mat- tresses in the galleries, hills of blankets and cushions below, chests of lint, bundles of bandages, mountains of cushions, sandbags for absorbing blood, wooden receptacles for' shattered limbs. There is a continual influx and constant outflow of all that. This after- noon the Priiicess' phaeton had the back seat piled high with cushions wanted for im- mediate use — decently covered up, it is true, with a carriage rug; but there were so many 78 THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. of them that the rug was sheer hypocrisy and absurd illusion. A huge bundle of flan- nel seriously embarrassed the coachman's legs and style, while it says much for the paving of the Darmstadt streets that all the teapots stowed away in the sword case be- neath the ladies' seat reached their destina- tion in safety." LIFE IK CAMP. XEFORK MKT8 — HOW THE SOLDIERS IITH PBEPAK1N6 ▲ MEAL. A correspondent of The London Daily Telegraph writes from the camp before Metz : The principal occupation, or rather the serious business of the day, in camp, is the preparation for a meal of some sort. Directly you wake, human nature at once requires some sustenance ; you crave for a good hot cup of tea, especially if, as last night, you find yourself exposed to what Virgil calls a placidus irnber. The fact was that the wall at the back of my shelter gave way. and I found myself lying with my head outside, the gentle rain falling plentifully on my head and face. The dry sticks which you have taken to bed with you to keep dry are produced as soon as day breaks, and a hot tin of coffee, without sugar or milk, helps to pull you together. The business of the day then commences. A rush is made for the nearest " Marketender " wagon that has come up from Gorze. In the following of almost every regiment there is attached to each company an individual called a " Market- ender." Half soldier, half publican, and wholly thief, he is a curious mixture of cun- ning, courage, and dishonesty — terms. I am aware, that are strangely discordant, but] which are all represented in the character «f the Marketender. His duty is, with his wagon, covered with canvas and drawn by two wretched-looking horses, to rob, plunder, or buy provisions at any of the villages he passes through, and to sell the produce to the soldiers of the par- ticular company to which he is attached, the number of which is painted on his wagon and carried on his cap. Very often the Mar- ketender has his better-half to help him — a virago, who out-brazens the sins of her hus- band, bullies the soldiers, and cringes to the oBrcers. Mrs. Markelenderin is by no means an engagintr-looking person. The one I have to do with wears a costume sufficiently ludicrous, A French soldier's cap covert* her grizzled hair, the peak shading a face which, from exposure to the sun, looks like a piece of baaly tanned leather; a Volti- geur's jacket envelops her body, and a large red bandanna is wound round her waist, where she carries a huge knife, with which to cut the hard, black bread into the pieces she dispenses to the soldiers ; her arms and hands are brown-black, partly from ex- posure and partly from dirt, while, to com- plete her semi -military costame, the short- ness of her petticoat reveals her feet incased in a pair of long boots that have once beeA- the property of some Prussian soldier, whoso bones, in all probability, are now lying upon, the plateau of Gorze. They both dispense their commodities in eager haste, and are not particular as to the change they give for a thaler. The nppearance of the vivandiires since the invasion of French territory has wonderfully improved, no doubt at the ex-- pense of /a belle France, and the money, they are making will, without doubt, enable them to eat their " Kartoffelsalat " and drink . their "Zeltlnger" for the rest of their days- in peace and qiiietness on the banks of the Moselle, or wherever else they may please t&' settle down. If you are in favor, madame produces a piece of meat from the recesses- of the wagon, and perhaps an onion, a piece- of bread, and a glass of schnapps, for which you pay the moderate sum of one thaler. With these valuables you rush off to your shelter, wherever it may be, and, if the raiiv has not put your fire out, you improvise a meal, which, if not very reeherchd, at least fills your stomach. I was asked by the General to-day why I did not go and live in Gorze, like the other Engli^men ? My an. swer was, simply, that I depended for infor- mation upon my own eyes, and not upon the retailed news of others. This seemed to amuse him vastly, and he patted me on the back, and answered, " Thank God I there are, then, some who will tell the truth as they see it, and not invent a parcel of liea."^ This was not very flattering to my brother correspondents. The band is really the lux- - ury of the day. It plays in the afternoon,, and the delicious airs of Beethoven, Mozart,., and Meyerbeer transport one in imagination. i far from the surrounding scenes, STBASBOUBO AND FABIS. A GERMAN UILITART WRITER ON THEIR POWERS Or" RESISTANCE. The following extract from a letter of the well-known military writer, Julius Von Wic- kede, has a special interest in connection > with the news from Strasbourg and Paris : We are now besieging and bombarding Strasbourg and Metz, beyond all doubt the two strongest fortresses of France. These immense strongholds have menaced the peace and security of Germany, particularly the former, and it is, therefore, deemed of the highest importance that they should be captured and remain in our permanent pos- session. A fair number of heavy siege-guns have already arrived before Strasbourg. The Prussian 24-pounders are excellent and very effective ; they have a wide range, and as soon as the distance has been correctly as- certained (which is generally the case after two or three trial shots), their fire is as ac- curate and telling as can be reasonably de- sired. In regard to Strasbourg, it would not be wise to calculate upon an immediate capitulation. General Uhlrich, the com- mander of the fortress, was formerly in the THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. 79 Imperial Guard, and is an officer of the higiiest military ability, one who will do his daty to the last, and without any particular regard for the inhabitants of the city he is called upon to defend. I became personally acquainted with him at Varna, during tlie Crimean war, when we passed our leisure time in conversing about military matters, drinking a glass of light Brussa wine, and playing a game of dominoes. I remember well enough that we repeatedly touched on the possibility ef our confronting each other as enemies. The brave general did not then imagine that the strongest army which the Second Empire could bring into the Geld would be repeatedly beaten by us within a fortnight, and that we could so soon com* mence the siege of the two most important French fortresses. The idea that the Ger- mans would carry the war into French terri- tory seemed too preposterous to the French, who thought it an easy task to drive the Prussians beyond the Rhine, and never ex- pected to meet any serious resistance until they would reach Hayence and Goblentz. All their preparations show that this was their preconceived plan. But to return to the siege of Strasbourg. Although the commander is a man of un- doubted talent, energy, and bravery, and although the garrison is composed of select troops, who will fight and defend the city to the last, I do not believe this fortress will prove another Sebastopol. The numerous population of the city, amounting to more than 80,000 inhabitants, will be a serious check to the powers of resistance and en- durance of the garrison, and will necessitate a speedier capitulation than could otherwise be anticipated. It is more than probable that our repeatedly expressed opinion that large and populous cities are not fit places for fortresses will obtain additional confirma- tion ere long. The principal objection, against them is the difficulty, or rather im- possibility, of provisioning them for a long siege. Of what ose are Uie strongest walla and a great number of guns, when once famine, with its appalling consequences, spreads among a population ef 80,000 souls Y ard how can the most energetic commander Srevent it, and protect his army against its emoralizing influence ? It is utterly impos- sible. We have read many reports about the immense fortifications around Paris, and had an occasion to examine these strong- holds a few years ago, and we readily con- fess that they are formidable, and were so previous to the numerous additions and im- Srovements which have recently been made, ^ut what of that? If what we have said above holds good with a city of 80,000 peo- pie, how much more so in regard to a capital of nearly 2.000.000 inhabitants, and com- posed of such dangerous and heterogeneous elements as the population of Paris 7 Some of the Paris newspapers conttun an account of the quantities of provisions which are said to be stored in that city, and pretend that the place is fully prepared for a siege of four months. We feel inclined to think that the figures on paper will not correspond with the amount of stores actually on hand, and we should not be at all surprised to find these statements equal in exaggeration and want of truth to the reports circulated about the strength of the French army, its arma- ment, equipment, and fitness for field ser- vice. We think that by the time the three immense columns of the German army shall appear before Paris, all the braggadocio about the defence of that city to the last will have been silenced by sounder counsel and cooler judgment. It would be the climax of madness to attempt a defence of Paris under the existing circumstances. THE END We are prepared, at all times, to place men upon good territory, where they can sell large quantities of our cheap publications, and have the exclusive right to said territory. Those wishing to engage in a lucrative business should send immediately for our Catalogue of Latest Pubhcations. Being of a sensational order they find ready sale and we want AGENTS EVERYWHERE, and assure them that they can make money. BARCLAY & CO.. 21 North Seventh Street, "Philadelphia^, Vy^'.^V^I, tl ~ "TS \ "^ ^ * ^^ s*^ f^. •"^."j^s \ \ \\ 4- P^ y /y /. < "^' M .V C./V THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. VOLUME SECOND. COMPLETE. EMBRACINa THE MIL OF TOUL, STRASBOURG AND METZ; GOING INTO ALL THE EEMARKABLE DETAILS, DESCRIBING THE SKIRMISHES, BATTLES, AND GIVING NU- MEROUS INTERESTING AND THRILLING ANECDOTES INCIDENTAL TO THE GREAT WAR; AND FINALLY THE SIEGE AND FALL OF PARIS: THUS MAKING A COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. EDITED BY PROFESSOR THEO. VON MARCKES. PHILADELPHIA: J»UBLISHED BY BARCLAY & CO., No. 21 North Seventh Street. 187L Entered, according to 4-ct of Congress, in the year 1871, by BARCLAY & CO., Tja the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C The Franco-German War. SECOND VOLUME. STRASBOURG AND TOUL. On Tuesday, September 20th, 1870, Lu- nette No. 53, before the walls of Strasbourg, was taken by the Landwehr, notwithstanding a gallant defence, consisting mostly of a pro- longed and sharp rifle fire. General Werder then threatened to utterly destroy the city of Strasboui'g unless immediately surren- dered. The prolonged and valiant defence of Strasboiirg must be recorded in history as an event not surpassed by that of any city in the world, and such a defence as has seldom been equalled in the history of wars. About this time, M. Favre made desperate diplo- matic attempts toward establishing peace, and was favorably received at the King's headquarters, but, as we have seen, to no ef- fect. During these negotiations, THE SITUATION OF PARIS was quiet and dull. Some skirmishing in the suburbs, and quite an activity existed among the red republicans, who continued to pla- card the city with handbills announcing a new government. Trouble was anticipated, as the citizens preferred Prussian rule to communism. The Opinion NaUonale acknowledged the receipt of 20.000 francs from A. T. Stewart, the w.ell known dry goods merchant of New York City. THE BELEAGUERED CITIES. Up to the 14th of September, the fire continued without intermission, and Stras- bourg was looked upon as the forlorn hope. The walls, were reduced to shapeless masses. The citadel had been subjected to an inces- sant fire from the sides, and its principal gate destroyed. New batteries were opened daily, and 400 guns had been brought into position by the Prussians. The garrison fire was weak and sometimes ceased entirely for hours, no efforts being made to repair damaged outworks. Despe- rate attempts were made to carry amunition into the city, and boats attempting it were frequently captured. That morning an un- dergroond telegraph was detected by the Prussians, which connected Strasbourg with Col mar. Typhus and dysentery appeared among the Prussians, and it was feared would become epidemic. It was now evident that Uhlrich was becoming very much dis- couraged, his resistance daily growing fee- bler, and an early surrender was expected. There were in position before Strasbourg eighteen batteries of mortars and rifled can- non. These fired, collectively, more than 7.000 shots into the city daily. Besides this there were thirty car loads of munitions of war including 8,000 quintals of iron, which were daily consumed. How immense, in comparison, must have been the expense of; besieging Paris. , It is certainly by one of the most curious accidents in history, that 1,000 years ago, in 870, similar events took place in France to those which were lately enacted on the same soil. At the treaty of Verdun (843), the three sons of the Frankish Emperor, Ludwig I., divided the whole dominions of tneir grandfather, Charlemagne, among them- selves. 1. Lothar received Italy and the Middle Franconia, beside the Imperial title. Middle Franconia was that long tract of land which, reached from the German Ocean to the Mediterranean, and which was bounded on the east by the Rhine and the Alps, and westward by the Escant (Schelde), Meuse, Saone, and Rhone rivers. 2. Louis received East Franconia, since called Germany (Deutschland). 3. Charles, surnamed the Bald, received West Franconia, now France. This first Regent of France distinguished himself by his great love of conquest. He thought that he saw his opportuninity at the death of his brother Lothar. Roman Empe- ror. The latter, following the example of his father, had divided his empire among his three sons, giving to the eldest son Ludwig, Italy, with the Imperial crown; to the second, Lothar, the northern part of Mid- dle Franconia. as far as the Saone; this country was »hen called Lotharingen (Lor- raine). The youngest son, Charles, was to receive the southern part of Middle Franco- nia, extending from the Saone to the Medi< i 83 84 THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. terranean. The country was made the kiilg- dom of Provence. The endeavors of Charles the Bald to an- nex these two countries did not succeed before the death of Lothar, who had already reunited both parts of Middle Franconia, his brother Charles having died before him. At that time, 868, the Roman Emperor, brother of Lothai, and Charles, being fully occupied within their own countries, the King of France took forcible possession of both Lor- raine and Provence, which he held till, Louis of Germany, in the year 870, 1,000 years ago, appeared in those parts at the head of his German array, and was at once so success- ful that Charles offered peace. In the same year the treaty of Mersen was made, in which Charles had to surrender to Louis the eastern part of the countries he had taken possession of. Afterward, Alsace, Lorraine, and the Territories of Treves, Aix la Chapelle, Cologne, Mastricht, and Utrecht, as far as the mouth of the Rhine, formed a part of Germany, and soon after received the dig- nity of the Roman Emperors. Was there ever a more singular coinci- dence of events in the history of the world ? The following letter from Dr. Adolph Kess- ler, of New York, explains itself: Sir : The acquisition of Elsass and Lothrin- gen merely as the legitimate fruit of Ger- many's victories over France were, perhaps, not strictly justifiable, and certainly not in harmony with the enlightened sentiment of the nineteenth century. Nor is it to be sup- posed that the Germans are anxious to an- nex French territory and French population, and to introduce into their country a foreign and discontented element of weakness and disintegration. Germany, instead of being aggressive, has for centuries past been una- ble to hold her own, and piece after piece was torn from her fair body by her neighbors — by Sweden, by Russia, and by France. But what relations do Elsass and Lothringen bear to Germany, and what has been the attitude of France toward Germany since time im- memorial ? In the peace that is now dawn- ing upon Europe — a peace, as I trust, never to be broken by the arbitrary dictates of princes and the conquering lust of nations — two great countries are to settle their old diflSculties, and to establish concord and har- mony upon an enduring basis. Self-defence — that first and foremost of necessities — and historic justice alike demand that Germany should claim what is hers, and what France in the period of her might and glory, in the period of German weakness and humiUation, took without a shadow of right and justice. Does the impartial student of history re- member the acts of trejachery and perfidy perpetrated by Louis XIV., and the brutal acts of violence committed by his servile minions against weak, distracted, and help- less Germany? The Bishoprics of Metz, Toul and Verdun, the Sundgan and Elsass, the free cities of Strasbourg, Colmar, Brei- sach, etc.; the baiUwick of Hagenau and' many other German districts, were 'forcibly seized, torn from the Fatherland, and incor- porated with France. Brute force, iinre- deemed by a ray of conscience and "morality, dictated the conquering policy of Louis XIV. His ministers and generals, reared in syco- phancy and profligacy, inured to treachery, depravity, and cruelty, blindly executed the behests of their master. (Who does not be- hold in that history the coimterpart of the Second Empire ?) The Gallic legions, led by such monsters as Monclas, devastated Fran- conia and Suabia, burned and pillaged innu- merable towns and villages, massacred de- fenceless women and children, and converted the beautiful, fertile Palatinate into a desert, coming suddenly while Germany was wholly unprepared, and in the midst of profound peace. Louvois, the French Prime Minister, had vowed to carry desolation and terror into the very heart of Germany, in order to stifle forever her longings after the lost pos- sessions; and to that end a horrible desert should be the border land between France and Germany. Oh, how every true German's heart bleeds at the thought of his country's shame, humiliation, and degradation when under Louis XIV. French gold and machina- tions corrupted its princes, when French treachery sowed broadcast throughout the land strife and disseasion, and when French arms wrested from it the fairest territories ! France was determined to exterminate Ger- many, whose strength and resources had been utterly consumed by the fratricidal re- ligious war of thirty years ; and only the na- tive recuperative power of the Teuiorrie race saved her from destruction and annihilation. French aggression and spoliation, however, ceased not with Louis XIV; his successor robbed Germany of the duchies of Lothrin- gen and Bar, and the successor of the Bour- bons, the first Cassar, incorporated with France by one of his omnipotent decrees the fair Rhinelands. When Napoleon's star had faded and his empire though cemented by blood and treachery had vanished, when ■ the powers of Europe were deliberating upon a permanent and lasting peace, the Ambassadors of Prussia demanded in elo- quent and impetuous words the restoration of the German Elsass and Lothringen, but the appeals of Louis XVIII. to the senti- mentalism and chivalry of Alexander of Russia and the perfidious intrigues of Talley- rand and Metternich, defeated the German demands for justice, and France remained in possession of her Teutonic conquests. Ger- many yielded, but France was unsatisfied. Under the Bourbons, Orleans and Bona- partes, she strove to extend her empire to the Rhine. The leading idea of her foreign policy was the regulation of the "natural frontiers," and her rulers and statesmen, her parliament and press, her citizens and soldiers, all united in their clamor for readjust- ing the map of Europe, and for showering upon a large portion of Germany the bless- ings of Za belle France and la grande nation. / / MISS ROSE CARNIER AND SISTER, WHILE ATTEMPTING TO ESCAPE FROM PARIS IN A BALLOON, MEET WITH A FRiaHTFULL FALL THEREFROM. SJlif SRofe Sarnier itnt) ©(^jweficr, wcld)c Ui tern 95crfu(!^c, flu« ^axii in cincm Sufttatfon $u entflie^cn, flu« temfetkn fturstcn. THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. 85 '"Withont shame and scniple the French ■claimed the German Rhineland as if it were their own by birthright; and the voice of reason, justice and conscience was drowned throughout France by the national passion and frenzy for additional German territory. The present war with its shallow, miserable pretext had no other motive; a weak, disunit- ed Germany could easily be encroached upon and robbed. The divisions and dissensions of (iermany had for centuries served as the strength of and the opportunity for France, while united Germany had ever vanquished her Gallic foe. All her historic battle-fields prove but this truth. Napoleon III. and France in pursuing the old policy of Louis XIV. and the first Caesar, had in view the destruction of German unity and the ulti- mate conci^uest of the Rhineland. Those are mistaken who consider this war on the part of Germany a war of William and Bismarck against the Napoleonic dy- nasty ; it is a war of ft-eedom in the truest sense of the word. It is a war for the asser- tion of German honor, liberty, independence j-ustice, and morality, against French inso- lence, dictation, aggression, .and spoliation* 1 am positive my individual feelings are in these respects in full accord with those of the entire German nation. The French have sown the seed of national hatred, and are now reaping the harvest. They have humil- iated and taunted us until German patience and forbearance could endure it no longer. Has not (Germany borne and suffered enough for more than 200 years 7 And now that the hour of triumph has come, the hour of set- tlement for unspeakable aggressions and taunts, and spoliations, will Europe demand of us as the conclusion a miserable com- promise and a foul peace ? With the internal affairs and the form of government of France, Germany has nothing to do ; and I afBrrn that Germany's rulers and statesmen will iiot interfere in that direction, but respect the sovereign will of the French people. I predict, however, that no enduring peace between 'the two nations can and will be • possible ; that no peace will be made until France has surrendered to Germaay every inch of soil that is hers by right. The German people demand a surer pledge and a safer guarantee for the future than diplomatic negotiations and treaties on paper. They demand the restoration of the ancient bulwark against France ; the restoration of Elsass and Lothringen, with the natural frontiers of the Vogesen Mountains. They demand only their own, and what was theirs for many centuries. They demand back their German land, their German brothers, and their (ierman works of art and architec- ture. Is their demand unreasonable or un- just? [f there be any historic justice, if eternal morality and right be higher than the political considerations and expedients of the day, if truth and honesty appeal with greater force to the heart of men tlian paa- •sioa and predjudice, the impartial and en- lightened verdict of mankind will be in favor of my native land. Time does not legalize Iheft nor sanction crime, and just as the couunon law restores to the heir property wrongly taken from the ancestor, so are the Germans justified in avenging the humilia- tion and spoliation of their forefathers, and in recovering what rightfully belongs to their country. Self-protection and the highest political interests demand that Elsass and Lothringen become again integral parts of Germany. The heart of the nation in one universal pulsation strives and longs after the fulfilment of this beautiful hope, the first glorious work of United Germany. German unity were indeed incomplete with the tri- color of France floating over Elsass and Lothringen. 'i'he free, United States of Ger- many can as Httle become the cradle of Caesarism, or a standing menace to the peace and liberty of Europe, as the United States of America to the Western World. With Germany victorious, peace and progress must forever reign in Europe. Dr. Adolph Kessler. New York, Sept. 4, 1870. STRASBOUEG AND PARIS. A GERMAN MILITARY WRITER ON THEIR POWERS OF RESISTANCE. The following extract from a letter of the well-known military writer, Julius Von Wickede, has a special interest in connection with Strasbourg and Paris as regards their relative power of resistance : We are now besieging and bombarding Strasbourg and Metz, beyond all doubt the two strongest fortresses of France. These immense strongholds have menaced the peace and security of Germany, particularly the former, and it is therefore deemed of the highest importance that they should be cap- tured and remain in our permanent posses- sion. A fair number of heavy siege-guns have already arrived before Strasbourg. The Prussian 24-poimder3 are excellent and very effective ; they have a wide range, and as soon as the distance has been correctly ascertained (which is generally the case after two or three trial shots), their fire is as accu- rate and telling as can be reasonably desired. In regard to Strasbourg, it would not be wise to calculate upon an immediate capitu- lation. General Uhlrich, the commander of the fortress, was formerly in the Imperial Guard, and is an ofiScer of the highest mili- tary ability, one who will do his duty to the last, and without any particular regard for the inhabitants of the city he is called upon to defend. I became personally ac- quainted with him at Varna, during the Crimean war, when we passed our leisure time in conversing .about military mat- ters, drinking a glass of light Brussa wine, and playing a game of dominoes. I remember well enough that we repeatedly touched on the possibility of our confront- ing each other as enemies. The brave gene- S6 THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. xal did not then imagine that the strongest army which the Second Empire could bring into the field would be repeatedly beaten by «3 within a fortnight, and that we could so soon commence the siege of the two most important French fortresses. The idea that the Germans would carry the war into French territory seemed too preposterous to the French, who thought it an easy task to drive the Prussians beyond the Rhine, and never expected to meet any serious resist- ance until they would reach Mayence and Coblentz. All their preparations show that this was their preconceived plan. But to return to the siege of Strasbourg. Although the commander is a man of un- doubted talent, energy, and bravery, and although the garrison is composed of select trosps, who will fight and defend the city to the last, I do not believe this fortress will prove another Sebastopol. The numerous population of the city, amounting to more than 80,000 inhabitants, will be a serious check to the powers of resistance and en- durance of the garrison, and will necessitate a speedier capitulation than could otherwise he anticipated. It is more than probable that our repeatedly expressed opinion that large and populous cities are not fit places for fortresses, will obtain additional confirma- tion ere long. The principal objection against them is the diflBculty, or rather im- possibility, of provisioning them for a long siege. Of what use are the strongest walls and a great number of guns, when once famine, with its appalling consequences, spreads among a population of 80,000 souls ? and how can the most energetic commander prevent it, and protect his army against its demoralizing influence? It is utterly im- possible. We have read many reports aboiit the immense fortifications around Paris, and had an occasion to examine these strong- holds a few years ago; and we readily con- fess that they are formidable, and were so previous to the numerous additions and improvements which have recently been made. But what of that ? If what we have said above holds good with a city of 80,000 people, how much more so in regard to a capital of nearly 2,000,000 inhabitants, and composed of such dangerous and heterogene- ous elements as the population of Paris? Some of the Paris newspapers contain an account of the quantities of provisions which are said to be stored in that city, and pre- tend that the place is fully prepared for a siege of four months. We feel inclined to think that the figures on paper will not cor- respond with the amount of stores actually on hand, and we should not be at all sur- prised to find these statements equal in exaggeration and want of truth to the re- ports circulated about the strength of the French army, its armament, equipment, and fitness for field service. We think that by the time the three immense columns of the Oerman army shall appear before Paris, all the braggadocio about the defence of that city to the last will have been silenced by sounder counsel and cooler judgment. It would be the climax of madness to attempt a defence of Paris under the existing cir- cumstances. THE TEEEIBLE XIHLANS. Captain Jeannerod, the correspondent of Le Temps, writing from M§ziferes Charleville, after the battles at Metz. of the conduct of the German troops, says that the rpports of the Prussian doings are necessarily much exaggerated, but that isolated acts of violence have occurred, to which the alarm felt is in some degree traceable. Here is an incident which he relates illustrative of these ex- aggerations : "A Prussian soldier was Ijnng on the ground in a field ; a doctor, near at hand, bandaged his wounds, and, having finished, was about to mount his horse, when a Uhlau came up and shot him through the head with a pistol. Enormous as this seems, it must be true, for everywhere I have heard the same story. One of my informants was an old dragoon of the Guard, one of the rare survivors of his regiment, which was annihi- lated in the battle of the 16th. ' We have been crushed,' he said, ' but each one of us had struck down three ; and now, since they have fired upon the doctors, no more quar- ter 1 I met one this morning, lost in a wood. He had thrown away his gun, crying, ' Friend, friend I' ' No friend,' I replied, and ran my sword through his body.' Some Chasseurs d'Afrique have also declared in my presence, *No more quarter.' * * * Evidently the war between the two armies is assuming a char- acter of fur}' and of extermination. * * * The Uhlan will deserve, after this war, to hold the same rank in the Prussian army as the Zouave does with us. ♦ The Uhlans are everywhere,' said a yoimg peasant to me. Mounted upon excellent horses, four or five of them arrive in a village, and the whole canton knows that evening that the Prus- sians have arrived,'though the corps- d'armee .may be fifteen kilometers ofl: But that is ■ unknown ; and hence the dread of firing upon these four or five Uhlans, lest, for a single enemy thus dispatched, a whole commune might be put to fire and sword. So much fur the terror produced by Prussian arms ; but they also know how to caress the people. In the environs of Metz, nothing is spoken of but the Prussian organization, and the facility with which it adapts itself, for the moment, to the local customs of the country that is invaded. They have even gone so far as to promise to the employes of the Sarreguemines Railroad to maintain them on their present footing, though this is very superior to the condition of similar employes in Rhenish Prussia. In the towns, small and large, wherever their conduct will be talked of, the same dexterous handling is shown. Half from policy, half from natural inclina- tion, the conduct of the enemy in certain THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. 87 H Alities has left nothing to be complained i»f. As ajjainst tho villages burnt on the ftills of Gravelottc, other cases are cited where the inhabitants were quickly reassured. A young peasant girl said before me that it was very wrong to be frightened; that the epemy had been very gentle and considerate, had taken notliing, but contented themselves with asking for what they wanted, and pay- ing what was asked. And the peasant girl added one thing which was very sad, but which ought to be made known : ' Our own soldiers did a great deal more mischief.' " CONFLICTING REPORTS. The difference in the way in which a story can be told is curiowsly illustrated in the contrast of the narrations of the same facts coming over the cable from either side in the present war. The Prussian accounts told of a shell thrown by one of their little corvettes upon the deck of a French iron-clad near Dantzic. The French account described how nearly one of their iron-clads came to being sunk by a torpedo which the Prussians attached to her. The immense numbers of Prussians killed by the explosion at Laon, according to French newspapers, is marvellously diminished in Prussian state- ments. " Eight to ten thousand " was the number which French accounts gave for the besiegers who perished in the sallies made by the garrison of Strasbourg ; one hundred and fifty men during the entire fortnight is all the loss the Prussians admit. It is possible to explain differences in sea- going stories, but are all the besieged cities of France, as well as the forts of Paris, manned by marines ? FALL OF TOUL AND STRASBOURG. On the 19th an encounter had also taken place at Essones, near Orleans, in which an inferior German force was worsted while endeavoring to sever the railway connections of Paris with the south. The small comfort derived from this was, however, dispelled by the fall of Toul, an important fortress a few miles west of Nancy. The garrison made a stout resistance, but succumbed on the 23d, ,the Germans capturing nearly 2,500 prisoners and 245 cannon. The fall of Toul enabled them to complete their railway communica- tions with the east by the most direct and desirable route. This was accomplished on the 26th. On the 27th another terrible blow was dealt the French in THE CAPTURE OF STRASBOURG, by which 451 officers and 17,000 men were taken prisoners and the key to the ancient province of Alsace placed in German hands. The investment of Strasbourg had been commenced on the 10th of August, immedi- ately after the battle of Woerth, with a force of 30,000 men under the command of the Grand Duke of Baden. The besieging force was soon increased to 60,000 or 70,000, mostly South German troops, under General Von Werder, and on the 19th of August the bombardment was opened, to be kept up steadily until General Uhlrich, the French commander, was persuaded to put an end to the sufferings of the inhabitants by surrend- ering just as an assault in force was about to be made. "AFTER STRASBOURG, WHAT NEXT 1 " The capture of Strasbourg by the Prussians was regarded by many as the grand turning point in the Avar, but that those people so thinking were mistaken everybody knows. Never before in the history of France has such indomitable courage been shown by her people upon the battle field. From the commencement of the war, France has met at almost every turn, a suc- cession of defeat which might well discourage any country. And never before, in the history of Germany, has her subjects displayed such warlike pro- pensities, and " go-a-head-itiveness," in fact we may well say, they were equally matched, with the exception indeed, that to France has fallen a larger share of traitors than to her more successful opponent. France has lost her best army, consisting of veterans well used to scenes like those through which the country has passed. At the very next blow still another is swept from her. And yet during the late rebellion in the United States of America, how many great armies on both sides were annihilated; how many great generals killed, wounded, or re- moved, through political policy, or military incapacity ? Still the great struggle between north and south went on. Those upon this side of the ocean knew not how much to credit, or to disbelieve. Reports and " official documents " were extremely conflicting in their relative positions, and men knew not what to think of it, and were obliged to con- tent themselves with the somewhat uncom- forting conviction, that "time, alone, would tell." After the cessation of hostilities in and around Strasbourg, the victorious Prussians naturally turned their thoughts toward Metz as the next important step towards the sub- jugation of France, and removal of an obsta- cle on the road to Paris, Up to the nth of September, 1870, the eastern railway was still open to Nogelet, but the Prussians were at Chateau-Thierry ,^ advancing on La Fert6 sous Jouarre. The rolling stock of the road was removed as the enemy advanced, and the bridges, culverts, etc., were destroyed before the track was abandoned. 'I'here were, at this time, five corps de armee marching on Paris. The citadel of Laon was surrendered to save the city from destruction, and the Prussians siib- sequently blew up the fortifications. Mean- while the garrison at Toul still held out. and during the week made several very effective sorties. Marshal Bazaine did not remain in- 88 THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. active. He was constantly sending out ex- peditions to harass the Germans before Metz. But no amount of courage could save the city, for great sickness in the ranks and among the citizens, with not even food enough to supply half the demand, what re- sistence could, Metz make against her more fortunate opponents ? So, after a hopeless but gallant defence, Metz fell ; and now we shall relate » HOW METZ FELL. STOEY OP THE SURRENDER — ARRANGING THE TERMS — SURRENDER OP THE ARMY — BAZAINe'S INTRIGUES — CAUSE CP HIGH PRICES — THE DEATH LIST — OPPO- SITION TO THE CAPITULATION — BAZAINE MOBBED BY WOMEN. On the evening of the 25th of October, the GermanOhief of Staff had left Frascati (about five miles south-west of Metz) very much dis- couraged, scarcely hoping for any agreement, as the French appeared to.be intractable and obstinate. Nevertheless it was known from private sources that Metz could not hold out, and a capitulation was expected. THE PEELIMIlTAEy CONFERENCES. At noon Bazaine sent the Prince an auto- graph letter asking another conference ; and accordingly the Germans sent Gen. Stiehle, Chief of Staff of the Second Army, and Count Wartensleben, Chief of Staff of the First Army, to Frascati onae more. . The inter- view lasted three hours of the afternoon. At first it was stormy on the part of the French commissioners ; but it resulted in their con- version to the main points of the German terms. The first difficulty was concerning officers keeping their side-arms, on which Bazaine insisted. The point was finally re- ferred to the King, and conceded by him in 8i dispatch received at 3 o'clock on the morn- ing of the 27th. TEEMS OF SITEEENDEE. By agreement the conference was resumed early the same morning (27th), and lasted till 8 o'clock in the evening, when the capitula- tion was signed for the absolute rendition of Metz and all its fortifications, armaments, stores, and munitions ; and for the surrender on the conditions of the capitulation of Se- dan, of all the garrison and all Bazaine's army, comprising 3 marshals of France, 66 generals, 6,000 officers and 173,000 troops. The Germans were astounded at this result —an army and fortress capitulating to an iaivesting army only a fraction larger than itself. . The French commissioners were Bazaine's Chief of Staff, Gen. Jarnas, Col. Fay and Maj. Samuele, on the part of the commander of the fortress. On the 28th, Maj. Landkuhl, Chief of Engineers of the Second Corps, was to enter by stipulation at 10 o'clock to with- draw the mines from under the forts, prepara- tory to the safe entry of the Se^'enth Corps, ■who remained to guard the city and prison- ers, while the rest of the First Army de- parted immediately for Paris and for the south, the headquarters of Prince Frederick Charles at Lyons. At 1 o'clock the French army were to lay down their arms. All this was postponed 24 hours, in consequence of a want of readiness on the part of the French authorities, owing to internal disorders. THE AEMY LAYS DOWN ITS AEMS. On the 29th the forts were taken posses- sion of by the artillery of the Seventh Corps. At 1 o'clock the Third Division (which departed toward the south-west) and the Fourth Division were reviewed in splendid pageant by the Prince, on the Nancy-Metz road, near Tour-le-Brede. Thereupon the (French) Imperial Guards marched out of Metz, bearing their arms, which they subse- quently laid down at Frascati, and passed in review before the Prince. This honor was accorded to them alone. All the. rest laid down their arms in the Metz arsenals, and then marched to their cantonment outside the town, to await transportation. The Imperial Guards were received by the Prussian troops with respect; not a jeering syllable was heard, nor an improperly exultant look seen. Previously, at the Prince's review of the German troops, the cheering was loud and long-continued. At 4 p. M., the French companies that wfire still mounting guard at the various gates of the city and at depots and arsenals were relieved by Prussians, two regiments of infantry and one of cavalry having en- tered the town, 'J'he appointed military Governor-General, Von Zastrow, the Com- mander of the Seventh Corps, took posses- sion and control of the city and fortress, where he found the portrait of one of his ancestors who was at some early period also a military Governor of Metz» BAZAINE'S INTEIGUES. The tragedy was completed, but thefe is another side to the story which still remains to be reviewed. According to the statement of Gen. Von Zastrow, who held the woods of Vaux on the morning of August 19 (after the battle of Gravelotte), Bazaine could have avoided being enclosed in Metz. After he was thus inclosed, he could have, according to a Metzian statement, made a sortie and joined MacMahon more easily by far than MacMahon could reach him. After most of Bazaine's cavalry and artillery horses had been eaten, this proceeding was of course more difficult; still his movements are said to have lacked determination, and, in the last two sorties, to have been even frivolous. This is charged to a plot in behalf of the Regency by which this army was to try to remain in statu quo until the conclusion of the war in Western France, and then was to become available, with Prussian consent, for Bonapartist purposes. Bazaine himself ex- pected in that case to be the Governor of the Prince Imperial and the virtual Regent.) THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. 89 Nearly all the Metzians seemed to believe this ; and their most influential people avowed such belief. After the time of the investment, Bazaine was never seen in the camps except on extraordinary occasions ; never at all in the ambulances which are in part constructed in numerous railway box- wajjons on the Place Royale. Equally sel- dom was he seen in the city. The civil authorities had to find hira at the Barrier St. Martin; he did not appear at the City Hall once. He rarely, if ever, said a word to encoura,i*e his troops. Canrobert some- times cheered their hardships a little, and then they would cry ''Vive Canrohert! A has Bazaine I" Towards the last, it has been asserted by many, Bazaine did not dare to show himself to his own men for fear of assassination, and the terribly relaxed discipline was assuredly the cause of the hasty capitulation. On the morning of the 29th five soldiers lay dead of starvation at Montigny, while the stafi" still indulged in luxurious meals. Four days' rations were given to the entire army that morning (29th), but for two days previous they had received none. No beef nor pork had been obtainable at any price for a week ; but on that morning, before anything had arrived in town, the shops had plenty there- of, which goes to prove the charges current in the town that speculators had seized a quantity of food, and that a rational system of apportionment? such as existed during the last ten days, if introduced at first, and com- bined with requisitions, would have prevented much waste, and enabled the fortress to hold out a month longer. HIGH PSICE OF PROVISIONS. The Staff used at first to feed their horses on bread. Recently, prices had reached the following maximum : Sugar, $6 a pound ; Bait, $3 a pound ; one ham. $60 ; one potatoe, 9 cents ; one onion, 12 cents. A little pig, caught near Gravelotte, sold for $150. Dur- ing five weeks, amputations were performed without chloroform or ether, and wounds dressed without carbolic acid. DISEASE AND DEATH. There were more than 19,000 sick and ■wounded. During the siege 35,000 persons died in the town alone, the greater part from lack of proper care. The prevailing diseases •were varioloid, spotted typhus, and dysentery. Scurvy did not prevail, though even the sick, for over three weeks, received their horse steaks and horse broth without salt. The reported discovery of a saline spring at St. Julien was a hoax, contrived by putting salt into the spring to encourage the army. GENEEAL OPPOSITION TO THE STJEEENDEB. When the Capitulation became known, the people were furious. The National Guards refused to lay down their arms. On the after- noon of the 28th, a Captain of Dragoons appeared at the head of a body of troops who swore that tliey would sooner die than yield. Albert CoUignon, the editor of an ultra-Democratic daily newspaper, the Jour- nal de Metz, rode about on a white horse firing a pistol and exhorting them to sally forth and seek victory or death to escape impending shame. He was followed by a lady singing the Marseillaise. This produced terrible excitement. The doors of the Cathedral were burst open; and the tocsin was sounded and the bell rung nearly all night. When Gen. Coffiniferes appeared to pacify them, three pistol-shots were fired at him. Finally, by the aid of two regiments of the line, he quietly dispersed the mob ; but all night the sounds of grief, indignation, and terror continued. Respectable women ran about the streets tearing their hair and flinging their bonnets and laces nnder their feet, seeking their friends, and asking wildly, "What will become of our children?" Sol- diers, drunk and sober, tumbled hither and thither in irregular groups, with their caps off and their sabres broken, sobbing and weeping like children, and crying, " Oh pauvre Metz! Oh ma pauvre Meizl Tout est perdu !" It was as if they had never seen or known a Prussian. They demanded to know whether their already destitute larders must still supply the troops, and whether they would be personally maltreated if unable to furnish what was required. They were re- lieved by hearing that a thousand wagoHS were ready at Courcelles to bring provisions, and also that there were funds in London ready to be applied to their relief, in re- sponse to the appeal of the Mayors of Briey and other communes, published in English and American journals, saying, " Help is needed quickly." GEEMAN SOLDIERS GIVE THEIR RATIONS TO THE FRENCH. The entire besieging army voluntarily gave up their bread rations to feed their numerous French captives. This deeply touched the Metzians, and did \nuch to re- lieve their fears. At noon a Prussian rail- way-inspector made the trip by rail from Ars to Union Station, situated a mile south of Metz, and on the 30th perfect communi- cation by rail existed between Saarbruck, Maiz and Nancy. The road was little in- jured. But few German prisoners were found in Metz; the French had not kept those they had taken when they were in a condition to be returned. Not one of the French officers and soldiers who swarmed all about, even when intoxicated — which was surprisingly unfrequent — wore any other expression than a look of sadness or defiance, the latter not being common, and occurring chiefly among the younger offieers. DEMORALIZATION. I am informed that the French loss in killed in the yarious affairs since August 90 THE FKANCO-GERMAN WAE. 18th, added to the deatlis from sickness in the town, were 42,000. Bazaine himself de- dined the Prince's generous proposal to let all the troops lay down their arms outside of the works in view of their conquerors, in- stead of laying them down in the arsenal, saying that he could not guarantee their behaviour. The Imperial Guards alone had preserved discipline sufficiently to be trusted to pass in armed review. The inhabitants had never ceased to hope for the appearance of Bourbaki's army from Lille, or of the Army of the Loire, or of some other relieving force ; but the troops themselves during the last few weeks could no longer be deceived, as they got better information through *he German outposts. Their demoralization, due largely to hun- ger, was bitterly and openly complained of by their officers. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon Bazaine passed through Ars, on his way to Wilhelmshbhe, in a closed car- riage, inarked with his name, escorted by several officers of his staff on horseback. BAZAINE ASSAILED BY WOMEN. The women of the village had heard of his coming, and awaited him with crie* of " Traitor !" " Thief 1" " Coward 1" " Loafer !" " Brigand !" " Where are our husbands whom you have betrayed ?" " Give us back our childcen whom you have sold !" They attacked Hhe carriage, and broke the win- dows, and would have lynched the Marshal but for the intervention of Prussian gen- darmes. 'J'here was anything but harmony in the counsels of the generals shut up in the be- leaguered fortress. It was believed that Metz could have held out much longer, but the policy of Bazaine prevailed,, and on the morning of the 27th he capitulated, to be greeted throughout France, and especially by Minister Gambetta and other members of the Government of Defence, as a traitor for so doing. The capitulation of Metz was even more disastrous than that of Sedan. The Ger- mans came' into possession of 53 eagles, 541 field and 800 siege guns, 66 mitrailleuses, and 300,000 rifles and sabres, in addition to about 155,000 prisoners, who swelled the ranks of the captured French host to about 285.000. Among the prisoners were three Marshals of the Empire, Bazaine, Canrobert, and Le Boeuf, and Generals L'Admirault, Froseard, De Caen, Coffiniferes, Soleille and Lc Brun, and 37 other division and 100 brigadier-generals. But most important of all was the capture of the city itself, and its restoration to the doniinion of Germany, to which it had belonged centuries before. The event was, indeed, one of such signal propor- tions that King William celebrated it by bestowing the unusual rank of Field Marshal upon Prince Frederick Charles, on October 29th, the Crown Prince being complhnented with a similar promotion, while General Von Jloltke, whose directing genius presided over all, was lifted from a simple baron to the rank of a count. About this grand turning point in the history of the war also clustered the capitu- lation, on October 24th, of the important city of Schlestadt, below Strasbourg, with 2,400 prisoners and 120 cannon, and the occupation of Dijon, 196 miles southeast of Paris, on the 30th. EFFECT OF THE NEWS IN TOTJBS— A CIR- CULAR FROM GAMBETTA— A FEARFUL RUMOR. A profound impression was produced at Tours by the news of Bazine's capitulation. The majority deemed it a political move, and expressed intense indignation. The Army of the Loire, which had been largely increased, was ready to attack the Prussian forces, and much was expected from it toward the deliverance of Paris. The sur- render of Metz checked its efforts. When the surrender of Metz was rumored, Minister Gambetta issued a circular to Pre- fects, saying : " I have received from all sides grave reports, the veracity of which, in spite of all efforts, I cannot establish offi cially. It is said that Metz has capitulated. If so, it is well that you have the opinion of the Government on the matter. " Such an event could but be the result of a crime, the authors of which should be outlawed. Be convinced that, whatever may arise, nothing can abate our courage in.this epoch of ras- cally capitulations. There exists one thing which neither can nor will capitulate, that is the French Republic." THE SIEGE OF PARIS. The siege of Paris had at last become a stubborn reality, and the Parisians inaugu- rated that series of sorties which had become not less famous for its pertinacity than for its futility. 'I'he first sortie in force was made on September 30,th, on the south of the be- leaguered capital, against the 5th and 6th Prussian Corps, portions of the Crown Prince's army. The struggle lasted two hours, at the end of which time the French sought shelter xmder the guns of the forts, with a loss of at least 1,000, while the Ger- mans suffered inconsiderably. Meanwhile there had been some futile talk of peace. Lord Lyons and Senor Olozaga had been busy to no purpose, and finally Favre himself tried his hand at it. On the 22d of September M. Favre had visited the Prussian headquarters at Meaux, where he had an interview with Count Bismarck. The only terms to which Bismarck would listen involved the annexation of Alsace and Lor- raine to Germany. This concession Favre, supported by his colleagues, repudiated, and in a circular issued on the 24:th declared that " Paris is exasperated, and will rather bury herself beneath her own ruins than agree to such insolent pretensions." M. Thiers had likewise, on September 12, started on apeaca mission, visiting London, Vienna, and St. 5:hb men being required to defend parts, many beautiful and wealthy young ladies engaged in field labor, such as digging potatoes, etc. SBa^rent) W SJJanncr iitit ber 33ert^eibigung ijc-n fiaxi^ ju' t^tm fiatkn, taaxen tticic fd)onc unb reic^e junge SDamen mit gelb=^rkitcit t»cf^.aftigt, ^ — ^(^^^ tofe(=Srttte u. f. \i\ THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. 91 Tf tersburg, in the endeavor to interest the neutral powers in the cause of an honorable peace. But his missi6n was a total failure, and by the end of the month he was home- ward bound. The talk about peace had led the Govern- ment of Defence to contemplate the callinj? of a Constituent Assembly to ratify its terms and establish a permanent and authori- tative government, but the failure of the negotiations led the Paris section of the Government to declare the elections post- poned indefinitely. The Tours branch of the Government, however, concluded to pro- ceed with the elections, and issued a decree fixinj? the I6th of October as the date. 'I'his action, which was taken on October 1, was reversed on the 9th, and the elections declared postponed until Prance should be free from invasion. Considerable discontent was mani- fested, both in Paris and the provincial cities, at this course. Early in October there were serious disturbances in Lyons, and later in the month Marseilles was pveatly asritated by the demonstrations of the Red Republicans. Gambetta, escaped from Paris, announced his arrival at Tours on the 9th of October by the first of a series of formidable proclamations, by which cheap method he •strove to the lagt to smother discontent and ■dispel despair. Gradually the provinces ■were quieted, before a grand crisis was pre- cipitated by the fall of Metz and the occur- rence of serious disturbances in Paris. The friends of Prance, meanwhile, took encourajreraent from the noble manner in which Metz still held out. from several suc- cessful sorties from Soissons about the first of October, and from the stout resistance made by the petty fortress of Bitche, near the Bavarian frontier Soissons, however, succumbed on the mornma: of October 16th. a,fter a terrible destruction of life and properly and a most heroic resistance. The Germans, under the command of the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. had invested the fortress with a force about 22.000 strong, for three weeks, the destructive bombard- ment, however, lasting only four days. With the surrender A,T2^ prisoners and 128 guns were captured, and a second railway line was opened between the army investing Paris and its base of supplies. Even more important, temporarily, was THE CAPTURE OF ORLEANS, which the Germans entered on the night of October II. after a struggle lasting from 9 o'clock in the morning until 7 in the evening. The German army, which was commanded by General Von der Tann, was made up principally of Bavarians, and was greatly superior, in point of numbers, to the French Army of the Loire, then just entering on that famous career upon which the hopes of France were centred so long. The Germans -captured 6,000 prisoners, drove the French to the left of the Loire, and threw the Govern- ment at Tours into a fright, by threatening to swoop down upon that city. SERIOTTS DISTURBANCES IN PARIS. The news of the fall of Metz was carried into Paris by M. Thiers, who had no sooner returned from his unsuccessful tour of the European courts than he resurned his efforts in behalf of at least a temporary cessation of hostilities. M. Thiers was suffered by the German authorities to enter Paris in the interest of an armistice, and as soon as news of the terrible disaster on the Moselle was generally known and admitted by the Govern- ment, and the announcement made that M. Thiers had entered the city to arrange for an armistice, the temporary reaction was tremendous. The discontented elements of the population were headed by Gustavo Flourens, the blatant demagogue who had gained so much notoriety by his participa- tion in the disturbances attending the fune- ral of Victor Noir during the previous winter, and had, like Victor Hugo, returned to Paris with the republic. By his rampant course he had succeeded in disgusting and alienating even Rochefort, his former coadju- tor on La Marseillaise, and he seized upon this opportune moment for an attempt at snpplanting the existing Government. On the 31st of October, Flourens threw all Paris into a terrible tumult by invading with his adherents the Hotel de Ville, and making prisoners of several members of the Govern, raent. The Mobiles, the National Guard, and the sober-minded element of the popula- tion came to the rescue, and with theiu assistance the mob was dispersed before any serious mischief had been done. The Govern- ment, immediately after the suppression of the Red Republican demonstration, made an appeal to the people of Paris, who. by a vote of .o57,996 yeas to 62.2.38 "nays, declared their confidence in the constituted authorities. RED REPUBLICAN DISTURBANCES AT MAR- SEILLES. Following closely upon the disturbances in Paris, there was a serious commotion at Marseilles, in which city the Red Republican element, thoroughly organized through the agency of the international Workingmen's Association, had from the first been formida- ble in numbers and pretensions. M. Al- phonse Gent, who had been despatched by Gambetta to succeed Esquiros as Govern- ment Administrator, was assaulted on his arrival in the city on November 2d, and seriously wounded by a pistol shot. The proclamation of an independent Southern Republic followed on November 2, but the demonstration did -not assume formidable proportions, and at a municipal election held a few days afterwards, the Red Republicans mustered but 8,000 votes, against 29,000 in the interest of order. 92 THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. PTTTILE NEGOTIATIONS FOB AN ABMISTICE. The disturbances which had marked the •lose of October in Paris did not dampen the peaceful ardor of M. Thiers. The latter had entered Paris on the 30th of the month, and after assuring the capital of the fall of Metz, had a prolonp^ed conference with the Govern- ment. On the following day he returned to the German headquarters at Versailles, where he had consultations with the King and Bis- marck, and on the 7th of November he was again permitted to consult M. Pavre on the pending question. General Burnside had gone back and forth between Paris and Ver- sailles several times just previous to M. Thiers' visits to the capital, and, by obtain- ing the views of the leaders of both parties to the struggle, had paved the way for M. Thiers' labors, although his own had been without any favorable result. A fatal disagreement between Favre and Bismarck was developed by M. Thiers' nego- tiations. The Germ'ans offered an armistice of twenty-five days to enable elections for members of a Constituent Assembly to be held, on the basis of the status quo. The French Government insisted, however, on the revictualling of Paris ; to this the Ger- mans would not consent, and so the negotia- tions ended in smoke. M. Favre, in a circu- lar dated November 8, recounted the pro- gress of the negotiations and their failure, saying that " Prussia proves anew, in reject- ing the armistice, that she makes war for personal aims merely, and not for the inter- ests of Germany." As a counterblast to this. Count Bismarck, in a circular bearing the same date as M. Favre's, expressed the con- viction that the rulers of France did not de- sire to hear the views of the nation expressed through a representative parliamentary body, and insisted on a concession which they knew from the first to be unacceptable, " in order not to give the neutral powers, on whose sup- port they counted, a direct refusal " to negoti- ate for peace. THE GEBMANS DRIVEN FEOM OELEANS. After General Von der Tann's victory at Orleans on the 11th of October, the Army of the Loire, now under the command of General d'Aurelles de Palladines, was thor- oughly reorganized, and early in November assumed the offensive, De Palladines as- saulted Von der Tann's force on the 9th, the engagement, which was of a straggling char- acter, continuing through the 10th, and resulting, through an overwhelming superio- rity in numbers, in driving the Germans out of the city of Orleans, which was occu- pied by the French on the last day of the fight. Von der Tann was in a few days rein- forced by General Wittich, Prince Albreoht, iind the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, arid ^f ter effecting an orderly retreat to the north- east, awaited the advance of a portion of the army of Prince Frederick Charles, while the Army of the Loire, all aglow with the first substantial triumph which had attended the French cause, prepared to go to the relief of beleaguered Paris. THE TIDE TURNED AGAIN. On the 8th of November, the important fortress of Verdun, twenty-five miles west of Metz, on the Meuse. capitulated to the Ger- mans, who added here about 4,000 prisoners to the enormous number already captured. Neuf Breisach surrendered on the 10th. with 5,000 additional, and the Germans thereby came into possession of all the strongholds on the Rhine. Dijon, from which the Ger- mans had retired after their first occupation of the place, was re-entered on the 16lh, and Thionville, just above Metz on the Moselle, capitulated on the morning of the 25th, after a determined and heroic re- sistance. In the north a formidable French army, under General Faidherbe, had been organized in the neighborhood of Amiens. On Nov- ember 28th, this army was brought into action for the first time, a few. miles south of the city, and was completely routed by a portion of the First German Army under General Manteuffel. The engagement was not a bloody one, but at its close the Ger- mans, some 70,000 strong, occupied Aiiiie&s. A GRAND BUT FUTIIE EFFORT TO RELJEVE PARIS. Simultaneous with the occupation of Amiens, the French were engaged in making a desperate effort at breaking the lines around Paris. During October and Novem- ber, the invested city had not been idle, but the sorties made by General Trochu had been more in the nature of feints, and the only thing accomplished had been the temp- orary disturbance of the German lines in the neighborhood of Versailles and St. Denis, about the middle of October. On November 28th, the main body of the Army of the Loire attempted to force a passage towards Fontainebleau. They en- countered the army of Prince Frederick Charles at Beaune-Ia-Rolande, twenty-six miles northeast of Orleans, where they sus- tained a complete defeat, with the loss of over .5,000 in killed and wounded, and several thousand prisoners, while the German loss was but little over 1,000. Simultaneous with the advance of De Pal- ladines, General Trochu sallied out of Paris in great force. A wild rumor flew over the wires throughout the world that the German lines had been successfully pierced, and the Armies of the Loire and of Paris had effected a junction. But, after a struggle protracted from the evening of November 28th to the 3d of Decem'ber, General Ducrot, who was in immediate command, was obliged to withdraw across the Marne, with an ac- knowledged loss of over 6,000 in killed and wounded. THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. 9S The army of the Loire, undismayed by the «v. feat sustained on November 28th, renewed iio efforts to advance towards Paris, but sus- tained successive defeats — on the 1st of De- cember, west of Orleans, by General Von der Tann; on the 2d, near Bazoches-Ies- Ilautes, by the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg ; and on the 3d, near Artenay, by Prince Frederick Charles. The result of these pro- tracted engagements, according to M. Gam- betta, was that "the Army of the Loire dis- continued its forward movement,'' and evacuated Orleans, to save the city from de- struction. For his grand failure, General De Palladines was deprived of his command, to which General Chanzy succeeded. Dur- ing the series of engagements, the Germans captured 10,000 prisoners, 77 cannons, and 4 gunboats on the Loire. THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT REMOVED TO BORDEAUX. Thus the first "supreme effort" to save France, after the fall of Metz, came utterly to naught. An essential result of the accu- mulation of disaster was the removal of the French Government from Tours to Bor- deaux, which commenced on December 9th. FURTHER DISASTERS TO THE ARMT OF THE LOIRE. On the 7th the assault on the Army of the Loire was renewed by Prince' 5'rederick Charles and the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg, and after four days' severe fighting around Beangency, a few miles southwest of Orleans, the French were driven back upon Blois and Tours, with great loss. Vendome, to the west of Orleans, was also occupied, the French retiring in the direction of Le Mans, 112 miles southwest of Paris, and the most important railway station west of the capital. Here General Chanzy made a halt, and was strongly reinforced before he again con- fronted the enemy. Tours, the abandoned deputy capital, was temporarily occupied by the Germans on December 20, without se- rious opposition. On January 6, the German forces beyond Vendome encountered two corps of the Army of the Loire, which had again made an advance. A severe engagement ensued resulting in the defeat of the French, who re- treated to the westward. Prince Frederick Charles, who was in command of the Ger- mans, followed Chanzy closely, 'and on the 10th and Uth terrific engagements ensued near Le Mans, ending in the total rout of the Army of the Loire and its practical de- struction. The Germans lost 177 officers and 3.203 men killed and wounded, while the French, besides their killed and wounded, lost 22.000 unwounded prisoners. Thus the '' forlorn hope " of Paris vanished. operation's in THE NORTH. General Manteuffel had occupied Rouen on the 4th of December, after several en- counters with the army of Faidherbe, and left General Von Goeben in command there. At the same time the Germans withdrew from Amiens and made a feint upon Havre. Serious fighting was renewed on the 22d, and continued on the 23d, the French being defeated, and the year closed with Manteuffel in pursuit of Faidherbe's retreating army. On the 2d, and again on the 3d of January, there were severe engagements near Ba- paume, 25 miles northeast of Amiens, in which Faidherbe claimed the victory; but, if such it was, it was a fruitless one. After receiving heavy reinforcements, Faidherbe resumed the offensive, but on the 19th, after an obstinate fight of seven hours, was driven into St. Quentin, 40 miles east of Amiens, by General Von Goeben, who had succeeded Manteuffel in the chief command in the niifth. St. Quentin was subsequently aban- doned by the French, who retreated, in a totally demoralized condition, on Cambray, 20 miles north, to which place the Germans at once laid siege ; and thence to the north- west, on Arras, Douai, and Lille, inundating the country to prevent effective pursuit. The disasters to the Array of the North were fairly on a par with those sustained by the Army of the Loire at Le Mans, the French loss being over 15,000, of whom 9,000 were unwounded prisoners. The Ger- man loss was officially reported at 94 officers and 3,000 men. On the 9th of January, the fortress of Peronne, between Amiens and St. Quentin, had been captured, with 3,000 prisoners, after the town was nearly destroyed by bombards ment. OPERATIONS IN THE EAST. After the fall of Strasbourg, General Von Werder had proceeded to the south in the direction of Belfort, at the head of a con- siderable force. The badly-disciplined troops of Garibaldi and his two sons had been opera- ting in the southern section of the Vosges for some time, without doing much damage or achieving many laurels. On November 26 and 27, they were routed by Von Werder at Pasques, after which the latter proceeded to Belfort, to strengthen the besieging force. The fortress had been invested on November 3. and on the 16tli and 23d the garrison had indulged in unsuccessful sorties. On Decem- ber 18, a severe engagement took place at Nuits, fifteen miles S. S. W. of Dijon, lasting five hours, and ending in the capture of the town. About the middle of December a formida ble army under General Bourbaki was des. patched to the Vosges, to confront Von Werder and raise the siege of Belfort. Dijon, which had been occupied the second time by the Germans on the 30th of October, was evacuated on the approach o( the French, and occupied by Garibaldi's forces on Decem- ber 29. On January 9, Bourbaki was defeated at Villersexel, twenty miles W.S. W. of Bel fort, and on the 15th Von Werder success fully resisted a fierce assault on his positioi 94 THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. south of Belfort. Bourbaki renewed the at- tack on the 16th and 17th, but sustained a damaging defeat on both occasions, with heavy loss. He then withdrew his baffled array from the immediate vicinity of the Oerman forces, and contented himself for some time with outpost skirmishing. Active operations, however, were subse- quently resumed in the neighborhood of Dijon, near which place the Germans were repulsed on January 22, by the Garibaldians, after a severely contested fight, according to French reports. But this success could not materially affect the critical position of Bour- baki, who found himself between the army of Von Werder, around Belfort, and a force under Manteuffel, who was hastening to the latter's assistance and to assume the chief cemmand in the East. • MINOS MILITARY MOVEMENTS. On December 13, the minor stronghold of Pfalsburg, in the Vosges, twenty-five miles northwest of Strasbourg, capitulated, after a protracted siege which had commenced on August 14, immediately after the battle of Woerth. Nearly 2,000 prisoners and 63 can- non were captured with the fortress. On December 14, Montmedy, twenty-five miles north of Yerdun, surrendered, after a severe bombardment which effected a breach 3n the walls. The first engagement in the neighborhood had occurred on September 8, after which the' town had been closely in- vested, the garrison making sorties on Octo- ber 11 and November 16 and 17, but without any success except on the last occasion. The Oermana captured 3,000 prisoners and 65 cannon with the fortress. The next minor capture of importance by the Germans was M^ziferes, fifty miles north- east of Rheims, and near the scene of MacMa- hon's crashing defeat in September. The siege commenced immediately after the.latter event, and the defence made by the garrison •was heroic and unflagging. On September 26th, an armistice of forty-eight hours was granted for the removal of the wounded ; the garrison made a determined sortie on Nov. 14th ; and on November 30th, the Germans were twice repulsed in attacks on the town. On January 2d, however, the fortress capitu- lated, with 2,000 prisoners and 106 cannon. Next came the fate of Longwy, near the Belgian frontier, thirty-three miles north- northwest of Metz. Here the Germans again encountered a determined resistance. On January 21st the garrison made a suc- cessful sortie, dismounting several of the be- siegers' guns and forcing them to withdraw their batteries to a greater distance. But on the 25th the town at last fell into the hands of the Germans, with 3,000 prisoners and 200 .cannon. EOMBASDMENT OF FAEIS. Returning to the siege of Paris, we find Von Moltke politely informing Trochu of the disasters to the Army of the Loire and the reoccupation of Orleans, in a note dated December 5th. I'rochu declined to verify the fact by sending one of his officers through the lines, under a proffered safe conduct, and prepared for another sortie. On the 21st, Vinoy and Dncrot again ventured bfeyond the range of the forts. Vinoy assaulted the Ger- man lines on the east of the city, and Ducrot on the south. It is said that 100.000 French troops participated in these sorties, which were comprehensive in plan, but feeble iu execution and easily repulsed. Thus far, the German army around the capital had been content in strengthening its lines and repelling the sorties of the garrison. But by Christmas it was prepared for more exciting work, and on the 27th the bombard- ment of Fort Avron, the most advanced of the French outworks east of Paris, was com- menced. The French guns were silenced, and a Saxon detachment on advancing found the works abandoned. The Germans were thus established within the outer works of the French, at one of the weakest points along their line of defence, and within sheU ling distance of the city itself. ' The begin- ning of the end was at hand. To trace th9 progress of the bombardment in detail is as yet impossible ; the barest outline must suf- fice. 4'he abandonment of the Fort Avron rendered, the evacuation of other advanced posts in the neighborhood necessary, and the whole line of forts to the east was soon re- dnced to* comparative silence. On January 5th the bombardment of the southern forts was opened, and continued with destructive effect, the fiery cordon being extended from the south to the north by the opening of the German batteries upon St. Denis on the 22d. Gradually the aim of the besiegers' guns was directed upon the city itself, and shells fell almost in the heart of the city, creating consternation and making havoc with life and property. The first shells fell within the enceinte oh the 5th, and on the 8th the fire upon the city itself became well directed and continuous In a circular issued on the 15th, the Government of Defence pro- tested against the bombardment, because it was not preceded by a special warning to re- move non-combatants and characterized it as " an act coldly calculated to devastate the city and strike terror to the citizens by mur der and incendiarism." Sorties, however, were again resorted to or. the 13th, on- the northeast, south, and south, west of the city, but, like all that had pre- ceded them, they were unavailing. A more formidable sortie was made from Fort Monti VaI6rien, on the west, on the morning of the 19th. The French attacked the Germans in immense force, but after a terrible con- flict, lasting six hours, their left was broken and they were driven back. The French loss was so great that they were compelled to ask an armistice of forty-eight hours, to col- lect their wounded and bury their dead, which was tacitly granted by the Germaik pickets, although refused by the generals THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. 97 The result of this unsuccessful attempt at diverting the enemy from their destructive Tvork on llie other side of the city was ex- tremely depressinp: upon the army and peo- ple of Paris. Both soldiers and citizens at last abandoned their faith in Trochu, and the latter tendered his resijrnation, to appease the popuhir clamor, and leave the Govern- ment of Defence at liberty to meet the emer- gency as best they could. The Council of Ministers, on the afternoon of the 21st. ac- cepted Trochu's resignation as Military Gov- ernor and Cornmander-in-chief of the Army of Paris, Generol Vinoy beinj? appointed his *6uccessor. Trochu was retained, however, as Civil Governor of the city and nominal President of the Government of Defence. General Vinoy accepted the command, on condition that stern measures should be adopted to repress the disturbances which were threatened by the Red Republican ele- ment. There was immediate opportunity for enforcin": his repressive policy. On the night of Saturday, January 21. a disorderly mob assailed the Mazas prison, in which Gus- tavo Flourens. Felix Pyat, and other revolu- tionary characters were incarcerated. They succeeded in liberating the prisoners, and on the followins: day a demonstration was made upon the Hotel de Ville, with the avowed object of deposing the Government. The crowd was not a larsre one, but their momen- tary success would have precipitated a crisis, and decisive measures were taken to avert a serious catastrophe, Five of the rioters and spectators were killed, and eighteen wounded ; and this small expenditure of blood sufficed to suppress the demonstration, and disperse the crowd. THE CAPITULATION OF PARIS. The end was at hand. The new year was ushered in by the one hundred and tiFth day of the siege. Saturday, Jamiary 28, ex- tended the period of investment and isolation to one hundred and tliirty-three days. For fully nineteen weeks Paris had been shut in from tlie great world of which it claimed to be the capital and centre. During the whole of this extended period a population of two millions liad subsisted upon the stock of pro- visions accumulated in expectation of a siege. Not a loaf of bread or an ounce of meat had found its way into the city from without. Jlorseilesh in time took the place of the ordi- nary animal food of civilized nations, and when this too began to fail, dogs, cats, and rats were brought into requisition. Even these unsavory aliments failed at last, and the people, long inured to unsatisfied hunger, were at last on the very verge of starvation. Terrible missiles of death were falling in the heart of tlie city ; Flourens was aofain ioose and at the head of the mob which respected neither life, nor property nor principle ; the last " supreme effort " at a sortie had been the most signal failure of all — the end had come at last. On the evening of Monday, January 23d, M. Jules Favre, whose belief in tJie impreg- nability of Paris against the combined as- saults of famine, fire, and fusillade, had undergone a change, arrived at Bismarck's headquarters in Versailles, to propose capi- tulation. With the course of the negotiations we are not yet familiar, because of the con- flicting and unauthcnticated reports which have been borne across the ocean by the cable. There was naturally a higgling over the terras of the surrender, and several con- sultations were lecessary before they conid be arranged satisfactory to both sides. On Thursday, the 26th, Favre again met Bis- marck, being accompanied by M. Dorian, who had just succeeded General Leflo as Minister of War, and M. Picard, the Minis- ter of Finance. On Friday, the 27th, an- other conference resulted in the settlement of the terras, and the fall of Paris was con- summated on the following day, when the signatures of Bismarck and Favre were affixed to the capitulation, and an armistice of three weeks' duration. THE WAR ON THE OCEAN-^x GREATER FARCE THAN THAT ON LAND. At the time of the declaration of war by France against Prussia, the relative strength of the two powers on the- ocean was as follows : — France, North Gennanj/. Number of vessels 401 102 " " guns 3,045 620 Horse-power ., 92,627 10,770 Of the French fleet of 401 vessels, G2 were iron-clads, 264 screw steamers, 62 paddle- wheel steamers, and 113 sailing vessels. The German total of 102 vessels consisted of 7 iron-clad screw steamers, 9 frigates and corvettes, 27 gunboats, and 59 sailing ves- sels. The French fleet was manned, when on a peace footing, by 2,218 officers and 39,346 sailors, the total being swelled by the men of all grades and in all capacities attached to the service to 74,403 ; while there was provision for increasing this formidable force to about 170,000 in time of war. The Ger- man fleet, on the contrary, was manned by only 216 officers and 3,500 seamen and boys This great disparity, as a matter of course drove Germany from the ocean, and rendered a naval contest of any importance impossi- ble from the outset. It likewise sufficed almost to annihilate the foreign commerce of Germany without the firing of a gun, while that of France remained practically secure from molestation. But Germany ap- prehended a greater misfortune even than this — a descent by a formidable fleet upon her coast, and the devastation of her sea- board, if not an actual invasion of her terri- tory. To guard against such disasters, ex- tensive precautionary measures were taken; the buoys and lights were all removed, ren- dering the approaches to the coast exceed- ingly hazardous ; the mouths of the Weser, Elbe, and Oder, and the harbors of Kiel and 98 THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. Stralsund, were protected by chains, sunken vessels and torpedoes; and two formidable armies were held in reserve— one of 108,000 men. under the command of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg, on the Baltic coast, near the mouth of the Oder, and another of 58,000, under General Yon Falkenstein, near the mouth of the Elbe. Previous to the outbreak of the war, the United States had become entirely dependent upon the North German lines of steamers for postal facilities with Europe, and an effort was made by our Government to se- cure the exemption of their steamers from capture or interference, which favor the Imperial Government declined to grant ; and in consequence of the refusal, the North German steamers plying between New York and Bremen and Hamburg were obliged to seek safety in home or neutral ports. Immediately upon the declaration of war great activity was displayed by France in preparing her navy for service against the enemy, Cherbourg being the natural point of departure for the armor-plated fleet, from which the most effective service was expected. The first division of the fleet which rendez- voused at Cherbourg took its departure for the Baltic on July 24th, under Vice-Admiral Bouet-Willanmez, to be followed soon after by the second division under Rear-Adrairal Penhoet. Previous to sailing Admiral Bouet- Willauraez's fleet was honored by an unex- pected visit from the Empress Eugenie, who came to bring the proclamation of the Empe- ror and bid adieu in the name of France. Subsequently, the French fleet from the Mediterranean, under Vice-Admiral Fouri- chon, who became Minister of Marine under the Government of Defence after the down- fall of Napoleon, was despatched to the North Sea. It was by Admiral Fourichon that the proclamation, dated August 12, was issued announcing to the world the blockade of the whole North German coast, and granting a delay of only ten days to enable neutral vessels to complete their cargoes and leave the embargoed ports. Before entering the Baltic Admiral Bouet- Willaumez captured two Prussian gunboats at the mouth of the Elbe, and tried the range of his -guns on Wilhelmshaven, but without endeavoring to effect a landing. At Copenhagen the French fleet was received with great enthusiasm, and it was generally thought at the time that Denmark would be inveigled into an offensive and defensive alliance against Germany. The grossest mismanagement, however, was manifest from the start. The French commander did not attempt to take possession of one of the small islands on the coast of Holstein or Schleswig, to serve as a base of operations and a place of refuge, but contented himself with watching the enemy's seaboard, taking in coal and supplies on the open sea, and never coming to anchor except on retiring to the neutral waters of Denmark. His ves- sels were all of such great draught that it was impossible to approach the German coast near enough to inflict any damage, especially after the lights and buoys had been removed and false lights erected to attract his ships into .shallow water and over torpedoes. His fleet was subject to constant surprises at night from the small Prussian avisos, and up to the time of Napoleon's overthrow there was but a single encounter of any importance with the .enemy. This occurred on August 17, when the Prussian despatch-boat Grille started out of the Bay of Rugen to reconnoitre, and succeeded in drawing into a fruitless chase seven French iron-clads and two smaller vessels. Three Prussian gunboats soon joined the Grille, and a running fight of three hours ensued, in which no damage was done to either fleet, after which the Prussian vessels sought the protection of their shore batteries. On the 21st of August an equally farcical encounter took place off Dantzic, between the Prussian corvette Nympe and three French iron-clads and a despatch boat. This was the sum and substance of the naval operations in the Baltic. The blockade was not even effective, and vessels entered and left the ports of Dantzic and Koenigsberg freely from first to last. In the North Sea there was absolutely no movements of sufficient consequence to re- cord in this summary. The French fleet, formidable in numbers and armament, la- bored under the same disadvantages as that in the Baltic, and the downfall of the Em'- pire reduced both squadrons to complete in- activity. The proclamation of the Republic was quietly, even enthusiastically, acquiesced in by the navy ; Fourichon left his command to assume the functions of the Ministry of Marine; and on September 11th the blockade was formally and officially raised in both the North Sea and the Baltic, the greater portion of the fleet being recalled to protect Cher- bourg, Havre, ^nd Brest. Subsequently, in October and November, the pretence of another blockade was made, and the order which had been given for the restoration of lights and buoys on the Ger- man coast was suspended. It amounted to nothing, however, and the service of the North German ocean steamers was resumed about the first of October, with tolerable regularity and perfect impunity. A large number of German merchant vessels, how- ever, were captured during the progress of hostilities, and a few engagements took place in distant parts of the world. On the 10th of November, a naval duel took place off Havana between the French war steamer Bouvet and the Prussian war steamer Met- eor, the former carrying five guns and eighty men, and the latter three guns and sixty men. But little damage was done, the Met- eor getting the best of the encounter. A combat likewise took place at some indefinite point in the Pacific, about the 20th of De- cember, in which the Prussian frigate Medusa is reported to have sunk two small French MR. CHARLES M. SAVAGE, OF LOUISVILLE, KY., WAS STRUCK BY A BOMB- SHELL IN PARIS DURING THE SIEGE, AND INSTANTLY KILLED. bet 33i'Iagerung von einem Somknfpltttcr getrpjfeti «nt) aitgenMidUd) gc* THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. 9& fmnbofttfl. It has also been reported that the Prussian corvette Augusta ran down and sunk a French punboat off tlie coast of Spain on the 12th of January, but no rehable particulars of the encounter have been received. AN ARUISTICE SIOITED. THK PARIS FORTS IN THE HANDS OP THE PRUSSIANS. The despatches from Versailles on January 29th announctd that Bismarck signed, on Saturday the 28th, with M. Favre, the capitulation of all the Paris forts and an armistice of three weeks on land and sea; the Array of Paris to remain prisoners of war ■within the capital. It was stated in diplomatic circles that the negotiations for the capitulation of Paris would have been concluded earlier, had not Bismarck insisted on the acceptance of con- ditions of peace. A despatch from "Versailles, bearing date of January 30th, said the occupation of the Paris forts by the German troops was un- attended by any incident of general interest. The evening edition of The Times con- tained a despatch from Versailles which stated that the contribution imposed upon Paris by the articles of capitulation is 53,000.000 francs. A despatch forwarded from Versailles to Bordeaux on the 281h. by Jules Favre, to the Government at Bordeaux, stated the treaty was signed on the 30th. There is to be an armistice for twenty-one days. The National Assembly was to be convened at Bordeaux on the 15th of February. The elections took place on the 8th of February. A member of the Paris Government left at once for Bordeaux. THE NAVY INCLUDED IN THE ARMISTICE. Secretary Fish received the following tele- gram from Mr. Moran, our Cliarg6 d'Affaires at London, dated London, Sunday morning, January 29 : " The German Ambassador here has offi- cially informed me that the capitulation of all the Paris forts, and an armistice of three weeks by land and sea. was signed about 8 o'clock last evening, at Versailles, by Count Bismarck and Jules Favre. The Army of Paris will remain prisoners of war in the city, but it is not known whether they are to be disarmed or not. No details have yet been received. Count Bernstoff thinks it an important fact that the armistice extends over the sea, and that it should be made known as widely as possible." THE EMPEROS TO THE EMPRESS. The Emperor William sent the follow- ing telegraphic dispatch to the Empress Augusta : "Versailles, 2 p. m., Sunday. "Last night an armistice for three weeks *a8 signed. The Regulars and Mobiles are to be interned in Paris as prisoners of war. The National. Guard will undertake the maintenance of order. We occupy all the forts. Paris remains invested, but will be allowed to revictual as soon as arms are surrendered. "The National Assembly is to be sum- moned to meet at Bordeaux in a fortnight. All the armies in the field will retain their respective positions, the ground between opposing lines to be neutral. " This is the reward of patriotism, heroism, and great sacrifices. Thank God for this fresh mercy ! May peace soon follow. WiLHELM." THE BONAPARTES. Bismarck, alluding to the reported negoti- ations between Napoleon and the. Prussian Government, says the Emperor refers every- thing to the Regency. He (Bismarck) denies that he has ever negotiated for a restoration of the Bonapartes, or that he intends to interfere in the domestic concerns of France. The Times publishes, by request from Chiselhurst, a denial of its statement that intrigues were goings on between Bismarck and the Bonapartists for the restoration of the latter. ATTEMPTED SUICIDE OF GEN. BOURBAEI. Bourbaki attempted to commit suicide after the defeat at Belfort. His injuries were so severe that his life was despaired of. Many bands of soldiers, who had separated from the French armies, were scattered along the Swiss frontier. It was officially announced that Gen. Clinchart has been appointed to the com- mand of the First Army, in place of Gen. Bourbaki, no longer able to perform active service. Bourbaki's loss in his attacks upon Gen. Von Werder's army was fully 10,000 men. There was great suffering among the French, and their sick and wounded were abandoned by the retreating army. The free-shooters surprised a party of Uhlans, and captured a god-son of the Era- press Augusta. They refused to exchange him for a French prisoner, and placed him in hospital. The town of Sable, 27 miles west south- west of Le Mans, was occupied by 2,000 Germans, with artillery and cavalry, 'J'he number of French prisoners of war in Gei-many on the 1st of January was 11,160 officers and 333.885 men. Prince Frederick William will hereafter be styled " Imperial Highness and Crown Prince of Germany." It was reported from Basle that numbers of Gen. Bourbaki's army were crossing the frontier armed, at Bruntrut and Neuenburg. An official dispatch to the Baden Ministry stated that the army of Gen. Bourbaki had entered Switzerland, crossing the border near Bruntrut. The reported attempt of Bourbaki to commit suicide was confirmed. 100 THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. POSTAL COMMUNICATION BETWEEN PAEI8 AND LONDON BEOFENED. GREAT DISTRESS III PARIS — THE PRUSSIANS DRIVlirO CATTLE INTO THE CITV — DEMONSTRATION AGAINST THE ARMISTICE 18 THE FBOTXMCES — LYONS STILL BELLIGKRBNT.' The execution of the terms of the conven- tion between Favre and Bismarck proceeded on January 29th without interruption. The armistice in France began instantly at Paris, and three days later in the depart- ments, and expired at noon of Feb. 19th. The line of division between the German and French forces sej)arates into two portions each of the departments of Calvados and Orne. The Germans held those of the Sarthe, Indre et Loire, Loire et Cher, Loiret, and Youne. The neighborhood of the Jura ^as excepted from the provisions of the Ar- mistice, which included the naval forces of both Powers in all parts of the world. . The terms of the capitulation were that the prisoners of war were to remain in Paris during the armistice, having first surrend- ered their arms ; — The National Guards and Gendarmes to retain their arms, as also the police; — All Francs-tireurs were to be dis- ibanded ; — German prisoners to be exchanged ; — The public funds to remain in Paris. The distress in Paris was very great, and the destruction of the railways impeded the revictnall ing of the city. The Germans mean- while, supplying articles of the first necessity from their own stores, and driving cattle into the city. Immense quantities of provisions were forwarded from Brussels to Paris, and great ^efforts made to restore the railways. Bismarck notified the British Foreign OfiBce ihat the Dieppe line alone was available for the transportation of provisions to Paris; but that, until sufficient supplies could be re- ceived, the Germans should share their stores with the citizens. Postal commimication between London and Paris was reopened on the 30th of January. M. Gambetta forwarded a dispatch by telegraph to M. Favre at Versailles, request- ing him to break the silence maintained by the Paris Government ; to state the name of the Minister whose coming to Bordeaux had been announced, and the motives of the delay in his movements ; and to give precise information respecting the condition of Paris. Demonstrations occurred in several French t,owns against both the armistice and any mutilation of the territory of France. • The muaicipality of Lyons appeared to maintain its resistance to the Germans, and sent a deputation to Bordeaux to urge the adoption of general measures for the same object. The armistice astounded the people of the North of France. Though the general im- pression was rather favorable than other- wise, there was a feeling of uncertainty as to the future and a desire to wait ibr the con- ditions of peace before dociding upon plans for the future. Count Bismarck left France after the meeting of the National Assembly at Bor- deaux. The Germans enforced rigid passport regulations during the armistice. The 46th Prussian Regiment occupied Fort du Mont Val6rien. The Echo du Nord asserted that a General of the Army of Paris committed suicide. No name was given however. BOUBBAEI SUSBOTTNDED BT MANTETJFFEL'S ABMY. THREE THOUSAND PRISONERS AND SIX CANNON AL- REAOT CAPTURED — ADVANCE Ol* THE rSBNCH SOUTH or THE LOIRE. General Manteuffel inclosed the army of Bourbaki on the Swiss frontier. He over- took the retreating French west of Pontarlier and captured Chappoy and Sombrecourt, with 3,000 prisoners and six pieces of artil- lery. As the French forces were again advancing south of the Loire, the Prussians destroyed the bridge at Blois. This stopped the ad- vance, and the French subsequently retreated southward. The Fourth Prussian Reserve took 200 prisoners at Pattevant. The Germans invested Abbeville, notwith- standing the armistice. The following article from the French Organ of News, published in New York city, we must comment upon : The Guurrter des Ekats Unis counsels present submission by France to the terms of peace dictated . by Germany, with a view to the renewal of the war whenever France shall feel able to cope once more with her now triumphant antagonist. It says : " When we state that * the armistice is the end of the war, it is our opinion and our desire,' we mean that if hard pressed by the fight, mutilated by the sword, charred by the fire, we are ready to abandon the arms, the fragments of which alone the fortune of war has left in our hands, it is because we wish to preserve in our veins enough blood to maintain life ; it is that we wish to preserve respiration enough to revive us, to recover breath, to regain our strength, to await our opportunity, and then when the hour has come to seize our enemy by the throat and avenge ourselves. That is savage. Yes. It makes civilization recoil, and retards that beautiful humanitarian theory of the aboli- tion of war. Certainly. If we are to be barbarians, be it so. The world will point their finger at us. What matters it ? We have done enough for the prosperity of peace, for the arts, for science, for industry, for the progress of humanity. What has humanity- done for us ? What advantage have we de- rived from the disinterested services which we have rendered the civilized world ? We have not even obtained barren sympathy ; for there is no people which does not smile at onr downfall, and only isolated voices in charity dole out to us a few words of pity. THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. 101 There will be a truce, but no durable peace for generations who groan beneath their yoke. France — like those maimed, who suffer after a limb is amputated from imaginary pain in the severed members — will have no rest until its fragments be collected into the original whole. So much the worse for Eu- rope, if it trembles at our convulsions. We have no longer any bowels of compassion, no heart save for ourselves. — What matters it to us, the agitation and the disturbances of others ? We had enough of chivalry, «nough of generosity, enough of sacrifice and disinterestedness for others. We are egotists now, and henceforth will only dream of our scattered members, children separated from us, the flesh of our flesh violently torn away from our quivering body. All is not yet ruined, thank God. But even were all buried under lava and ashes — as the giant Eucelades, fettered beneath Etna, would yet upheave the monsters heaped above our heads — let no one trust to that peace which it is presumed will follow. Whoever be the rulers to come — kings or people, emperors or tribunes — they will be applauded by France only on condition that they espouse its hate and its vengeance. Misfortune to him who woiild think of building up a Power on our ruins. It would, perhaps, remain xip- •right so long as we were too feeble to dash it down, but at the first movement of our renewed strength all would topple down and mingle in the dust. Let it be said so. France is going to have a National Assembly, which will give it a government and probably a Republican one. The Republican must thange its device, and instead of the words ' lAherte, Egallte, Frate^-nite' let it inscribe on its banner the antithesis of the" Empire, 'The Republic ts War.^ " The above may be right or wrong, wise or foolish, Christian or heathen, but we cannot doubt it is perfectly sincere as well as exceed- ingly human. We do not presume to rebuke or to criticisg it. The remark it suggests to us is simply this : It is a complete Justifica- tion of the German policy and exactions. It fully justifies Ranke's response to Thiers' remonstrance : "Against what are you Ger- mans now fighting ?" — "Against Louis XIV., Monsieur." Germany says to France : " You fought me when ray household was distracted and at deadly feud, and. playing part of it against the rest, you conquered, humbled, despoiled us. You wrested from us Strasbourg, one of onr great historic cities, the goodly Rhine lands of Alsace, the fair valleys of Lorraine, S)ur natural defences of the Vosges. Now that we are united, powerful, triumphant, we propose to reclaim them." " But consider how long ago these acqui- sitions were made by us," pleads France ; "how firmly they have been incorporated into our life and heart — how their people, though German in lineage and speech, are French in every impulse, every fibre of their being " We have felt these latter considerations entitled to some weight, but the Courrier says not. It assumes that no statute of limitations can be set up in bar of a claim of France to a restoration of provinces that the fortunes of war first gave her, and then took away again. If she gains territory by ever so unjust a war, it is hers thenceforth, and forever, and whoever retakes it must understand that she will never rest till she reconquers it. If this is to be her rule, we apprehend that the Universal Peace Society must count her out of the list of its support- ers in the present or in the immediate future. THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLIES. PREVIOUS CONVOCATIONS — REQUIREMENTS AND RE- SULTS. The convocation of the representatives of a nation is usually an occasion of supreme importance ; but in France it marks an era in history, because its object is to construct a new Constitution. The order for an elec- tion for a Constituent Assembly is among the first acts of the present Provisional Government of France. As soon as it meets, the Provisional Government will probably — as in 1848 — resign its powers into the hands of the Assembly, who will proceed to provide both a Government and a Constitution. Hence the circumstances under which the two preceding Constituent Assemblies were convoked, and the works they effected are of extreme interest in their relation to the pre- sent occasion; While it is the belief and hope of the best friends of France that the coming Assembly will give her a Republican form of government, it will yet be within the powers conferred upon the Assembly by the people to make their country once more a monarchy, or even an empire. France, in 1785-6, was seething with dis- content. The fires of the First Revolution were smouldering beneath the mass. Louis XV. had left the legacy of quarrels with Parliaments to his successor, with the cau- tion, " Let iny grandson take care of them, for it is more than probable they will endan- ger the crown ;" and the Abb6 Perigord, afterward to become illustrious as the prince of diplomatists, Talleyrand, had just remarked that the " miserable aflair of the diamond necklace may overturn the throne." The extreme deficiencies in the finances of the State had compelled the convening of the Assembly of Notables for the purpose of levying incre^ised taxation. In dismissing that assemblage, which had come together from all parts of the kingdom, the Arch- bishop of Toulouse made the startling an- nouncement of the coming change — that the Tiers-Etat, i. e., the people, as a matter of justice, should be represented by another assembly of a number of votes equal to that of the clergy and nobles taken together. Marshal Segur said to the King that the assembling of the Notables might be the seed of the States-General ; if so, it M-as of rapid growth, for the pressure of both nobles and 102 THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. clergy compelled, in August, 1788, the order for the convocation of the national estates or States-General for the 1st of May, 1789. Each of the three estates, nobles, clergy, and people, expected to control this assemblage, which was elective, and, so far as the Tiers- Etat was concerned, resulted in the selection of representatives of the popular will. Nec- kar, tlie Prime Minister, procured the autho- rization by the King's Council of the mea- sure which doubled the number of the depu- ties representing the Tiers-Etat, The as- semblage of the representatives of the three Estates thus collected on the 5th of May, 1789, was composed of 1,128 persons, and was called also the Constituent Assembly. It consisted of 293 representatives of the clergy, 270 of the nobles, and 565 of the Tiers- Etat, thus quite realizing the proportion of numbers to the latter named by the Arch- bishop of Toulouse. Of the representatives of the clergy, more than two-thirds were cur^s; 62 out of 108 mayors and magistrates in the Assembly were elected by the people, and from the latter there came also 279 law- yers. It will be perceived that the prepon- derance of intellectual activity, as well as of numbers, might naturally be expected on the side of the Tiers-Etat. One of the earliest measures taken by the representatives of the people was an attempt to draw a dividing liue ; on the 17th of June, 1789, they took to themselves separately the title of the Na- tional Assembly, and Neckar prepared a plan for a constitution, in which the distinction was further indicated by providing for their meetings in a different chamber from the nobles and clergy. But, five days afterward, 148 of the clergy left the rest and joined themselves to the National Assembly. An endeavor to disperse the States-General on the part of the King was resisted by the Na- tional Assembly ; immediately 46 nobles, among whom was the Duke of Orleans, fol- lowed in the footsteps of the clergy, and went over to the resisting body, and at last the King ordered the remainder of the nobles and clergy to join the opposition, and the National Assembly embraced all the mem- bers of- the States-General. There were, however, two other import- ant classes who already endeavored to con- test the Government with the Crown and the National Assembly — the army of France and the populace of Paris. Treachery among the troops has ever been coincident with disasters to the French Monarchy.' The National Assembly, if it did clearly pei-- ceive the distinction between the voice of the people and the violence of the mob, was powerless to quell the Parisian insurgents, who, in the successful storming of the Bas- tile, on the 14th of July, 1789, learned alike the power of the populace and the weakness of the crown. But with these insurrectionary movements, which afterward extended to other cities, and with the formation of the National Guard, which dates from that day, began the growth of that military spirit and training which eventually made France a nation of soldiers. On the 8th of October following, the mob seized the person of the King and conducted him, virtually their prisoner, from Versailles to Paris, where he was permanently detained in obedience to the popular behest. On the 20th June, 1791, the King attempted an escape, but was arrested at Varennes and reconducted to Paris by three commissioners from the National Assembly. That body the next day passed a decree suspending temporarily his kingly functions. It would have been far better for France to have permitted his escape. These acts were unquestionably among the gravest political errors of the Assembly, and can only be regarded as weak concessions to the violent expressions of popular sentiment. The great work accomplished by the Con- stituent Assembly was the overthrow of the feudal forms of government and the recogni- tion of the rights of man. Its enactments provided for extended suffrage; for reforms in the systems of law and administration of justice, including the introduction of trial by jury ; they secured liberty of religious worship, and confiscated church property; they placed taxation on a broader basis, and secured a better foundation for the finances of the country ; they changed the law of in- heritance, and provided for the distribution of landed property to the untitled classes. The Assembly prepared a Constitution for France, which was intended to secure to that country the advantages of a limited mon- archy. On the 14th of September, 1791, the King, having been restored by the Assembly to the exercise of his functions and to his personal freedom, declared in public his ac- ceptance of the Constitution amid great popular enthusiasm. Its work accomplished, on the 29th of the same month the Assembly declared its sittings closed. With a view to a more exact representation of the people, the Assembly saci'ificed itself by making its- members ineligible as candidates to the next Assembly. With the close of the Constitu- ent Assembly it therefore resulted that those representatives who had learned much of the . governing art in the stormy twenty-nine months of its existence no longer p,ermitted themselves to exercise their knowledge for the benefit .of their country. They were suc- ceeded by the Legislative Assembly, wliick, opened its sittings within two days after the Constituent Assembly was closed. But the new legislators were a very difi'erent class of men from their predecessors; a monarchy, however limited, no longer met the require- ments of the nation, and the Constitution of J791 was soon superseded. A brief review of the legislative bearings of the revolution of 1830, the abdication of Charles X. and the accession of Louis Philippe, will throw light upon the circum- stances of the convocation of the second Constituent Assembly. Charles X. yielded to the force of a revolution incited by iiL-' THE FRANCO-GEliMAN WAR. 103 -o^vn refusal to comply with the cpnstraints of a limited momircliy. Though perhaps au- thorized by the letter of the Constitution under which the monarchy was re-established in 1813, he yet opposed its spirit, and made a {i^reat political blunder by refusing, even after effecting a dissolution and re-election of the Chamber of Deputies, to select his Min- istry from among their number. lie and his advisers were unpopular with his subjects, being suspected of yielding to the influence of the Jesuits. When the crisis came, he badly managed the means at his command, and the defection of the troops of the line, upon whom he depended, enabled the Liberal party to accoiwpli.^h his overthrow. After his abdication, three parties presented them- selves for popular favor. But the horrors of the first revolution were still remembered against the Republicans ; the disasters which had so recently followed the ruin of the Em- pire were a drawback to the Napoleonists, who otherwise would have pressed the claims of Napoleon II.. then an officer in the Austrian service. The leading politicians, especially those in the chamber of Deputies, leaned for want of an alternative toward the position of the Orleanists. The Duke of Orleans was dressed as a bourgeois and prepared for flight, having sent to Charles X. a letter of assurance that he would not take his place on the va- cant tlyone, when a deputation forced their way into his apartments and insisted upon his acceptance of the crown. " QiCil accepte," was announced thus briefly by the chief of the deputation to Talleyrand. He be- came " King of the French " in August, 1830, being first called Philippe Vil., and afterward Louis Philippe. * The Liberals considered that as they had effected the revolution which placed him on the throne, they had a special hold upon Louis Philippe. His entire reign was marked by a series of political attacks upon the Government, usually with an outcry for re- form as the entering wedge. In the Chambers from 1831 to 1839 there were but few petitions for electoral reform, but parliamentary reform was brought forward eleven times for dis- cussion; the intent being to reduce the num- ber of Deputies. In the great public debate between Arago and Thiers, May 16, 1840, in ■which the former advocated universal suffrage, a great impulse was given to .questions of popular sovereignty ; and from 1840 to 1847 both electoral and parliamentary reform were perpetually under discussion. The accidental death, July 13, 1842, of the son of Louis Philippe, the Duke of Orleans, a young man of great promise and of per- sonal popularity, weakened the hold of the king upon the heart of the nation. After that, every weakness, every timidity, ex- hibited by Louis Philippe was accounted against him as a crime. A strong opposi- tion to his Government was organized. The Republican Opposition desired universal suf- frage ; the Monarchical Opposition attacked his general policy These joined hands in 1847 to call in popular excitement to their aid. The Chateau Rouge banquet took place July 9, 1847, and was given by the combined opposition. Banquets of this character were repeated throughout the cities of the kingdom, and the agitation of questions of reform penetrated the remotest districts. This was the "Campatgne des Banquets:' On the 11th of February. 1848, the Cabinet deliberately spurned both ques- tions of reform, and on the 13th' denied the right of political meeting without govern- mental authority. To test this assumption, a grand banquet was arranged and proclaimed by the Opposition for the 22d February. It was suppressed by the authorities, and at the last moment the Opposition announced that it would not take place. But Paris was aroused, 'i'he people suspected, says Lamar- tine, that Louis Philippe was a believer in the divine right of kings. He was luipopu- lar because he was a king. On the 23d of February there were barricades in the Fau- bourg St. Antoine and crowds crying " Vive la R6forme !" In the evening the crowds had a leader, Lagrange by name, who brought them into the neighborhood of the Cafe Tor- toni. A battalion of the line, drawn up in front of the Hotel of Foreign Affairs, fired into this mob that was carrying torches and a red flag, and sixteen corpses of citizens were stretched upon the sidewalk. The next day the barricades surrounded the Palace and approaches of the Tuileries. Louis Philippe had just time to escape from a rear door, after arranging the form of an abdica- tion, when a column of the people broke through the Guards, filled the apartments, and swept away every trace of royalty. The Republic was proclaimed very much in the same style as during the present year, at the Hotel de Ville, a Provisional Govern- ment being constituted by Lamartine, who subsequently became Minister of Foreign Affairs ; Dupont de I'Eure, whose age and dignity made him a fitting presiding' officer ; Arago* to whom were comra-itted Naval Affairs ; Cr^raieux, ultimately Minister of Justice ; all the foregoing being carried to the scene of their triumph almost on the shoulders of the crowd. Ledru-Rollin, Marie, who received the portfolio of Public Works, and Garnier-Pages, obtained entrance and were added to the number. General Subervie was made Minister of War, Carnot of Public Instruction, and Goudehaux (a banker) of Finance ; but th^ last-named individual became frightened at the gath- ering storms a few days afterwards, and Gamier-Pages, who at first was made Mayor of Paris, took his place. It will be perceived that the Liberals, who brought about the revolution which placed Louis Philippe on the throne, were themselves dis- appointed at his failure to meet the views of the people, and chagrined at the position in which they were placed as his supporters. Hence his fall. The " citizen monarch " ex- perienced also as had the two previous 104 THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. Kings of France, the defection of the troops, as well as the dislike of the people. He and the Queen embarked at Honfleur for Havre on the 2d of March 1848, under the names of " Mr. and Mrs. Smith," and thns entitled sailed aon ^axis. — 9J?i^ Souifc SBinocS unt) jwei anterc junge !Dflmcn, aU en crfc^offen* THE rRA.NCO-QERMAN WAR 105 -.flwt'lled by the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and English, the last bringing in addition tot numbers, the " sinewn of war." The plan of that campaign, like that of the present year, consisted in the advance of three armies upon France. The " grand army "under Prince Schwartzenherg. 2.'iO,- 000 strong, advanced through Switzerland (with the perrtiisaion of that State) by the passes of the Jura Mountains into France. Blucher's "Army of Silesia," 140.000 strong, moved by way of Mayence, merely block- ading that town, into the "champagne coun- try." Bernadotte had the "Army of the North." 175.000 strong, and passing through Flanders, was to besiege Antwerp, reduce the Low Countries or secure iheir alliance, and enter France from the extreme north. The grand army and Blucher's army of Silesia crossed the Rhine in December. 1813. The principal portion of the grand army swept with a wide front through Lorraine, its ex- treme right-wing in its movement touching or lapping the southern edge of the path, ■which in the present war has been selected by the army of the Crown Prince after the defeat of Ma<;Mahon at Woerth, and thus passed into the plains of Burgundy, endan- gering the city of Lyons. Blucher's array left large detachments to mask or reduce Metz, Saar Louis, Thionville and Luxem- burg, and pushed his advanced forces to Vitry and St. Dizier. Napoleon was prompt in providing to meet the impending dangers. He left an Empress Regent and an infant son in Paris, and went forward on the 2.Tth of January to the head- quarters of his army at Chalons. The next day he advanced to Vitry, and on the follow- ing, resuming his march, he met and de- feated a portion of Blucher's forces at St. Dizier. cutting in two Blucher's army, whose headquarters had at that time advanced be- yond, about twenty-eight miles southwest, to Brienne. The next day Blucher narrowly escaped being crushed by the sudden onset of the forces which Napoleon hurried to Brienne. By the 1st of February Schwart- ^enberg and Blucher had joined their forces. In the battles of Brienne and La Rothifere, Napoleon was for the first time defeated on the soil of France, and retreated to Troyes. Instead of promptly pursuing Napoleon, the Allies, who were embarrassed about the subsistence of such large forces, divided their armies again. Prince Schwartzenberg in a leisurely way — for it was winter, and the roads were in a frightful condition—started for Troyes. Blucher directed his forces to- ward a point about half way on the road from Cli&lons to Paris. Napoleon left a small force as a feint of defence at Troyes to serve AS a scare-crow to Schwartzenberg, and, by A forced march over a rugged district, struck Blucher's forces on their road to the River Marae, defeating them in detail at Champau- bert, Montmirail and Vauchamps in a locality from thirty to thirty-five miles west of Cha- lons, Meanwhile Schwartzenberg marched slowly into Troyes, thenee to Nogent, Bray, and Montereau, sweeping everything south of Paris, and producing great alarm in that capital. Napoleon, spurred by the exigency, marched his forces westward between the Seine and the Marne, and striking the flank of Schwartzenberg's advance along the for- mer river, defeated detachment after detach- ment in detail until Schwartzenberg became thoroughly alarmed, asked an armistice and retreated back to Troyes. The battle of Montereau, in which the Prince of Wlirtem- berg was defeated, was the last battle Napo- leon ever won ; but for a while his star was in the ascendant, and in the councils of the Allies a retreat beyoiftj the Rhine was under consideration. At last a portion of the "Array of the North," which had not met with success at Antwerp, added its weight to the allied forces operating in France. Its advanced guard, under Winzengerode and Bulow, directed their march toward Paris, passing through what is now the Department of the Nord, capturing in their course, with extraordinary rapidity, the cities of Avisnes, Laon. Soisso»s, and Rheims, and opened communications with Blucher at Chalons, who was busy re- cuperating his shattered forces. But the proposed retreat of the grand army required Blucher's presence at 'Troyes with Schwart- zenberg. The grand army retreated beyond Chaumont on the way to Langres, but, for- tunately, it was decided at a council of war to liberate Blucher from their movements, and to permit his army to cooperate with that portion of the Army of the North which had advanced into France. Blucher was to follow the River Marne ; Schwartzenberg. if he advanced asrain, the Seine. This meaaura turned the scale of success. Napoleon followed Blucher, who started for the same point, between Chalons and Paris, on the road to which he had before been so unfortunate. But this time he got to the right bank of the Marne. at Meaux : and when the Emperor reached its left bank at that place, it was but to find the bridges demolished, and the rear guard of- the army of Silesia fast disappearing over the distant hills. Bluctier had heard of his approach while Napoleon was yet at Sezanne, and succeeded in reaching Soissons in safety. A series of battles and severe engagements between Napoleon's forces and Blucher's army of Silesia, re-enforced by the large de- tachments of the Army of the North under Winzejigerode and Bulow, took place in the vicinity of Laon, Soissons, and Rheims. Separately, these battles were indecisive, but they continually weakened Napoleon. He was, moreover, in perpetual fear of the ad- vance of Schwartzenberg with tlie grand army, which, returning from its proposed retreat, passed again through Troyes. At length he found it necessary to cross the Marne to meet it. After an indecisive en- gagement at Acis-sur-Aube, Napoleon un-r dertook to get behind Schwartzenberg and 106 THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. strike his line of communications in the rear. This movement of Napoleon threw open the road to Paris by way of Sezanne to the grand army of Schwartzenberg, and they seized the advantage. Blucher came down from the north at the same time, to strike a large portioa of Napoleon's army that was marching to join him in his endeavor to strike the rear of J.he grand army. This part of Napoleon's array was met and utterly defeated at Fere Ohampenoise, and its broken fragments fled to Paris. The allies crossed the Marne near Meaux on the 28th of March, there completing the union of the three armies, and on the moaning of 30th March, 1814, appeared before the barriers of Paris. The citizen-soldiers of Paris were of Httle value for defence, as Napoleon had never allowed them the use of arms. Such forces as could be collected were hurried to the front outside the city. Active fighting com- menced before daylight, and a tremendous battle took place, in which the allies, accord- ing to some statements, lost no less than 18,600 men. At length the vast forces of the allies began to be collected upon the hills surrounding the town. They formed a crescent of six miles around the north and east sides of Paris, the extremities on either side touching the Marne and the Seine. 'J'he French army, convexly curved within this crescent, fought in vain against overwhelm- ing numbers, .and were forced back about noon upon the city, withdrawing within the barriers only when the order to stop firing was given, preparatory to capitulation. The hills overlooking Paris were now densely crowded with the victors, while 300 pieces of cannon were ready, as the Russians ex- pressed it, to make " Father Paris pay for Mother Moscow." In accordance with the instructions left by Napoleon, in the event of such a disaster, the Empress and the infant son left the city, taking the road to Rambouillet. The inhab- itants of Paris were plunged into sadness by her departure. Strange to say, when the city had capitulated they prepared to receive the conquerors with acclamation. A crowd insulted or destroyed the busts and monu- ments of Napoleon I., and endeavored, un- successfully, with a rope to pull down his statue from the column in the Place Ven- d6me. Failing in the latter undertaking, they wrapped it in a sheet — in order, said Napoleon, on hearing^4»f it, "that I might not look upon their baseness." The Emperor Alexander afterward felt obliged to "issue a proclamation to stop the demolition of the monuments of Napoleon. The next morning, the Allies, entering in procession, found the streets thronged, the windows and housetops crowded with the citizens anxioi^s to witness the great military sipectacle. No effort had been spared to give the " pomp and circtnnstance of glori- ous war" to the occasion, so far as the Allies were concerned. Uniforms had been brought by the household troops of the Emperor «f * I^ussia. kept clean and dry in their knapsacks, . with the expectation of making a display on- this occasion, and these were carefully put in order. Of course, the sovereigns them- selves were decked out with unusual care. Paris, ever alive to the elegance of a spec- tacle, went into raptures over the magnifi- cence displayed, and applauded the victorious host, and especially the monarchs. with the wildest enthusiasm. The Emperor Alexan- der had on his arm a white scarf, which he had previously worn as a distinctive badge in battle. The King of Prussia rode at his right, and Prince Schwartzenberg on his left, a brilliant staff following them. A group of " loyalists," who since morn- ing had been perambulating the streets of Paris with a white banner, met the sover- eigns with enthusiastic cries of Vive Louis Dix-huiti^me! Vive Alexander! Vive Guillaume I Large numbers of elegantly dressed ladies waved their handkerchiefs in welcome as one of their countrymen says, "with the passionate vivacity of their sex," from the hotels in the finest quarters of the city. In the Boulevard de la Madeleine, people^ stepped up and respectfully kissed the trap- pings of the horses, the sabres, and the boots of the sovereigns. Fifty thousand chosen troops of the Silesian and grand armies, with their trains oi" artillery, made the bulk of the procession. Nothing was more remarked than the admirable state of good order and equipment of the men and horses. The procession entered by the Gate and crossed the Faubourg of St. Martin, made the circuit of half of Paris by the interior boulevards, and halted in the Champs Elysees, where the Cossacks bivouacked for the night. Dur- ing the next day, April 1, Talleyrand called together the Senate. The day following the Senate received the Emperor Alexander, and on the 3d April passed decrees for a Provi- sional Government and dethroning the Em- peror, who, without an army and almost without attendants, had reached Fontaine-, bleau too late, if indeed it had been possible under any circumstance, to save his capital. In the formal treaty with Napoleon which the Allies made a few days afterward, upon his signing an abdication renouncing the Empire of France and the Kingdom of Italy for him- self and his descendants, it is noticeable that he was nevertheless permitted to retain the title of Emperor. * « ; THE DEFENCES OF PARIS. MONTMARTRB AND LA VILLETTE — THE PLAIN OF ST. DENIS — THE WORK OP DEMOLITION. A resident of Paris sent a letter to 77ie Daily London News, on the 1st of January, describing some of the defences of Paris ; he says : " I devoted yesterday afternoon to an endeavor to form some notion of what chances Paris would have if it be attacked on the northern side. I first drove to Mont- martre. On the hill there was a formidable battery of artillery, which would throW balls THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. 107 ' rer the fortifications .and sweep tlie plains %•{ St.. Donis. Tlie driver of my fiacre told me that he lived at lia Villette, and offered to drive me throngh that workingmen's quar- ter. In its wide streets tliere were groups of men in blouses, and all tlie cabarets were full of them. ' They are all out of work,' said the driver ; they ask for arms to defend the city, but the Government do not dare to give them muskets, for they never would surrender them before they had driven away not only the Prussians, but the Emperor also.' At the St. Denis gate, through which we passed, everything appeared ready for an attack. Here, as at the other gates, a trench had been cut across the road, a loopholed wall about two feet thick had been built, and earthworks, resembling a species of tUe de pont, had been thrown up. As we emerged from them the plain, of St. Denis, where Mar- mont with a few troops and the Parisian National Guard had held the Allies at bay in 1814 for eight hours, lay before us. To the right was the Fort d'Aubervilliers, in front of us St. Denis, and far ofif.to the left the fort of Mont Val^rien. At the villages of Aubervilliers and Courbevoie there were earthworks and batterie.s. Having heard that there were several regiments of the line at St. Denis, and being curious to see what was going on there, I proceeded in that direction. The town has a strong rampart round it, and, like Paris, is surrounded by external forts. To avoid suspicion I drove to the cathedral, and put myself under the wing of a guardian whose business it was to show the tombs of the Kings of France. This worthy man seemed to consider it quite natural that a stranger should choose this moment for sight- seeing. Round the outer door of the cathe- dral was a group of soldiers, and they accom- panied the guardian and myself in our tour inside. The guardian did not spare us one word of his ' ofttold tale,' and my soldier- friends appeared to listen to every syllable that fell from his lips with the deepest res- pect. These poor fellows, who no doubt on the field of battle will fight like heroes, were as peaceful and as quiet as a girls' school. As we went in and out of the church, they dipped their fingers in the holy water and crossed themselves ; and if by accident one of them uttered a word while we were inside, there was a loud 'hush' from the others. The guardian told me that every day for the last week he had shown several hundred sol- diers over the cathedral, and that they had all without exception, behaved in the same olrderly, decent manner. He said that there Tvere four regiments in the town, and that for the last week regiments passing north had succeeded each other every second day. Along the main street of the town a large ditch had been cut, with an earthwork behind it. ' The ramparts were lined with cannon, and trees were being cut down and houses palled down within the 'zone militaire.' Not only were the barracks crowded with troops, Dut in one of the squares a regiment was ' encamped under tents. From St. Denis I drove through Argenteuil and Courbevoie. The country in this dirtection is divided into market gardens and vineyards. In the gar- dens and the vineyards I saw neither men nor women. In the towns, although the shops were still open, all the houses were shut up, except were the furniture was being placed in vans to be taken to Paris. All the villas were deserted. At Courbevoie there were two regiments. I returned to Paris by Neuilly. At the gate of Neuilly the work of demolition within the military zone had com- menced, jind, in a day or two, all the con- demned houses round the fortifications will be levelled. As I drove down the Champs Pjlys6es, I noted the number of soldiers who were lounging and sitting about. As far as I could make out, there were three of them for every civilian. Having a little more spare time on my hands, I passed through Paris, and went to the camp of St, Maur. On •both sides of the road squads of conscripts in new uniforms were being drilled. At St. Maur there was a large park of artillery, and several regiments of the line were camped where a few days ago I had seen the Gardes Mobiles." THE CONQTTEST OF FRANCE. A CRITICAL AND COMPLETE REVIEW OP THE GREAT CAMPAIGN OP 1870 — THE EFFECT ON EUROPE OP THE REDUCTION OP PRANCE TO A SECOND-RATE POWER — SUMMARY OP THE oftEAT EVENTS OF THE WAR, AND GENERAL REMARKS THEREON. Paris had now virtually fallen, and France was at the mercy of the Germans— rtheir spoil if they so willed it. The campaign of 1870, vaingloriously proclaimed by those who precipitated the war, as that of " Paris h Berlin," has ended where few suspected it was to close — in the French, not the Prussian capital. It is not its most remarkable char- acteristic that the original plan of the cam- paign was completely reversed ; that the na- tion in the ofifensive should have been thrown so suddenly and irrecoverably on the defens- ive ; that the most peacefully disposed of nations should have proved for the occasion the most warlike ; and that an immense standing army, whose strength and martial spirit all Europe has feared for almost a gen- eration, should have been annihilated at a blow by an army marshalled on the instant, and whose existence was only suspected, whose power was never dreaded. The cam- paign of the Germans in France has been in every military aspect the most wonderful of modern times, dwarfing in the magnitude of its operations and the importance of its re- sults the most brilliant efforts of the great Frederick or the First Napoleon, and as such worthy of the most careful study and review. Let us no longer credit the stale fiction that the two nations went to war for a trivial point of honor. The candidature of the Prince of HohenzoUern we now know was not the cause but the" absurd pretext for 108 THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. war ; and it is to insult the nations themselves to look upon the conflict as precipitated by such a shallow cause, or brought about simply and solely by the ambition or criminal folly of one man. Opposing races, conflicting nationalities, antagonistic churches, commer- cial rivalries, competing civilizations, between whom was no natural love and much unnatural hate, clashed in this giant struggle. The conflict was inevitable ; theirs the credit who long postponed it ; theirs the crime who precipitated it. Napoleou and his people saw that the threatened success of German unity would destroy the political supremacy of of France ; and this fear won the nobility and landed proprietors of the Empire to the support of war on any pretest. 'I'he consoli- dation of the German armies, under the lead- ership and upon the military system of Prus- sia, whether accomplished by confederation or treaty, promised eventually to give Prussia military power greater than that of France, and this belief rendered the French army enthusiastic for war. The commercial projects of Germany — notably the Mount St. Gothard Railway, which as the rival of the Mont Oenis route, was to have united the German railway hues with those of Austria and Italy beyond the Alps — were absurdly thought to threaten tha commercial prosperity and im- portance of France ; and this roused to hatred and to action her industrial and commercial classes. The French CathoUc clergy have ever been the enemy of Protestant Germany, and persistently preached the crusade which Napoleon dreaded to declare and durst not oppose. The fallen Emperor was too much the coward, too absolute a knave, to have gone to war had not every social, commercial, and religious consideration urged the nation to the conflict. Wise statesmanship in Germany prevented the struggle three years ago, when the possession of Luxemburg was demanded by France, and would have post- poned it longer ; but weakness and folly in France, too criminal to be forgiven, permitted it to be inaugurated. The reorganization of the French army ; the interference in the Luisemburg afiair ; th-e opposition to the St. Gothard enterprise — all these and many other more trivial demonstrations have revealed the disposition of France to provoke her rival. Except in the thorough organization of her armies, Germany has betrayed nothing of eagerness for war ; yet she has diligently prepared for it. She accomplished by treaty that union of her several armies and secured that neu- trality of other nations which was necessary before she could accept the wage of war. Not being ready, she yielded in the matter of Luxemburg — hesitated in the St. Gothard project, but never halted in the work of or- ganizing the armies and perfecting the Union. France has been passionate, quar- relsome, and threatening, and has thus ap- peared always in the wrong. Germany, on the contrary, has shown a disposition to overlook insults for- the sake of peace, and, always calm and self-possessed, has managed to appear always in the right. But Kings and Emperors and their Premiers were but the insignificant instruments that brought about the struggle. It was, after all, a con- flict of civilizations seeking supremacy, and the weaker and worse has happily gone to the wall. No one can fail to see that it was a united nation which responded to the French declaration of war on July 15th, nor doubt that at the call of the Pnissian King United Germany extended its hearty support. The uprising of the two nations so different in character, fully committed them to the quarrel, and raised it to the dignity of a war of nations, not of monarchs. The summons to arms was received in France with the en- thusiasm, exultation, the boasting, that are characteristic of the French nature. In Germany, it was respon'ded to with that stern reticence, that serious determination, which belong to the German temperament. The one nation sprang up angry and defiant ; the other rose fierce and resolute. France had but one motive, to sustain her fading glory; Germany, to maintain her wounded honor. France, impulsively ; Germany, dog- gedly ; France, with passionate cries of rage j Germany, in stern and silent indignation — these are the characteristic outward evidences of the uprising which makes that of 1870 there so exact a parallel of that of 1861 here. To no mere quarrels of kings or poli- ticians do civilized nations respond with such vigor and determination as was witnessed there and here. NAPOLEON'S FIRST BLTTNDEES. In this initial development of the war — the uprising of the two nations — the greatest blunder of the French Emperor was exposed. His own nation was at his back ; his hopes were realized there, for only a few voices like those of Favre and Thiers had been heard in weak remonstrance against the inex- pediency of the crime. But Germany, too, was united in support of the Prussian King. Napoleon had believed that to threaten Ger- many with invasion was to divide the Con- federation and detach the Southern allies from its support. The war had not been de- clared a week before he recognized that in insulting and arousing the national spirit, not the mere national pride, of Germany, he had united her. The disaffection of Hanover, troublesome always during time of peaoe, disappeared the instant war was begun. Frankfort bankers and citizens, bitter ene- mies of Prussia while peace lasted, became loyal, liberal, enthusiastic citizens of the Confederation when threatened with inva- sion. Bavaria, Baden, Wurtemberg, Saxony — forgetting how, no longer than four years before, the Prussian army had desolated some of them in its triumphant march upon Austria — responded with alacrity to the Ger- man call. Napoleon entirely miscalculated the strength of the German feeling of nation- ality. He forgot that in the face of great THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. 109 dangers minor dissensions disappear; and that to thus demonstrate the value of unity ■was to confound all arguments for dis- imion. Errors as preat as this lost Napoleon also the sympathy of neutral nations, and left him without moral support in all Europe. The shallowness of the pretext for war was recognised by all. In Italy it was so strongly condemned by public sentiment that Victor Emanuel, in replying to Napoleon's demand for aid, declared that to send him an Italian army was to destroy the monarchj\ In Austria the indignation of the people at the French insult to the Teutonic race was so strong that the Saxon Von Beust and the Hapsburg Emperor durst not afford Napo- leon even moral support. Russia was already leagued with Prussia. England, Spain, and the rest of the minor States, were powerless to interpose. France thus found herself doomed to cope singly and alone with United Germany. And, as if further lo appal Napoleon, it was at this time that the great military inferiority of France to Germany was displayed. To his call responded a great standing army, imposing in its display of numbers, and supported, as we have seen, by an almost united public sentiment. But to the call of the Prussian King an armed nation replied. The French people, forbid- den to carry arms for twenty years or more, merely urged the standing army to its work. The German people, trained to arms under tlie peculiar system in vogue with the Teu- tons since the days when they fought the Roman Empire, joined the Prussian army and marched with it. The one nation was a warlike people prohibited from bearing arras that a despised government might be safe from civil contentions. The other was a people of peaceful disposition and pursuits, forced for greater security from powerful and belligerent neighbors to bear arms and main- tain an army in which all citizens owed ser- vice by law. The regular French army was large, but practically it had no reserves, for the Gardes Mobiles were untrained to the use of arms. The standing armies of Ger- many were comparatively small, mere skele- ton organizations ; but their reserves of the Landwehr 'were ample, and trained to the use of the best weapons of war. Hence to the Rhine only a great French army moved, but from Germany and its allied States marched a whole nation. MILITARY BLUNDERS. These were initial errors which materially aflTected the whole campaign, for they begot others. Among the gravest was a halt in the advance, and a false disposition of the French corps. Napoleon's campaign was based, as he him- self tells us, on the supposition that Southern Germany could be detached, in fact as well as sentiment, from the Northern Confedera- tion. His plan was " to mass L^COOO men at Metz, 100,000 at Strasbourg, and 50,000 at ChUlons. and to cross tlie Rhino near Hague- nau." Had this campaign been carried out with vigor by July 20th, as it might have been, it would have proved comparatively successful. The German armies would have been caught in the act of mustering; the Rhine fortresses would have been found poorly prepared for defence ; only the Ba- deners were then on the upper and OTxly Von Steinmetz on the lower Rhine. The disaffec- tion of the South Germans, if any existed among, them, would have been encouraged by the temporary success of the invaders. The passage of the Rhine would have given an excuse to Austria and Italy to impose neutrality on South Germany, as Napoleon says he lioped they would, but we now know that they would not have ventured to act at all. His success would have been, therefore, only temporary, but the campaign across the Rhine could, nevertheless, have been made before the end of July, had not Napo- leon halted irresolute on the discovery of his initial diplomatic blunders. By the end of the third week in July, the corps of the French army were in position to make the contemplated advance. The First Corps, un- der Marshal MacMahon, was concentrated at Strasbourg, with its supports at Bitche. Bel- fort and Besancon, forming the right column. The Third Corps, under Marshal Bazaine, and two others, was at Metz; with Frossard thrown forward to St. Avald and Ladrair- vault to Thionville, forming the left wing. The centre was at Chalons and Nancy, under Marshal Canrobert. I'he advance corps, thus spread out like a great fan, ex- tended along a point from Thionville to Bel- fort, a distance of more than 1,50 iTiiles. Be- tween the right at Strasbourg and the left at Metz, connected only by the two advanced corps of De Failly and Frossard, fifty miles of the most difficult coimtry of France inter- vened. This false disposition of the French army, insignificant if the intention to advance had been persisted in after the first disap-- pointments, became a glaring military blun- der when delay had given the German array time to organize and occupy Baden and Rhenish Bavaria. It was the manifest duty of the French commander to move with his large standing army before the German citizen-soldiers could be assembled, armed, and organized. Having no volunteers to re- cruit from, no trained reserves to call upon, the French had everything to lose and no- thing to gain by delay. Delay was all the Germans asked. " If Napoleon will give us until July 23," said Von Moltke, on July 16, " he will never pass the Rhine." If Von Moltke — who had more confidence in the military system which he had elaborated, and a more just appreciation of German public sentiment, than any of his associates, except- ing, perhaps. Count Bismarck — was too san- guine regarding German energy, he was also too apprehensive of French daring. Napo- leon, grown cautious and, as now appears, full of misgivings of his "own strength, gave 110 THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. the Germans still longer time. It was not until Avigust 2d, that he made hia first de- monstration at Saarbruck. If this ridiciilous affair had any higher purpose than to amuse the troops and the Prince Imperial, it was to deceive the Germans into the belief that the Palatinate, and not Baden, was to be first in- vaded. But it cannot be considered as hav- ing this importance ; for it was followed by no movement whatever, and the French never again really assumed the offensive. THE BAfTLES IN THE VOSG^. On August 3d, the whole of the German armies were in position near the French frontier from Treves to the Rhine, and along the upper Rhine. On the next day the left wing, under the Crown Prince of Prussia, threw itself in overwhelming force, and by surprise, upon the single division of General Douay holding an advanced position at Weis- senburg on the Lauter, near its junction with the Rhine. The attacking force numbered 40,000 men. The French had not half that number, and they were surprised at their morning meal. The principal defence of the town was stormed, and the French fled in confusion to a moun-tain pass of the Vosges near Woerth. During the night of August 4th and the succeeding day the Crown Prince crossed the Lauter and the Rhine with not less than 120,000 men, and prepared to advance on August 6th, by the valley routes, to Strasbourg, where MacMahon was thought to be. But the French Marshal, instead of withdrawing his advanced di- visions to Strasbourg, concentrated them in their new position at Woerth, and estab- lished aline from Hagrienau to Woerth, hold- ing the passes of the Yosges and threaten- ing the right flank of the Germans if they attempted to march on Strasbourg. He succeeded in concentrating about 50,000 men at these points. De Failly, at Bitche, failed to come up in time, else MacMahon would have confronted the Crown Prince in a naturally strong position with fully 70,000 men. The change of front necessitated by the position assumed by MacMahon, caused considerable delay in the Crown Prince's attack, and though the battle began at 8 o'clock it di'd not become general until after noon. In one or two minor affairs of the morning the French were successful ; but in a desperate attack upon the Fifth Prussian Corps they were driven back with great slaughter. In the afternoon the Crown P-rince, weakening his centre, although the French persisted in attacking there, extended his right and left in heavy flank attacks on both wings of MacMahon's army. Its right was first overlapped and driven in on the centre, and eventually broken. Almost im- mediately afterward the French left was flanked, and a panic seizing the whole army It turned and fled in great confusion to the mountains. Just at the close of the engage- ment one division of De Failly's corps reached the field and covered the retreat. In this battle the French lost 20,000 men in killed, wounded, and prisoners, and thirty cannon, including six mitrailleuses. Pursuit was made next day. Abandoning the march to. ward Strasbourg, the Crown Prince pushed forward toward Nancy, with directions from Von Moltke to thrust himself between Mac- Mahon and Bazaine, and prevent their junc- tion at Metz. Forces were detached to mask Bitche and Pfalsburg, and an army of Bava- rians was advanced to besiege Strasbourg, which was now held only by the regular French garrison under General Uhlrich. On the same day that the Crown Prince routed MacMahon at Woerth, the armies of Von Steinmetz and Frederick Charles made the passage of the Saar at Saarbruck, and surprised and defeated the French at For- bach. The attack seems to have been pre- maturely made, and was permitted by Gen- eral Von Steinmetz to develop into a general engagement, against positive orders. It has been asserted that it was the design of Von Moltke to thrust Prince Frederick Charles between that part of the French left which had been advanced to the Vosges and the main body at Metz, and capture it ; but there is nothing in proof of the existence of this daring design. It does not seem to have been feasible, for at the time only one of Prince Frederick Charles's divisions had passed the Saar. After its defeat at For- bach, the left column of the French array concentrated toward Metz. In the mean time the centre, under Canrobert; had ad- vanced to Nancy and Metz, and hopes were entertained that the army could be again united on the Moselle. But the Prussian Crown Prince, with wonderful vigor, thrust his columns forward between the two French wings. At the same time the army of Prince Frederick Charles was moved upon the right flank of Bazaine's columns, and thus becom- ing for the time the centre of the German army, at once established communication with the left, and increased the force which continually separated the two wings of Na- poleon's shattered army. Thus was accomplished the difiScult work of driving the French from their strong posi- tions in the Vosges Mountains. It was ac- complished with less loss to the assailants than was sustained by the defenders. In doing it the French Army, doubtless by de- sign on the part of the German commander, but partly by fortuitous circumstances, was broken in two. It now became the chief purpose of the German leader to prevent its concentration. The natural lines of retreat from Metz * and Nancy converged at Cha-* Ions ; it was necessary, therefore, to get upon these lines and cut one of the armies oQ" from retreat. Von Moltke decided to make the effort against that of Marshal Bazaine. On surrendering at Sedan, Napoleon III. endeavored to open negotiations for peace, * [NftTE. — As Metz hag been well dwelt upon, we shall omit a retrospection of tlie siege of that town.T-iilUlOR.] GREAT SURPRISE OF GERMAN LADIES ON BEIIOLDT?;rG FOR THE FIRST TIME A " TURCO" IN THE HOSPITAL AT BERLIN. uni5erung bcutfc^er 5Dameit Beim er[ieit UnhM dmi „Znvco" im-. THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. 113 bat the Prnssian Premier soon discovered that neither he nor the Regencv. to which the Emperor had delepated authority, had power to enforce on France the conditions precedent to peace which were demanded ; for the Republic had been proclaimed, and the Krapire repudiated. Well would it have been for France if the crime of the Empire in declarini? and making war had also been disavowed ; but the responsibility for its con- tinna'nce was unhesitatingly assumed by a Committee of National Defence, which, by this first act, indicated imbecility stnce fully established. Von Moltke was not the man, nor was the Prussian Premier in the humor to delay long in negotiations with a fallen monarch or a defiant ministry, and the same day that saw the capitulation of Sedan also beheld the columns of the Crown Princes in motion toward Paris. The Saxon, by the Aisne and Oise, the Prus- sian by the Marne and Aube, swept forward with resistless numbers, marking Ldon, Sois- Bons, and other fortified towns in their path- way with forces adequate to their reduction ; and in two weeks, on the 15th of tseptember, just two months after the French declaration of war, the German armies deployed before tlie north-eastern defences bf Paris. This part of the line of investment was established •without serious opposition, greatly to the surprise of the Germans, who anticipated resistance at the passage of the Seine. Trochu's troops were certainly unfit at this time to be trusted in battle, and could not have prevented the investment though they might have retarded it under a skillful general, without jeopary to themselves. If it was wise, however, not to oppose the passage of the Seine with such troops, it was madness to attempt, as Trochu did four days later, the re-occupation of the elevated country south of Paris. The extension of the (German line from the Seine to Versailles i front of the southern line forts, brought on an engagement (Sept. 19) known to the French as the Battle of Chatillon, and to the Germans as that of Sceaux. Lying between the two towns thus named and commanding the country round and the French forts in its front, is a range of hills known as the Heights of Sceaux; and it was for the possession of this position that the battle was fought. Gen. Trochu, with apparently culpable negligence, had failed to seize and fortify this important position. He had declared his intention to remain strictly on the defensive until he could arm, organize, ai\d discipline the immense mass «f Gardes Mobiles, marines, and volunteers who had crowded into Paris for defence. He doubtless had also some indefinite hope of aid coming from the army which had already begun to form on the Loire at Orleans; but dependence on this force or on his own unskilled soldiery was, as events proved, mistaken confidence, and won for Trochu the satirical title of the "Military Micajvber." But after resolving that notliing remained 8 but to hold the defensive, Trochu was weak enough to be overruled by the advice of subordinates and the wishes of his associates in the Government, and consented to make an effort to retake the heights which he had permitted the Germans to seize without opposition. If it was folly not to have secured them before the approach of the Germans, it was insanity to attempt to recapture them with a single corps of half drilled, untried troops. 'I'he unwisely or- dered attack was badly directed and tardily conducted; the troops displayed great gal- lantry, but they also displayed their undis- cipline, and their f fiforts naturally resulted in positive repulse. The ilfovements of the Germans in strengthening their lines south and west of the city more than once induced Troclui to make reconnoissances, which in one or two instances resulted in brief yet serious engage- ments. On Sept. 30, two columns, operating from Chatillon and St. Cloud, advanced to develop changes which had been made in the investing line in front of these positions, but they had hardly deployed before overwhelm- ing numbers of Germans were advancing from their bivouacs to meet them. The French were driven back at both points, and being flanked on their right by the. over- lapping lines of the Germans, 8uff"ered severe losses. The only result of the affair was to reveal precisely what the French did not wish assured them, that the Germans were daily transferring forces from the east to the west side of Paris, and preparjng to bombard the city on its weakest front. By these movements, masked by the Heights of Sceaux and their own strongly maintained lines, the Germans finally disposed their great forces around the city. The investing line estab- lished by the Germans was about five miles in depth, the reserves being not more than that distance from the advanced posts. The system on which the Germans conducted the siege was different in many respects from that in vogue during our own war. The ad- vanced posts, where small bodies of men kept vigilant lookout on the proceedings of the French in the city and forts, were strongly intrenched with the design of being held until supports could come up. In their im- mediate rear, larger forces were posted in camps or stationed in convenient farm- houses, villas, and chateaus ; while divisions and corps, still further to the rear, were can- toned in the numerous villages and towns which form suburban Paris. With houses to hve in, warm beds and rich linen to rest upon, wine in the cellars, fruit on the trees, and vegetables from near and distant gardens of the occupied departments, the besiegers had little to dread from delay, and could afford to wait until famine forced capitula- tion. Strong as this line was known to be, the French did not despair of breaking through it, and while the Germans prepared for the bombardment their (Miemy made two or three fruitless efforts to raise the sieg-j 114 THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR and escape. The most of these were made against Trochu's judgment, and, badly sup- ported and worse directed, failed ignomini- ously. The first of any note made on Oct. 28th, against Le Bourget on the north of Paris, appears to have been permitted as a sort of concession to a corps of Paris volun- teers, led by noted Communists, It is signi- ficant of the condition of Paris at this time that on its failure and the repulfe of their corps with heavy loss. Communes of Paris invaded the Hotel de Ville, captured Troehu and the members of the Government, pro- claimed a new republic, and for several hours were in possession of the. Government. A corps of Mobiles happily arriving thrust the new leaders out, and restored the Committee of National Defence, else France would have been again revolutionized by a Paris mob. The most formidable of these sorties was undertaken on November 30th, by Gen. Du- crot, with 100,000 men, against the positions at Brie, Champigny, and Avron, lield by the Saxons and W"urtembergers,and commanding the German line of communications. The French were certainly sagacious in detecting liere the weakest points in the German line, but they under-estimated the facilities for concentration, which their positions gave the enemy. Gen. Ducrot passed the Marne and penetrated the German lines, capturing two egin the bombard- ment until the middle of December, and it- was not until the day after Christmas that the first fire was opened. The French fort on Mont Avron, seized and fortified during Ducrot's sortie of November 30, was the first position attacked. The fire of four bat- teries of Krupp's cannon reduced it after two days' bombardment, and it was occupied on December 29, and a battery commanding the forts on the east of Paris, and capable of throwing projectiles beyond the walls of the city, was at once erected upon it. Forts Rosny, Noisy and Romainville were soon after silenced from this work, but were not seized by the Germans, nor, indeed, aban- dimed by their garrisons. On January 5, the batteries south of the city were opened on Forts Issy, Vanves and Mont- rouge, and the first two were silenced after a brief bombardment, and the third ceased to reply on the 11th. What purpose inspired tha Germans to this bombardment we are yet to learn. That it was futile as against Paris is apparent ; indeed, it cannot be said that the city was really subjected to determined shelling. As against 'the forts the fire was efi'ective, and established the superiority of Krupp's cannon; but no effort was made to take possession of any of the regular forts whose fire had been silenced. Indeed, it seems more than likely that the whole purpose of the bombardment was to satisfy German public opinion, which had clamored for action, and to convince the Parisians that the threats of bombard- ment had not been made without the power to carry them out. The Germans contented themselves with closely guarding every avenue of escape, repulsing every sor- tie made by the French. The last of these, attempted on January 19th. was a signal failure, resulting in the loss of 6,000 French- men, and inflicting a loss on the Germans of onlj' as many hundreds. The Govern- ment of Paris was demoralized by this fail- ure, Trochu was dismissed from command, and M. Jules Favre, despairing of further resistance, repaired to Versailles to negotiate the surrender which had evidently been re- solved upon as unavoidable. THE RESULT TO EUROPE. The fall of Paris is virtually the end of the war. There may be weak resistance at one or two points ; the scattered armies of the provinces may maintain their organization and a defensive attitude for a brief time ; but the spirit of resistance, the principle of co- hesion is gone. Paris has ever been France in time of revolution; and with the citadel gone, how shall the fortress hold out ? The war is practically ended, and its evils and its blessings may be summed up. The first we have recorded from day to day with faithful and impartial pen. The bles- sings are of the future. And the reduction of France to a second-rate power will not be without great blessings to civilization. How- ever remarkable and terrible in its every military aspect, the campaign of 1870 has been chiefly momentous and beneficial in the political changes it has wrought. In France it has broken forever the power of one of the least progressive, and the most mischievous and belligerent people of Europe, and the one which has most disturbed the general peace for ages. In Germany it has suddenly elevated to the position of Arbiter of P]urope, the most peaceful and domestic of races. It has reduced from the first position that one of the Great Powers most positively committed to the false policy that its national prosperity depended on the misfortunes of its neighbors, and that to embarrass other Powers and to contract other influences was the surest way of extending its own impor- tance. It has elevated to the first rank that Nation which of all others in Europe believes that individual and national greatness de- pends on the general prosperity. It has destroyed an Empire whose policy was War, while its cry was Peace, but it has at the same time created a greater and a better one, whose undoubted policy must be Peace In France it has pricked and instantly ex- ploded a- despotism which might have con- tinued for a generation of peace to enervate the people it tyrannized over. In Germany it' has not less suddenly aroused a spirit o*^ THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. 117 nntioniUity, whicli reiulers at once possible tluit long-coveted unity of the German race which an age of peace might not have con- Bolidated. While the French Empire existed there could be no real peace in Europe. While the German Empire remains there can be no war without its consent; and the past policy, the fixed principles, the natural sympathies of lier people, not the mere writ- ten records of her government, violable at the will of one man. are pledges of her peace- ful purposes. Let us sympathize with the race which lias been so painfully humiliated; but let US also rejoice with that larger civili- zation of all Europe which gains by what the French have lost. The war is yet to find its most important result, its chief apology, and its greatest blessing, in the increased impulse it will give to a higher and better civilization in Europe. It is in their enlarged liberty that the French are yet to see themselves blessed by their own overthrow. France has not merely been relieved of the cancer of the Empire that ate its heart out, but her people have been liberated from false and enervat- ing direction, and are free to enter upon a sounder and truer education than that which has heretofore made them a race of polished but frivolous people — smooth and elegant of exterior, but too deficient in the great im- pulses which belong to more earnest and jjrogressive races. We shall not be many years — the French will not be a generation — in recognizing that the war has been one of the mysterious agencies of civilization, spreading knowledge, which is the only true source of power ; the unsuspected means of developing industry, which creates wealth. By the war France is relieved of a rulex, an army, a system of government which ab- sorbed and wasted her prosperity, and not only she and Germany, but all Europe, will be saved henceforth much of that cost in wealth and loss in national spirit which fol- lows the maintenance of large standing armies. Relieved of these dread incubuses, France may become the rival of England and Germany in manufactures ; and once educated beyond the belief that the glory of a nation is found in its prowess in war, not its peaceful prosperity, she may become, as a manutacturing state, more prosperous and truly influential than at any period of her former existence. THE WAR ENDED. THE TREATY OP PEACE SIGNED AT VERSAILLES. The treaty of peace was signed at Ver- sailles, on February 26, 1871, by M. Thiers, and Count Von Bismarck. The text of the preliminary articles of peace, were signed by Thiers and Favre on the part of France, and Bismarck, Bray, Wachter and Jolly, on the part of Germany. They provide as follows : The line of de- raarkation between France and Germany as at first proposed is retained with one excep- tion. It commences in the northwestern frontiers at the canton of Cattenom, in the Department of the Moselle; runs thence to Thionville, Briey, and Garze ; skirts the southwestern and southern boundaries of the arroiidissement of Metz ; thence proceeds in a direct line to the Chateau Solms and at Felton Court, in the arrondisseinent of Thein, and follows the crest of mountains between the valleys of the rivers Seille and Regouze, in the Department of Meurthe, to the canton of Schwinecke, in the north- western corner of the Department of the Vosges ; thence it runs to Saales, dividing that commune ; and alter that coincides with the western frontiers of the Upper and Lower Rhine Departments until it reaches the can- ton of Belfort ; thence it passes diagonally to the canton of Delle, and terminates by reach- ing the Swiss frontier. The alteration made at the last moment in the boundaries gives Belfort to France, and cedes additional territory around Metz to the Germans. Germany is to possess her acquis!- tions from France in perpetuity. It is agreed that as soon as the prelimi- naries are ratified the Germans shall evac- tuate the Departments of Calvados, Oisne, Sarthe, Eure-et-Cher, Indre-et-Loire, and Yonne, and all territory on the left bank of the Seine. The French troops will retire behind the river Loire until peace is finally declared, except from Paris and other strong, holds. The Germans, after the payment of two milliards, will occupy only the Departments of the Marne, Ardennes, Haute Marne, Meuse, Vosges, Meurthe, and the Fortress of Belfort. Germany will be open to a'ccept suitable financial payment instead of terri- torial guarantees for the payment of the war indemnity. Article 2. It is agreed in this article that France shall pay to Germany five milliards of francs as a war indemnity, one milliard, at least, in 1871. and the rest in the space of three years front the ratification of the treaty of peace. ^Article 3 provides that the evacuation of France by the German forces sliall com- mence on the ratification of the treaty by the National Assembly. The German troops will then immediately quit Paris and the left bank of the Seine, and also the Depart- ments of Cher, Indre-et-Loire and Seine Inferieure. The French troops will remain behind the Loire till the signature of a definite treaty of peace, excepting in Paris, where the garrison is not to exceed 40,000 men. The Germans are to evacuate the right bank of the Seine, gradually, after the signature of a definitive treaty of peace and the payment of half a million of francs. After the payment of two milliards the Ger- mans are to hold only the Departments of Marne, Ardennes, Meuse, Vosges and Meur- the, and the fortress of Belfort. After the payment of three milliards, the Germans are to keep only 50,000 troops in France ; but if sufficient money guarantees are given the 118 THE FRAKCO-GERMAN WAR Germans will evacuate the conntry com- pletely at once ; otherwise the three milliards will carry interest at the rate of five per cent, per annum from the ratification of the treaty to final payment. Article 4. The German troops are to make no further requisitions, Jjut the French Go- vernment will find food for the army of occupation. In the ceded departments favor- able arrangements will be made with the inhabitants, and time will be given them to move out, if they please. No obstacle will be placed in the way of their emigration. Article 6. It is provided in this article that all prisoners of war shall be liberated immediately after the ratification of the treaty. The French railways are to lend carriages and engines to the Germans at the same price as they charge the French Government. Article 7. Lnmediately on the ratification of the treaty it will be definitely signed at Brussels. Article 8. In this it is agreed that the management of all the occupied depart- ments shall be handed over to the French officials, subject, however, to the German commanders in the interests of the Ger- man troops. Article 9. It is well understood that the Germans have no authority over the depart- ments now occupied by them. Article 10. These presents are to be sub- mitted and done by the 26th of February. The subsequent convention provides as follows : Article 1 prolongs the armistice to the 12th of March. Article 2 provides for the occupation of Paris by 30,000 Germans, and agrees to the separation of the French and German troops. Article 3 agrees that no more requisitions shall be made by the German troops. If any are made the mistake will be rectified. The treaty winds up with the usual words, " Done at Versailles, this 26th day of February, 1871." PEACE The armistice was Peace. All the world knew there would be no resumption of hos- tilities in France at the conclusion of the three weeks' rest from pillage and slaughter. The war had exhausted one nation and crip- pled the other, and from both combatants and from all the rest of Europe looking nervously and amazedly on, wondering where the con- flagration of war would next extend, there went up an earnest prayer for peace. But while the negotiations could end in nothing else, it was greatly to be feared that the positiveness — say the arrogance of Germany, if you will — and the pride or blindness of France would present insurmountable ob- stacles to the happy conclusion of a true, honorable peace which Europe might reason- ably hope would prove lasting and blessed. Thi=i grave danger has been avoided in the negotiations which the great statesman of Germany has been conducting for days past, at Versailles with MM. Thiers and Favre, the bravest and strongest of France's pilots come to the helm at last. Concessions have been wisely and gracefully made by Germany, and will be imdoubtedly accepted by France, and the negotiations have virtually ended in a peace whose conditions Germany can concede with safety and France accept without further humiliation. There is. hardly a doubt that the Assembly, judging from its psist actions and its political complexion, will confirm the preliminary agreement signed at Versailles, and that the formal proclamation of Peace will be made by the Emperor with praise and thanksgiving for the event. 'I'he cession of Alsace and a part of Lor- raine has been insisted upon by the Germans as a matter of course. The same political and military reasons which suggested this demand, immediately after the successes be- fore Metz, exist to-day in even stronger force than then. The campaign has shown anew, and so plainly that iihmilitary minds in Ger- many now comprehend, how • absolutely essential- the passes of the Vosges which the Moselle and its fortresses cover are to the. protection of the Palatinate and South Germany. Thionville, Metz, Luneville. and Bel fort form a line of defence which, though weak approached from the Vosges, is for- midable to an enemy coming from the cham- paign country. These considerations were not lost Oft Von Moltke ; Bismarck himself has told us how, early and strongly, he was impressed with this strategic view which silenced all doubts of the propriety and policy of making the war in any sense one of conquest. Lost long ago to Germany- through the treachery of disafi'ected Ger- man Princes and the aggressions of France, there was the strong argument of precedent to silence all scruples in the German mind as to reclaiming them after they had been conquered. France, in consenting to part with them, injures her true interest less than she hurts her false pride; for German in language and literature, they were German by every material and natural bond. Bis- marck might have made and enforced other more obnoxious conditions than this cession of territory, but less than this Germany would not let him do ; more of concession France could not ask him to grant. If an^r are wronged in this forced restitution of stolen territory, it is the people who are transferred with the property, not France ; and it is not yet settled by any fair election or free interchange of opinion which side the conquered provincials prefer to go with. The indemnity claim is moderate, consider- ing the great sacrifices which Germany has been unnecessarily forced to make. From two milliards of thalers it has been reduced one-half, and two-thirds of this sum have been remitted in consideration of fines and requisi- tions and debts. The sum which France wil/' THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. 119 have to pay is still ononnous, and will tax her industrioa for soino yoars to pay, hut no one will douht that the war expenses of Uer- many are far from IxMnfj cancelled by the indemnity she has insisted upon. Another welcome assurance of peace is contained in the order for the liberation of all French hostag-es. 'I'liere are nuinhers of French citizens, officials, and others of rank and wealth, who have bfcn arrested and held as hostatcr in ^taritvei^, tec wi^rent tcr !Drangfa{e in yaxii flc^ aU 2?ater aUcr 9tationa(itatcn 1>m'^tt(* THE FRANCO -GERMAN WAR. 12S; REia]Sr OF TERHOH." IHB "beds" unruly — PARTT GOVKRNMBNT THB ORDER OF THE DAT — GENERAL CLEMENT THOMAS AND GENERAL LECOHTB ASSASSINATED BT THE FRENCH SOLDIERS. These horrors serve but to remind us of tha worst memories of the past. We think of the storming of the Bastile, of the July horrors, of the September massacres, of the Goddess of Reason and the associated blas- phemies, of the fusillades, the noyades, the guillotine, and all the other horrors — real and imaginary — of the Reign of Terror. Another Committee of Public Safety, another Danton, another Marat, another Robespierre rise up before us, and we ask. How is this fresh out- burst of revolutionary violence to end ? Are we to have another feeble Directory, another Consulate, another Empire ? Are new names to figure in the destruction of another Direc- tory ? Is Gambetta, or some such, to figure as a new despot by the special will of the French people ? During the month of March, 1871, the lo- cation of the Capital was under advisement. An election was held, and resulted in favor of Versailles. M. Thiers, President of the Republic, during these outbursts of revolt, remained firm, but sorrowful. Had the Corps Legislative but listened to him, before this war, how much the misery and humiliation of the French would have been spared them. The Germans occupied Paris but four days. They then retired to the forts, leaving the city Tinder French rule. By order of Von Moltke, 40,000 French soldiers were disbanded and sent to their homes. The reign of terror now began in earnest. The National Guards, who were now the only armed force in Paris, in obedience to the orders of the Central Republican Committee, took up positions in various quarters of the city, meeting with no resistance. The majority of the National Guard were passive and quiet. The Gendarmes fired upon the National Guard. The latter returned the fire, and several of the former were killed and wounded. The mob was triumphant, and virtually held possession of the city. Drunkenness ram- pant ; even women were armed, and the scene presented one mass of disorder and profli- gacy. FBOCLAMATIOKS. The Nationals placarded two proclama- tions. The first one issued, says the French people awaited calmly until an attempt was made to touch the life of the Republic. The army did not raise its hands against the arch of the liberties of the Republic — the only Government that can close the era of inva- sion and civil war. The people of Paris are convoked for Communal elections. The proc- lamation is signed by the Central Committee of the National Guard, and dated at the Ho- tel de Ville. The second proclamation was it'S follows :. To the People of Paris ."—You have intrusted us with the defence of the rights of Paris. We have driven out the Government which betrayed us. Our mission is fulfilled, and we now report to you. Prepare for the Com- munal Elections. Give us, as our only re- compense, the establishment of a real Repub- lic. [The same signatures, thirty in number, were appended.] FBOCLAMATION MINISTERIAL. " A proclamation from a Committee as- suming the name of the Central Committee was distributed throughout Paris. The men of the barricades took possession of the Min- istry of Justice, and assassinated Gens. Cle- ment Thomas and Lecomte. Who are the members of the Committee was unknown, as is also, what they deliver Paris from. The crimes committed by them remove all excuse for support by their followers. Let all who have regard for the honor and interest of France separate from them, and rally around the Republic and the Assembly." [Signed by the Ministers then in Paris.] The Emperor William of Prussia went di- rectly to Berlin, where an immense reception awaited him. The ex-Emperor, Napoleon III., was in Dover, England, on the 20th of March, 1871. The French situation may be painted in one nervous line of Dr. Holmes : " The mob of Paris wrings the neck of France." The conduct of the people of the great metropo- lis went far to destroy any lingering sympa- thy for them which might have survived the follies and disasters of siege and surrender. Of course we cannot blame the good citizens for that momentary outbreak of revolt that intrenched a few of the Red leaders on the Heights of Montmartre; but, in a crisis so tremendous, there should have been enough of public virtue to isolate and so suffocate the mad emeute. On the contrary, the defi- ant attitude of the rioters seemed to infect the entire populace with the contagion of insurrection. The moderate and reasonable delay accorded by the Government to allow the senseless revolt to lay down its arms, se- riously affected the situation for the worse. And when, at last, the authorities felt them- selves forced to take active measures to dis- perse the bands who defied the law on the slope of the great hill which bounds Paris on the north, the poison of treason had worked so far that the National Guards fraternized with the rioters, refused to execute their or- ders, and gave up their commanders to be condemned and butchered by the misguided men who pretended to be working in the in- terest of a republic of peace and universal brotherhood. 124 THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. There is something grotesque in this un- conscious mockery of all their professions. These insurgents of Montmartre, who are ex- hibiting all the tigerish instincts of the un- taught, savaee mind, are, in great part, theo- rists, idealists, non-resistants, oflRcious phil- anthropists. They are men who have suffered proscription in Paris in defence of human rights. On many platforms they have re- newed again and again their devotion to the principle of the fraternity of peoples. They are the men who overflow in the peace as- semblies of Brussels and Geneva in lyric apostrophes to the spirit of love and good- will. They are not conscious hypocrites, but their conduct in these great emergencies is too apt to demonstrate that they deceive themselves when they imagine they are lov- ers of their kind. They are of that unhandy and implacable class of reformers for whom, as St. Just gloomily said, there is no rest but in the grave. They mistake their hatred of governments for the love of the people. It seems like a sinister farce to think of the President of the International League of Peace sitting in court-martial behind his bar- ricades, and ordering the slaughter of helpless prisoners who have done no wrong, who have shnply obeyed their orders, and who, only a few days ago, were spending their lives on the battle-fields of the Republic. These ec- centric and morbid growths are seen in the track of every great revolution. We had them in ours; they haunted the corridors of Congress and the halls at Willard's in those early days of exaltation when the nation threw off its apathy of years and rejoiced in its novel emotions. But with us they gained no authority. They might have presented that mixture of tiger^nd ape which is so re- volting in days of terror at Paris, if they had only gained credit enough. But we had the good fortune to see only the apish tri(jks that lasted a little while and went out of sight. The nation is doomed to imperfect develop- ment that cannot keep this pestilent vermin under. 'I'hey do not constitute the Republican party. They form but a small and insignifi- cant minority, but, so far as appears, there is enough of the yeast of treason in their num- bers to set the entire community in fermen- tation. This is the consideration which sad- dens the true friends of freedom all over the world ; that, though the moderate Republi- cans are the greater number, though the Government is nominally in the hands of the soundest and wisest men in France, there is so little of true loyalty in the popular mind that the first spark of revolt sets the town on fire, and paralyzes the Government in its functions. For days the mob possessed Paris. The militia refuse to obey their commanders; The emeute pushed down from the hill of Montmartre into the heart of the city, seized' the Headquarters of the Army of Paris in the Place VendQme, and thence the inundat- ing tide poured across the bridges of the Seine, seizing the Hotel de Ville, and most of the Ministries. The wine-shops alone were open. Hordes of bacchants thronged the frightened streets — men and women mingled in the dishevelled licence of anarchy. The murder of Gens. Clement Thomas and Le- comte by the cowardly ingrates they have fought for is most disgraceful. The Govern- ment, finding the army and the militia un- trustworthy as broken reeds, moved to Ver- sailles, leaving the Capital in the bloody hands of the mob. To show the utter hope- lessness of the situation, it was announced that the Diplomatic Body, headed by Mr. Washburne, who stayed unflinchingly by the city after Sedan, after the investment, when pinched by hunger, when stormed with shell, has at last resolved to leave the ill-starred' town and follow the Government precipitately to Versailles. The outside world shakes from its feet the dust of Paris, and gives the beau- tiful city over to be buffeted of the devils that; possess it. There was to be the pretence of a Commu- nal election, but, with the city in the power of the people of the side-walk, it is not diffi- cult to foresee what will be the result of such an appeal to the polls. There was an omi- nous agitation communicating itself to the cities of the interior, which might burst out any moment in open revolution. There is a sympathy between Paris and her sisters of the provinces as quick and delicate as the^ action of the telegraph, and, at a time like this, it is only to be exerted for evil. Alto- gether, the disaster is so great, that all those which went before are as nothing in compari- son. The sufferings of the siege were re- lieved by the cheerful pluck with which they were endured. The surrender of Sedan was- promptly used and redeemed by the procla- mation of the dechiance Even the terrible penalties imposed by the treaty of peace might have been turned into blessings, if they had been accepted with courageous and manly hearts. But to this misfortune and discredit there is no compensation. This emeute was not needed — not provoked — it has no intention for good — it is inspired by a sav- age lust of disorder. Its temporary success has endangered the future of the Republic. . It opens the door to a situation so hjtolerable that the populace which weakly followed these madcaps into revolt will soon be ready to hail the most crushing despotism as a means of' escape from themselvea. THE END. COUNT VON BISMARCK. ®raf tias IStlmarif. mi, I I \ii^ L<: 'fc<;:<«j.: Jcr^V'^,>-- ^X^Cl -- S^-^^^^p-'- 'S«tr^" c^:c:'-" ^ii^^ r .^,''^.«. ^c<; . * «?'CC< :^5^<8coc t c vi v^ <, ' <*l Cc C c