authorities by their German names and by others by
their French names, thus: Spicheren = Forbach; Wörth =
Reichshoffen; Colombey-Nouilly = Borny; Rezonville =
Mars-la-Tour or Vionville; Gravelotte = St. Privat. In all
these names the German precedes the French.]
Then take the following from a correspondent of The _Times_,
who was a witness of the battle:--“The want of infantry caused a
somewhat serious sacrifice of cavalry, which had repeatedly to charge
both infantry and artillery to hold them in check. The men do not
ride particularly well to look at, but the manner in which they ride
into the jaws of death is really quite _à la_ Balaclava. One
regiment--the 7th Cuirassiers--was ordered to charge a battery of
artillery, and actually got into it, one of the first in, I am proud to
say, being a young Englishman, who has taken service in the Prussian
army, and has just got his lieutenancy. It went in some 300 strong,
and what its loss is I tremble to say. When I next saw it, it scarcely
seemed to me a hundred all told. At 2.30 the reserve artillery was
brought up, and the cannonade became heavier than ever. The sun, too,
at this moment seemed to have come nearer to us, as if to see this
fearful butchery of mankind, and the heat became tremendous. Then,
wherever you went, came the pleading cry of ‘Water! water! For pity’s
sake give me water!’ The _Krankenträger_, or bearers of the
sick, had now more than they could do, admirable as the whole machinery
of the corps is worked.... The positions of both the combative forces
were perfectly stationary for about an hour, a sort of duel being
carried on between them, which, though at some distance, was quite
near enough to have fearful results. I saw a whole string of (French)
prisoners brought in of every description. There was the burly giant of
cuirassiers beside the little French liner, the green-jacketed hussar,
and the artilleryman--all chattering away, and seeming to me uncommonly
glad to be out of the affair at any price.
“Seeing some of the infantry engaged on the extreme right, I went
there, and met one regiment just coming out of action to recruit,
being at that moment commanded by a youth of nineteen, having lost
thirteen of its officers since the morning. The number of it was the
52nd, and to the usual inquiring glance that all officers who had not
seen me before threw over my most unregimental attire, I replied by
offering him a drink of some of the dirtiest water I ever saw, which I
had procured from a pond, and which to both of us was better than the
best iced champagne. There was no inquiring then. I was instantly the
best fellow he ever saw, and he told me all about what fun it was to
be in command, and that he was sure to get something now, and that he
meant to have another go in directly, etc. He was the most thoroughly
English-German boy I ever saw. We stood under a tree together, and I
gave him some cigars and left him. Two hours afterwards I saw his dead
body laid out with others in a row, the cigars still stuck between the
buttons of his coat. This one little anecdote--when I say it is but a
fair sample of other regiments--will show how fearful the loss has been
on the Prussian side.”
[Illustration: MITRAILLEUSE (BACK VIEW).]
At a subsequent roll-call near Tronville it was found that the 24th
Regiment had lost 1,000 men and 52 officers, while every officer of the
2nd battalion of the 20th Regiment was killed. It was not till three in
the afternoon that the 3rd Corps, which had been fighting singlehanded
for five hours against a fivefold force, received any efficient
assistance from the 10th Corps, which was now to the Brandenburgers
what Blücher’s army had been to Wellington at Waterloo. It was only the
devotion of the artillery which had meanwhile saved the infantry from
complete annihilation. For, after recovering from the shock of Bredow’s
brigade, the French had again concentrated their attack on the German
left, and compelled it to retire, fighting as it went.
[Illustration: MITRAILLEUSE (FRONT VIEW).]
But presently reinforcements from the 10th Corps began to come up,
and these were followed by the arrival of a man who was a host in
himself--Prince Frederick Charles. His headquarters were away at
Pont-à-Mousson, about fourteen miles to the south; and on hearing
rather late in the day that his own Brandenburgers were up to the hilt
in action and so hotly pressed, he mounted his horse and galloped away,
without ever once drawing rein, to the field of battle. And now let
Mr. Archibald Forbes, the famous war-correspondent, give us one of his
telling battle-pictures:--
“It was barely four o’clock when he” (the “Red Prince”) came galloping
up the narrow hill road from Gorze, the powerful bay he rode all foam
and sweat, sobbing with the swift exertion up the steep ascent, yet
pressed ruthlessly with the spur, staff and escort panting several
horse-lengths in rear of the impetuous foremost horseman. On and up he
sped, craning forward over the saddle-bow to save his horse, but the
attitude suggesting the impression that he burned to project himself
faster than the beast could cover the ground. No wolfskin, but the red
tunic of the Zieten Hussars, clad the compact torso; but the straining
man’s face wore the aspect one associates with that of the berserkar.
The bloodshot eyes had in them a sullen lurid gleam of bloodthirst.
The fierce sun and the long gallop had flushed the face a deep red,
and the veins of the throat stood out. Recalling through the years the
memory of that visage with the lowering brow, the fierce eyes, and
the strong-set jaw, one can understand how to this day the mothers in
the French villages invoke the terrors of ‘Le Prince Rouge,’ as the
Scottish peasants of old used the name of the Black Douglas to awe
their children wherewithal into panic-stricken silence.
“While as yet his road was through the forest, leaves and twigs cut
by bullets showered down upon him. Just as he emerged on the open
upland a shell burst almost among his horse’s feet. The iron-nerved
man gave heed to neither bullet-fire nor bursting shell; no, nor even
to the cheers that rose above the roar of battle from the throats of
the Brandenburgers through whose masses he was riding, and whose chief
he had been for many years. They expected no recognition, for they
knew the nature of the man--knew that, after his fashion, he was the
soldier’s true friend, and also that he was wont to sway the issues of
battle. He spurred onward to Flavigny, away yonder in the front line;
the bruit of his arrival darted along the fagged ranks; and strangely
soon came the recognition that a master-soldier had gripped hold of the
command as in a vice.”
With the arrival of the “Red Prince” and of reinforcements, the battle
now again took the form of a desperate infantry fight. Let me notice
only one of its leading incidents, which was graphically described by
Moltke. When General von Wedell’s Brigade, no more than five battalions
strong, advanced to the attack by way of Tronville, he found himself
in front of the extensive line of the 4th French Brigade. The two
Westphalian regiments advanced steadily under the storm of shell and
mitrailleuse fire until they suddenly reached the edge of a deep
ravine. This, however, they soon crossed; but, after scaling the
opposite bank, they were met by a murderous shower of bullets from the
French infantry, who were everywhere close upon them. Almost every one
of the generals and officers were killed, the remnant of the broken
battalions fell back into the ravine, and 300 men--unable to re-ascend
the steep southern slope after the fatigue of a twenty-four-miles
march, almost at the double--were taken prisoners. Those who escaped
mustered at Tronville around the bullet-riddled colours which Colonel
von Cranach--the only officer who still had a horse under him--brought
back in his hand. Seventy-two officers and 2,542 men were missing out
of 95 officers and 4,546 men--more than a half.
And now there occurred another of those magnificent cavalry charges
in which the battle of Vionville-Mars-la-Tour was so sacrificially
rich. Raising a shout of triumph over the repulse--almost the
annihilation--of Wedell’s brigade, the French infantry advanced at the
double for the purpose of completing the wreck of the German left, and
all seemed lost. But just at this critical moment out rushed the 1st
Dragoon Guards in their sky-blue tunics and dashed straight at the
pursuing foe, who poured into the ranks of their assailants a murderous
bullet-fire, while shrapnel played upon their flanks. But “_immer
vorwärts!_” stormed the devoted dragoons, and plied their sabres on
the French _fantassins_ with terrible effect.
Again this cavalry regiment had achieved its object--which was to
save its own infantry from destruction--but at a frightful cost.
Colonel von Auerswald was mortally wounded, and it was reserved for
the youngest Captain, Prince Hohenlohe, to rally the remnants of the
brave regiment and lead it out of action. Only about a third of the
troopers afterwards answered to the roll-call. The regiment had left
on the field 15 officers, 11 non-commissioned officers, 7 trumpeters,
103 privates, and 250 horses. The importance of this great sacrifice
of life may be gathered from a remark made by the Emperor William
two years later, on the occasion of a visit he paid to the barracks
in Berlin. “Gentlemen,” he said, “but for your gallant attack at
Mars-la-Tour, who knows whether we should have been here to-day?” This
gallant regiment afterwards became the “Queen of England’s Own,” and a
higher military compliment could scarcely have been paid her Majesty by
her German grandson, William II.
Among the ranks of the 1st Dragoon Guards at Mars-la-Tour were the two
sons of Prince Bismarck, riding as private troopers; for this happened
to be the year in which they were doing their compulsory term of
military service. The Chancellor’s sons--one in his twenty-first, the
other only in his eighteenth year--behaved in action with a courage
worthy of their father. The elder, Herbert, had received no fewer than
three shots, one through the front of his tunic, another in his watch,
and the third in the thigh; while his brother William (Count “Bill” he
was always called) had come out of the deadly welter unscathed. “During
the attack at Mars-la-Tour,” said Bismarck once, “Count Bill’s horse
stumbled with him over a dead or wounded Gaul, within fifty feet of
the French square. But after a few moments he shook himself together
again, jumped up, and not being able to mount, led the brown horse back
through a shower of bullets. Then he found a wounded dragoon, whom he
set upon his horse, and, covering himself thus from the enemy’s fire
on one side, he got back to his own people. The horse fell dead after
shelter was reached.”
[Illustration: MARSHAL BAZAINE.]
But the charge of the 1st Dragoon Guards was scarcely over when it
became apparent that the French were preparing for another attack on
the invincible left wing of the Germans by hurling upon it a stupendous
mass of their cavalry. Three regiments of Le Grand’s Division, and
both regiments of the Guards Cavalry Brigade, were seen trotting up to
the west side of the Grayère ravine. Opposite to them stood the whole
of the Prussian cavalry, concentrated to the south of Mars-la-Tour,
in the first line being the 13th Uhlans, 4th Cuirassiers, and 19th
Dragoons, and behind them the 16th Dragoons and 10th Hussars. The
13th Uhlans dashed straight against the foremost French cavalry line;
but the regiment had become somewhat disordered, and the French
Hussars rode right through it. Then, however, the 10th Hussars turned
up for the second time, and repulsed the enemy’s cavalry. The two
evenly-balanced masses of horsemen rushed upon each other in an awful
cavalry _mêlée_. But, as a mighty cloud of dust concealed the
ensuing hand-to-hand encounter of 5,000 men swaying to and fro, it was
impossible to follow with minuteness the incidents of the conflict.
Fortune gradually decided in favour of the Prussians, for, man to man,
they were heavier than their opponents. General Montaigu was taken
prisoner, severely wounded, and General Le Grand fell while leading his
Dragoons to the assistance of the Hussars. This, the greatest cavalry
combat of the war, had the effect of making the French right wing give
up all attempts to act on the offensive. But out of this gigantic
combat of horsemen the victorious Prussians had again emerged with
great loss; and among those who had fallen was Colonel Finckenstein of
the 2nd Dragoon Guards, who had been the midnight bearer of Moltke’s
momentous message from Gitschin to Königinhof during the Bohemian
campaign of 1866.
Darkness was now approaching, and the battle had practically been
won by the Germans. The troops were utterly exhausted, most of the
ammunition spent, while the horses had been saddled for fifteen hours
without anything to eat. Some of the batteries could only be moved at
a slow pace, and the nearest Prussian troops on the left bank of the
Moselle were a day’s march off. Nevertheless the impetuous Red Prince,
desiring to increase the moral impression of the day’s endeavours, and,
if possible, destroy altogether the internal cohesion of the French,
ordered a general advance against their position. But the poor Prussian
troops were too utterly fagged out by their incessant exertions during
the day to do much more than make a formal response to this cruel and
unnecessary command; and, again, they suffered great loss without
inflicting a corresponding one on the French.
Fighting did not entirely cease till ten o’clock--that is to say, the
bloody battle had lasted for twelve long hours, entailing a loss of
about 16,000 officers and men on either side. But the Germans had won
the battle. For they had achieved their object--which was to prevent
the escape of Bazaine. Yet, in his despatch to the Emperor, Bazaine had
made bold to assert that “the enemy, beaten, retreated on all points,
leaving us masters of the battle-field.” Moltke, on the other hand,
wrote that “the troops, worn out by a twelve-hours’ struggle, encamped
on the victorious but bloody field immediately opposite the French
lines.” And Moltke wrote the truth. Bazaine had evidently learned the
habit of lying about his reverses from the Great Napoleon, and even
from Napoleon the Little.
[Illustration: CHARGE OF THE 16TH UHLANS (_p._
346).]
Yet Mars-la-Tour was only the prologue to the still bloodier and more
decisive drama of Gravelotte two days later. “The battle of Vionville,”
said the Emperor William II. once, “is without a parallel in military
history, seeing that a single Army Corps, about 20,000 men strong,
hung on to and repulsed an enemy more than five times as numerous
and well equipped. Such was the glorious deed that was done by the
Brandenburgers, and the Hohenzollerns will never forget the debt they
owe to their devotion.”
Several years later I visited the field of battle just described.
Leaving Gorze, with its gilded statue of _la Sainte Vierge_ on
the brow of a beetling cliff, I passed up the steep and wooded defile
through which the Brandenburgers pressed on the 16th of August,
and here the first affecting relics of the bloody strife appeared.
In a little, lonely green valley skirted by the road, a few grassy
mounds luxuriant with the crimson poppy and the wild fern, each
being surmounted by a white wooden cross, told where the _tapfere
Krieger_ began to drop from the bullets of the chassepôt. But when
the summit is reached, what a touching sight! The rising plateau on
every side is dotted with white crosses, which thicken, thicken,
thicken as you advance, and the not far distant horizon edge is
bristling with obelisks and stone memorials of more pretentious and
lasting form, making the whole region look like one colossal cemetery.
An involuntary sadness comes over the traveller, and when approaching
every tomb and commemorative tablet he feels instinctively moved by
the mute appeal contained in the inscription: “_Sta, viator, heroen
calcas!_” The graceful obelisk, with its lengthy death-roll of
officers and men, the railing-encircled and ivy-grown mound looking
like a well-filled family vault, the silver-edged cross still hung with
withered oaken wreaths and immortelles, the slender column snapped
in twain to indicate the fate of hopeful youth suddenly cut off, the
neatly-trimmed sepulture and the graveyard plot of flowers--conceive
all these objects scattered over the summit of a bare plateau facing
northwards to the west of Metz, and you will have some idea of the
scene.
On an eminence behind Vionville, which formed the centre of the
German position, is a pyramidal kind of monument of roughly-hewn
stone, surmounted by the Hohenzollern eagle, and surrounded by a
railing hung with shield-like tablets bearing the multitudinous names
of those officers of the 5th Division who fell on that fatal day.
The reverse and coverless side of the plateau--densely dotted with
mounds and monuments testifying to the terrible losses of the brave
Brandenburgers--leads you down to the village of Vionville, where
tombstones on the public highway point to where the dust of Gaul and
German is commingled in the reconciliation of death. “_Mit Gott für
König und Vaterland_” is the recorded war-cry on the monument of
one Teutonic soldier; while at its side there stands a marble cross,
tastefully wreathed with flowers, to the memory of one brave and noble
young lieutenant of the Empire who died on the field of honour with
these words, preserved in golden letters, on his lips: “_Dites à
ma mère_,” he cried, “_que je meurs en soldat et en chrétien.
Marchez en avant!_”--“Tell my mother that I died like a soldier and
a Christian. Forward!”
[Illustration: FRENCH UNIFORMS IN 1870.]
[Illustration:
THE RETREAT OF CORUNNA
BY D. H. PARRY
SIR JOHN MOORE]
East of the kingdom of Portugal lie the great plains of Leon, bordered
north and south by mighty mountain ranges; and in the short December
days of 1808, when wintry winds swept howling through the passes and
across the level land, and the red roofs of Salamanca were covered with
snow, a small British army, some 23,000 strong, was preparing to assist
Spain against Napoleon.
Led by the gallant Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore, and wearing the
red cockade out of compliment to the nation, we had been received with
great enthusiasm, and were given to understand that the country burned
with patriotic zeal and had large forces, perfectly equipped; but
this was soon found to be untrue, for, while the Spaniards were ready
for any amount of castanet playing and looking-on, the English were
expected to do their fighting for them.
Their magnificent army dwindled upon investigation to half its supposed
numbers, and, with a few honourable exceptions, proved itself one of
the wretchedest collections of ragamuffins of which history bears any
record, so that Sir John Moore found himself in as awkward a position
as ever fell to the lot of a British general. Nevertheless, in spite
of the severity of the weather, the impertinent meddling of Mr. Frere,
the English Minister at Madrid, the poor equipment of our troops and
the absence of Spanish aid, we marched boldly out of Salamanca on the
11th December to attack Soult in the north, and afterwards succour the
capital if that should be practicable.
It was a brave little army, and its doings are deeply carved on the
pillar of British fame. There were five cavalry regiments, all Hussars,
dashing fellows in braided pelisses, and mounted on active nagtailed
horses: viz., the 7th, 10th, 15th, and 18th, with the 3rd of the King’s
German Legion.
Artillery, Engineers, Waggon Train, and a detachment of the
scarlet-coated Staff Corps filed out across the plain, white and
monotonous under a gloomy sky.
Two battalions of the 1st Guards and thirty-two of the Line completed
our force, including amongst others such splendid regiments as the
Royal Scots, the 4th, 5th, and the 9th, nicknamed the “Holy Boys,”
because they afterwards sold their Bibles for wine; the Welsh Fusiliers
and 28th “Slashers,” the Black Watch, the Fighting 43rd, the 71st
Glasgow Highland Light Infantry, now the strictest regiment in the
service, the Cameron Highlanders, and the green 95th Rifles.
* * * * *
General Baird was hastening from Corunna to join us, and we had
already advanced several marches towards the enemy, when a blustering
French aide-de-camp got himself murdered in a village; his papers were
purchased for twenty dollars, and Sir John Moore learned for the first
time the true extent of the overwhelming odds against him.
Madrid, which was to have made such a brave defence, had held out
_one_ day; the shops were open and the people tranquil; Toledo,
Ocaña, and the whole of La Manche were in the hands of the French; a
strong force was about to march on Badajoz, and the Emperor Napoleon
was reviewing 60,000 veteran troops, including part of his famous
Imperial Guard, at the capital.
Two hundred and fifty-five thousand men were mustering to oppose us;
their cavalry alone exceeded our entire army by 12,000, and to linger
on the plains with such a horde closing round us would have been
absolute madness. There was nothing for it but to show a bold front
to Soult, and gain the sea with as much honour as possible before the
others could come up; and though the word “retreat” has an unpleasant
sound to English ears, when it is attended with as great a display of
heroism as upon that unfortunate occasion, it becomes a page in British
annals which we could ill afford to spare.
* * * * *
The Reserve, on whom, with the cavalry, most of the fighting devolved
until the army reached Corunna, was formed of the 20th and 52nd, and
the 28th, 91st, and 95th, under Generals Anstruther and Disney. First
blood was drawn at Rueda, where the 18th Hussars took fifty prisoners,
and the same evening the band of the 7th Hussars played the Reserve
into Toro, on the Douro.
Paget, afterwards Marquis of Anglesea, whose brother, Lord Edward,
was in command of the Reserve, marched the 10th and 15th Hussars on a
bitter and intensely dark night to Sahagun, arriving in the grey dawn
to find the place full of French cavalry. Without a moment’s hesitation
the 15th charged and overthrew them, taking thirteen officers and a
hundred and fifty-four men in twenty minutes.
The 15th was the Duke of Cumberland’s regiment, and one of the most
expensive in the army.
Napoleon heard of our advance on the same day that Sahagun was fought,
and, leaving 10,000 men to overawe Madrid, marched with 50,000 to cross
the Guadarama range.
Pushing on in the depth of winter--the Spaniards forced to cut roads
through the snow for them--they reached the passes, and toiled up for
twelve hours without the advance guard being able to gain the summit;
but so tremendous was the wind that the Emperor had to dismount and
struggle forward on foot, holding on to the arms of Marshals Lannes and
Duroc, the staff following linked together, with heads bent before the
driving snow.
Half-way up they stopped, the generals exhausted in their heavy
jack-boots, and bestriding some brass guns, Napoleon and his officers
in that manner arrived at the top, seeing through the whirling flakes
the plains of Leon far below them.
Scrambling down, he hurried the jaded troops ten and twelve leagues a
day until he came within three miles of the river Esla--only to find
that we had already crossed it, and had had two days’ rest at Benevente.
Furious at our escape, he sent his favourite Chasseurs-à-Cheval of
the Guard in hot pursuit, with a support of infantry; but without
waiting for the foot-soldiers, the gallant Charles Lefebvre Desnouettes
splashed through the fords with his horsemen into the open fields full
of camp-followers, and drove our pickets back towards the town.
Six hundred of those splendid troopers, in green jackets and red
pelisses, careered magnificently over the trampled snow; but behind
some straggling houses Paget was waiting with the 10th Hussars, until
they should have got sufficiently forward.