gathering forces of the Germans, over three hundred and eighty thousand
strong, were still some distance behind the Lauter and the Saar. Napoleon,
apparently without any clear design, had placed certain bodies of troops
actually on the frontier at Forbach, Weissenburg, and elsewhere, while
other troops, raising the whole number to about two hundred and fifty
thousand, lay round Metz and Strasburg, and at points between these and the
most advanced positions. The reconnoitring of the small German detachments
on the frontier was conducted with extreme energy: the French appear to
have made no reconnaissances at all, for when they determined at last to
discover what was facing them at Saarbrücken, they advanced with
twenty-five thousand men against one-tenth of that number. On the 2nd of
August Frossard's corps from Forbach moved upon Saarbrücken with the
Emperor in person. The garrison was driven out, and the town bombarded, but
even now the reconnaissance was not continued beyond the bridge across the
Saar which divides the two parts of the town. Forty-eight hours later the
alignment of the German forces in their invading order was completed, and
all was ready for an offensive campaign. The central army, commanded by
Prince Frederick Charles, spreading east and west behind Saarbrücken,
touched on its right the northern army commanded by General Steinmetz, on
its left the southern army commanded by the Crown Prince, which covered the
frontier of the Palatinate, and included the troops of Bavaria and
Würtemberg. The general direction of the three armies was thus from
north-west to south-east. As the line of invasion was to be nearly due west,
it was necessary that the first step forwards should be made by the army of
the Crown Prince in order to bring it more nearly to a level with the
northern corps in the march into France. On the 4th of August the Crown
Prince crossed the Alsatian frontier and moved against Weissenburg. The
French General Douay, who was posted here with about twelve thousand men,
was neither reinforced nor bidden to retire. His troops met the attack of
an enemy many times more numerous with great courage; but the struggle was
a hopeless one, and after several hours of severe fighting the Germans were
masters of the field. Douay fell in the battle; his troops frustrated an
attempt made to cut off their retreat, and fell back southwards towards the
corps of McMahon, which lay about ten miles behind them. The Crown Prince
marched on in search of his enemy, McMahon, who could collect only
forty-five thousand men, desired to retreat until he could gain some
support; but the Emperor, tormented by fears of the political consequences
of the invasion, insisted upon his giving battle. He drew up on the hills
about Wörth, almost on the spot where in 1793 Hoche had overthrown the
armies of the First Coalition. On the 6th of August the leading divisions
of the Crown Prince, about a hundred thousand strong, were within striking
distance. The superiority of the Germans in numbers was so great that
McMahon's army might apparently have been captured or destroyed with far
less loss than actually took place if time had been given for the movements
which the Crown Prince's staff had in view, and for the employment of his
full strength. But the impetuosity of divisional leaders on the morning of
the 6th brought on a general engagement. The resistance of the French was
of the most determined character. With one more army-corps--and the corps
of General Failly was expected to arrive on the field--it seemed as if the
Germans might yet be beaten back. But each hour brought additional forces
into action in the attack, while the French commander looked in vain for
the reinforcements that could save him from ruin. At length, when the last
desperate charges of the Cuirassiers had shattered against the fire of
cannon and needle-guns, and the village of Froschwiller, the centre of the
French position, had been stormed house by house, the entire army broke and
fled in disorder. Nine thousand prisoners, thirty-three cannon, fell into
the hands of the conquerors. The Germans had lost ten thousand men, but
they had utterly destroyed McMahon's army as an organised force. Its
remnant disappeared from the scene of warfare, escaping by the western
roads in the direction of Châlons, where first it was restored to some
degree of order. The Crown Prince, leaving troops behind him to beleaguer
the smaller Alsatian fortresses, marched on untroubled through the northern
Vosges, and descended into the open country about Lunéville and Nancy,
unfortified towns which could offer no resistance to the passage of an
enemy.
[Spicheren, Aug. 6.]
On the same day that the battle of Wörth was fought, the leading columns of
the armies of Steinmetz and Prince Frederick Charles crossed the frontier
at Saarbrücken. Frossard's corps, on the news of the defeat at Weissenburg,
had withdrawn to its earlier positions between Forbach and the frontier: it
held the steep hills of Spicheren that look down upon Saarbrücken, and the
woods that flank the high road where this passes from Germany into France.
As at Wörth, it was not intended that any general attack should be made on
the 6th; a delay of twenty-four hours would have enabled the Germans to
envelop or crush Frossard's corps with an overwhelming force. But the
leaders of the foremost regiments threw themselves impatiently upon the
French whom they found before them: other brigades hurried up to the sound
of the cannon, until the struggle took the proportion of a battle, and
after hours of fluctuating success the heights of Spicheren were carried by
successive rushes of the infantry full in the enemy's fire. Why Frossard
was not reinforced has never been explained, for several French divisions
lay at no great distance westward, and the position was so strong that, if
a pitched battle was to be fought anywhere east of Metz, few better points
could have been chosen. But, like Douay at Weissenburg, Frossard was left
to struggle alone against whatever forces the Germans might throw upon him.
Napoleon, who directed the operations of the French armies from Metz,
appears to have been now incapable of appreciating the simplest military
necessities, of guarding against the most obvious dangers. Helplessness,
infatuation ruled the miserable hours.
[Paris after Aug. 6.]
The impression made upon Europe by the battles of the 6th of August
corresponded to the greatness of their actual military effects. There was
an end to all thoughts of the alliance of Austria and Italy with France.
Germany, though unaware of the full magnitude of the perils from which it
had escaped, breathed freely after weeks of painful suspense; the very
circumstance that the disproportion of numbers on the battle-field of
Wörth was still unknown heightened the joy and confidence produced by the
Crown Prince's victory, a victory in which the South German troops,
fighting by the side of those who had been their foes in 1866, had borne
their full part. In Paris the consternation with which the news of
McMahon's overthrow was received was all the greater that on the previous
day reports had been circulated of a victory won at Landau and of the
capture of the Crown Prince with his army. The bulletin of the Emperor,
briefly narrating McMahon's defeat and the repulse of Frossard, showed in
its concluding words--"All may yet be retrieved"--how profound was the
change made in the prospects of the war by that fatal day. The truth was
at once apprehended. A storm of indignation broke out against the
Imperial Government at Paris. The Chambers were summoned. Ollivier,
attacked alike by the extreme Bonapartists and by the Opposition, laid
down his office. A reactionary Ministry, headed by the Count of Palikao,
was placed in power by the Empress, a Ministry of the last hour as it was
justly styled by all outside it. Levies were ordered, arms and stores
accumulated for the reserve-forces, preparations made for a siege of
Paris itself. On the 12th the Emperor gave up the command which he had
exercised with such miserable results, and appointed Marshal Bazaine, one
of the heroes of the Mexican Expedition, General-in-Chief of the Army of
the Rhine.
[Napoleon at Metz. Aug. 7-11.]
[Borny, Aug 14.]
After the overthrow of McMahon and the victory of the Germans at Spicheren,
there seems to have been a period of utter paralysis in the French
headquarters at Metz. The divisions of Prince Frederick Charles and
Steinmetz did not immediately press forward; it was necessary to allow some
days for the advance of the Crown Prince through the Vosges; and during
these days the French army about Metz, which, when concentrated, numbered
nearly two hundred thousand men, might well have taken the positions
necessary for the defence of Moselle, or in the alternative might have
gained several marches in the retreat towards Verdun and Châlons. Only a
small part of this body had as yet been exposed to defeat. It included in
it the very flower of the French forces, tens of thousands of troops
probably equal to any in Europe, and capable of forming a most formidable
army if united to the reserves which would shortly be collected at Châlons
or nearer Paris. But from the 7th to the 12th of August Napoleon, too cowed
to take the necessary steps for battle in defence of the line of Moselle,
lingered purposeless a id irresolute at Metz, unwilling to fall back from
this fortress. It was not till the 14th that the retreat was begun. By this
time the Germans were close at hand, and their leaders were little disposed
to let the hesitating enemy escape them. While the leading divisions of the
French were crossing the Moselle, Steinmetz hurried forward his troops and
fell upon the French detachments still lying on the south-east of Metz
about Borny and Courcelles. Bazaine suspended his movement of retreat in
order to beat back an assailant who for once seemed to be inferior in
strength. At the close of the day the French commander believed that he had
gained a victory and driven the Germans off their line of advance; in
reality he had allowed himself to be diverted from the passage of the
Moselle at the last hour, while the Germans left under Prince Frederick
Charles gained the river farther south, and actually began to cross it in
order to bar his retreat.
[Mars-la-Tour, Aug. 15.]
From Metz westwards there is as far as the village of Gravelotte, which is
seven miles distant, but one direct road; at Gravelotte the road forks, the
southern arm leading towards Verdun by Vionville and Mars-la-Tour, the
northern by Conflans. During the 15th of August the first of Bazaine's
divisions moved as far as Vionville along the southern road; others came
into the neighbourhood of Gravelotte, but two corps which should have
advanced past Gravelotte on to the northern road still lay close to Metz.
The Prussian vanguard was meanwhile crossing the Moselle southwards from
Noveant to Pont-a-Mousson, and hurrying forwards by lines converging on the
road taken by Bazaine. Down to the evening of the 15th it was not supposed
at the Prussian headquarters that Bazaine could be overtaken and brought to
battle nearer than the line of the Meuse; but on the morning of the 16th
the cavalry-detachments which had pushed farthest to the north-west
discovered that the heads of the French columns had still not passed
Mars-la-Tour. An effort was instantly made to seize the road and block the
way before the enemy. The struggle, begun by a handful of combatants on
each side, drew to it regiment after regiment as the French battalions
close at hand came into action, and the Prussians hurried up in wild haste
to support their comrades who were exposed to the attack of an entire army.
The rapidity with which the Prussian generals grasped the situation before
them, the vigour with which they brought up their cavalry over a distance
which no infantry could traverse in the necessary time, and without a
moment's hesitation hurled this cavalry in charge after charge against a
superior foe, mark the battle of Mars-la-Tour as that in which the military
superiority of the Germans was most truly shown. Numbers in this battle had
little to do with the result, for by better generalship Bazaine could
certainly at any one point have overpowered his enemy. But while the
Germans rushed like a torrent upon the true point of attack--that is the
westernmost--Bazaine by some delusion considered it his primary object to
prevent the Germans from thrusting themselves between the retreating army
and Metz, and so kept a great part of his troops inactive about the
fortress. The result was that the Germans, with a loss of sixteen thousand
men, remained at the close of the day masters of the road at Vionville, and
that the French army could not, without winning a victory and breaking
through the enemy's line, resume its retreat along this line.
[Gravelotte, Aug. 18.]
It was expected during the 17th that Bazaine would make some attempt to
escape by the northern road, but instead of doing so he fell back on
Gravelotte and the heights between this and Metz, in order to fight a
pitched battle. The position was a well-chosen one; but by midday on the
18th the armies of Steinmetz and Prince Frederick Charles were ranged in
front of Bazaine with a strength of two hundred and fifty thousand men, and
in the judgment of the King these forces were equal to the attack. Again,
as at Wörth, the precipitancy of divisional commanders caused the sacrifice
of whole brigades before the battle was won. While the Saxon corps with
which Moltke intended to deliver his slow but fatal blow upon the enemy's
right flank was engaged in its long northward détour, Steinmetz pushed his
Rhinelanders past the ravine of Gravelotte into a fire where no human being
could survive, and the Guards, pressing forward in column over the smooth
unsheltered slope from St. Marie to St. Privat, sank by thousands without
reaching midway in their course. Until the final blow was dealt by the
Saxon corps from the north flank, the ground which was won by the Prussians
was won principally by their destructive artillery fire: their infantry
attacks had on the whole been repelled, and at Gravelotte itself it had
seemed for a moment as if the French were about to break the assailant's
line. But Bazaine, as on the 16th, steadily kept his reserves at a distance
from the points where their presence was most required, and, according to
his own account, succeeded in bringing into action no more than a hundred
thousand men, or less than two-thirds of the forces under his command.
[540] At the close of the awful day, when the capture of St. Privat by the
Saxons turned the defender's line, the French abandoned all their positions
and drew back within the defences of Metz.
[McMahon is compelled to attempt Bazaine's relief.]
The Germans at once proceeded to block all the roads round the fortress,
and Bazaine made no effort to prevent them. At the end of a few days the
line was drawn around him in sufficient strength to resist any sudden
attack. Steinmetz, who was responsible for a great part of the loss
sustained at Gravelotte, was now removed from his command; his army was
united with that under Prince Frederick Charles as the besieging force,
while sixty thousand men, detached from this great mass, were formed into a
separate army under Prince Albert of Saxony, and sent by way of Verdun to
co-operate with the Crown Prince against McMahon. The Government at Paris
knew but imperfectly what was passing around Metz from day to day; it knew,
however, that if Metz should be given up for lost the hour of its own fall
could not be averted. One forlorn hope remained, to throw the army which
McMahon was gathering at Châlons north-eastward to Bazaine's relief, though
the Crown Prince stood between Châlons and Metz, and could reach every
point in the line of march more rapidly than McMahon himself. Napoleon had
quitted Metz on the evening of the 15th; on the 17th a council of war was
held at Châlons, at which it was determined to fall back upon Paris and to
await the attack of the Crown Prince under the forts of the capital. No
sooner was this decision announced to the Government at Paris than the
Empress telegraphed to her husband warning him to consider what would be
the effects of his return, and insisting that an attempt should be made to
relieve Bazaine. [541] McMahon, against his own better judgment, consented
to the northern march. He moved in the first instance to Rheims in order to
conceal his intention from the enemy, but by doing this he lost some days.
On the 23rd, in pursuance of arrangements made with Bazaine, whose
messengers were still able to escape the Prussian watch, he set out
north-eastwards in the direction of Montmédy.
[German movement northwards, Aug 26.]
[Battle of Sedan, Sept. 1.]
[Capitulation of Sedan, Sept. 2.]
The movement was discovered by the Prussian cavalry and reported at the
headquarters at Bar-le-Duc on the 25th. Instantly the westward march of the
Crown Prince was arrested, and his army, with that of the Prince of Saxony,
was thrown northwards in forced marches towards Sedan. On reaching Le
Chesne, west of the Meuse, on the 27th, McMahon became aware of the enemy's
presence. He saw that his plan was discovered, and resolved to retreat
westwards before it was too late. The Emperor, who had attached himself to
the army, consented, but again the Government at Paris interfered with
fatal effect. More anxious for the safety of the dynasty than for the
existence of the army, the Empress and her advisers insisted that McMahon
should continue his advance. Napoleon seems now to have abdicated all
authority and thrown to the winds all responsibility. He allowed the march
to be resumed in the direction of Mouzon and Stenay. Failly's corps, which
formed the right wing, was attacked on the 29th before it could reach the
passage of the Meuse at the latter place, and was driven northwards to
Beaumont. Here the commander strangely imagined himself to be in security.
He was surprised in his camp on the following day, defeated, and driven
northwards towards Mouzon. Meanwhile the left of McMahon's army had crossed
the Meuse and moved eastwards to Carignan, so that his troops were severed
by the river and at some distance from one another. Part of Failly's men
were made prisoners in the struggle on the south, or dispersed on the west
of the Meuse; the remainder, with their commander, made a hurried and
disorderly escape beyond the river, and neglected to break down the bridges
by which they had passed. McMahon saw that if the advance was continued his
divisions would one after another fall into the enemy's hands. He recalled
the troops which had reached Carignan, and concentrated his army about
Sedan to fight a pitched battle. The passages of the Meuse above and below
Sedan were seized by the Germans. Two hundred and forty thousand men were
at Moltke's disposal; McMahon had about half that number. The task of the
Germans was not so much to defeat the enemy as to prevent them from
escaping to the Belgian frontier. On the morning of September 1st, while on
the east of Sedan the Bavarians after a desperate resistance stormed the
village of Bazeilles, Hessian and Prussian regiments crossed the Meuse at
Donchéry several miles to the west. From either end of this line corps
after corps now pushed northwards round the French positions, driving in
the enemy wherever they found them, and, converging under the eyes of the
Prussian King, his general, and his Minister, each into its place in the
arc of fire before which the French Empire was to perish. The movement was
as admirably executed as designed. The French fought furiously but in vain:
the mere mass of the enemy, the mere narrowing of the once completed
circle, crushed down resistance without the clumsy havoc of Gravelotte.
From point after point the defenders were forced back within Sedan itself.
The streets were choked with hordes of beaten infantry and cavalry; the
Germans had but to take one more step forward and the whole of their
batteries would command the town. Towards evening there was a pause in the
firing, in order that the French might offer negotiations for surrender;
but no sign of surrender was made, and the Bavarian cannon resumed their
fire, throwing shells into the town itself. Napoleon now caused a white
flag to be displayed on the fortress, and sent a letter to the King of
Prussia, stating that as he had not been able to die in the midst of his
troops, nothing remained for him but to surrender his sword into the hands
of his Majesty. The surrender was accepted by King William, who added that
General Moltke would act on his behalf in arranging terms of capitulation.
General Wimpffen, who had succeeded to the command of the French army on
the disablement of McMahon by a wound, acted on behalf of Napoleon. The
negotiations continued till late in the night, the French general pressing
for permission for his troops to be disarmed in Belgium, while Moltke
insisted on the surrender of the entire army as prisoners of war. Fearing
the effect of an appeal by Napoleon himself to the King's kindly nature,
Bismarck had taken steps to remove his sovereign to a distance until the
terms of surrender should be signed. At daybreak on September 2nd Napoleon
sought the Prussian headquarters. He was met on the road by Bismarck, who
remained in conversation with him till the capitulation was completed on
the terms required by the Germans. He then conducted Napoleon to the
neighbouring château of Bellevue, where King William, the Crown Prince, and
the Prince of Saxony visited him. One pang had still to be borne by the
unhappy man. Down to his interview with the King, Napoleon had imagined
that all the German armies together had operated against him at Sedan, and
he must consequently have still had some hope that his own ruin might have
purchased the deliverance of Bazaine. He learnt accidentally from the King
that Prince Frederick Charles had never stirred from before Metz. A
convulsion of anguish passed over his face: his eyes filled with tears.
There was no motive for a prolonged interview between the conqueror and the
conquered, for, as a prisoner, Napoleon could not discuss conditions of
peace. After some minutes of conversation the King departed for the
Prussian headquarters. Napoleon remained in the château until the morning
of the next day, and then began his journey towards the place chosen for
his captivity, the palace of Wilhelmshöhe at Cassel. [542]
[The Republic Proclaimed, Sept. 4.]
[Circular of Jules Favre, Sept. 6.]
Rumours of disaster had reached Paris in the last days of August, but to
each successive report of evil the Government replied with lying boasts of
success, until on the 3rd of September it was forced to announce a
catastrophe far surpassing the worst anticipations of the previous days.
With the Emperor and his entire army in the enemy's hands, no one supposed
that the dynasty could any longer remain on the throne: the only question
was by what form of government the Empire should be succeeded. The
Legislative Chamber assembled in the dead of night; Jules Favre proposed
the deposition of the Emperor, and was heard in silence. The Assembly
adjourned for some hours. On the morning of the 4th, Thiers, who sought to
keep the way open for an Orleanist restoration, moved that a Committee of
Government should be appointed by the Chamber itself, and that elections to
a new Assembly should be held as soon as circumstances should permit.
Before this and other propositions of the same nature could be put to the
vote, the Chamber was invaded by the mob. Gambetta, with most of the
Deputies for Paris, proceeded to the Hôtel de Ville, and there proclaimed
the Republic. The Empress fled; a Government of National Defence came into
existence, with General Trochu at its head, Jules Favre assuming the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Gambetta that of the Interior. No hand was
raised in defence of the Napoleonic dynasty or of the institutions of the
Empire. The Legislative Chamber and the Senate disappeared without even
making an attempt to prolong their own existence. Thiers, without approving
of the Republic or the mode in which it had come into being, recommended
his friends to accept the new Government, and gave it his own support. On
the 6th of September a circular of Jules Favre, addressed to the
representatives of France at all the European Courts, justified the
overthrow of the Napoleonic Empire, and claimed for the Government by which
it was succeeded the goodwill of the neutral Powers. Napoleon III. was
charged with the responsibility for the war: with the fall of his dynasty,
it was urged, the reasons for a continuance of the struggle had ceased to
exist. France only asked for a lasting peace. Such peace, however, must
leave the territory of France inviolate, for peace with dishonour would be
but the prelude to a new war of extermination. "Not an inch of our soil
will we cede"--so ran the formula--"not a stone of our fortresses." [543]
[Favre and Bismarck, Sept. 29.]
The German Chancellor had nothing ready in the way of rhetoric equal to his
antagonist's phrases; but as soon as the battle of Sedan was won it was
settled at the Prussian headquarters that peace would not be made without
the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine. Prince Bismarck has stated that his
own policy would have stopped at the acquisition of Strasburg: Moltke,
however, and the chiefs of the army pronounced that Germany could not be
secure against invasion while Metz remained in the hands of France, and
this opinion was accepted by the King. For a moment it was imagined that
the victory of Sedan had given the conqueror peace on his own terms. This
hope, however, speedily disappeared, and the march upon Paris was resumed
by the army of the Crown Prince without waste of time. In the third week of
September the invaders approached the capital. Favre, in spite of his
declaration of the 6th, was not indisposed to enter upon negotiations; and,
trusting to his own arts of persuasion, he sought an interview with the
German Chancellor, which was granted to him at Ferrières on the 19th, and
continued on the following day. Bismarck hesitated to treat the holders of
office in Paris as an established Government; he was willing to grant an
armistice in order that elections might be held for a National Assembly
with which Germany could treat for peace; but he required, as a condition
of the armistice, that Strasburg and Toul should be surrendered. Toul was
already at the last extremity; Strasburg was not capable of holding out ten
days longer; but of this the Government at Paris was not aware. The
conditions demanded by Bismarck were rejected as insulting to France, and
the war was left to take its course. Already, while Favre was negotiating
at Ferrières, the German vanguard was pressing round to the west of Paris.
A body of French troops which attacked them on the 19th at Châtillon was
put to the rout and fled in panic. Versailles was occupied on the same day,
and the line of investment was shortly afterwards completed around the
capital.
[Siege of Paris, Sept. 19.]
[Tours.]
[Gambetta at Tours.]
The second act in the war now began. Paris had been fortified by Thiers
about 1840, at the time when it seemed likely that France might be engaged
in war with a coalition on the affairs of Mehemet Ali. The forts were not
distant enough from the city to protect it altogether from artillery with
the lengthened range of 1870; they were sufficient, however, to render an
assault out of the question, and to compel the besieger to rely mainly on
the slow operation of famine. It had been reckoned by the engineers of 1840
that food enough might be collected to enable the city to stand a
two-months' siege; so vast, however, were the supplies collected in 1870
that, with double the population, Paris had provisions for above four
months. In spite therefore of the capture and destruction of its armies the
cause of France was not hopeless, if, while Paris and Metz occupied four
hundred thousand of the invaders, the population of the provinces should
take up the struggle with enthusiasm, and furnish after some months of
military exercise troops more numerous than those which France had lost, to
attack the besiegers from all points at once and to fall upon their
communications. To organise such a national resistance was, however,
impossible for any Government within the besieged capital itself. It was
therefore determined to establish a second seat of Government on the Loire;
and before the lines were drawn round Paris three members of the Ministry,
with M. Crémieux at their head, set out for Tours. Crémieux, however, who
was an aged lawyer, proved quite unequal to his task. His authority was
disputed in the west and the south. Revolutionary movements threatened to
break up the unity of the national defence. A stronger hand, a more
commanding will, was needed. Such a hand, such a will belonged to Gambetta,
who on the 7th of October left Paris in order to undertake the government
of the provinces and the organisation of the national armies. The circle of
the besiegers was now too closely drawn for the ordinary means of travel to
be possible. Gambetta passed over the German lines in a balloon, and
reached Tours in safety, where he immediately threw his feeble colleagues
into the background and concentrated all power in his own vigorous grasp.
The effect of his presence was at once felt throughout France. There was an
end of the disorders in the great cities, and of all attempts at rivalry
with the central power. Gambetta had the faults of rashness, of excessive
self-confidence, of defective regard for scientific authority in matters
where he himself was ignorant: but he possessed in an extraordinary degree
the qualities necessary for a Dictator at such a national crisis:
boundless, indomitable courage; a simple, elemental passion of love for his
country that left absolutely no place for hesitations or reserve in the
prosecution of the one object for which France then existed, the war. He
carried the nation with him like a whirlwind. Whatever share the military
errors of Gambetta and his rash personal interference with commanders may
have had in the ultimate defeat of France, without him it would never have
been known of what efforts France was capable. The proof of his capacity
was seen in the hatred and the fear with which down to the time of his
death he inspired the German people. Had there been at the head of the army
of Metz a man of one-tenth of Gambetta's effective force, it is possible
that France might have closed the war, if not with success, at least with
undiminished territory.
[Fall of Strasburg, Sept. 28.]
[The army of the Loire.]
[Tann takes Orleans, Oct. 12.]
Before Gambetta left Paris the fall of Strasburg set free the army under
General Werder by which it had been besieged, and enabled the Germans to
establish a civil Government in Alsace, the western frontier of the new
Province having been already so accurately studied that, when peace was
made in 1871, the frontier-line was drawn not upon one of the earlier
French maps but on the map now published by the German staff. It was
Gambetta's first task to divide France into districts, each with its own
military centre, its own army, and its own commander. Four such districts
were made: the centres were Lille, Le Mans, Bourges, and Besançon. At
Bourges and in the neighbourhood considerable progress had already been
made in organisation. Early in October German cavalry-detachments,
exploring southwards, found that French troops were gathering on the Loire.
The Bavarian General Von der Tann was detached by Moltke from the besieging
army at Paris, and ordered to make himself master of Orleans. Von der Tann
hastened southwards, defeated the French outside Orleans on the 11th of
October, and occupied this city, the French retiring towards Bourges.
Gambetta removed the defeated commander, and set in his place General
Aurelle de Paladines. Von der Tann was directed to cross the Loire and
destroy the arsenals at Bourges; he reported, however, that this task was
beyond his power, in consequence of which Moltke ordered General Werder
with the army of Strasburg to move westwards against Bourges, after
dispersing the weak forces that were gathering about Besançon. Werder set
out on his dangerous march, but he had not proceeded far when an army of
very different power was thrown into the scale against the French levies on
the Loire.
[Bazaine at Metz.]
[Capitulation of Metz, Oct. 27.]
In the battle of Gravelotte, fought on the 18th of August, the French
troops had been so handled by Bazaine as to render it doubtful whether he
really intended to break through the enemy's line and escape from Metz. At
what period political designs inconsistent with his military duty first
took possession of Bazaine's thoughts is uncertain. He had played a
political part in Mexico; it is probable that as soon as he found himself
at the head of the one effective army of France, and saw Napoleon
hopelessly discredited, he began to aim at personal power. Before the
downfall of the Empire he had evidently adopted a scheme of inaction with
the object of preserving his army entire: even the sortie by which it had
been arranged that he should assist McMahon on the day before Sedan was
feebly and irresolutely conducted. After the proclamation of the Republic
Bazaine's inaction became still more marked. The intrigues of an adventurer
named Regnier, who endeavoured to open a negotiation between the Prussians
and the exiled Empress Eugénie, encouraged him in his determination to keep
his soldiers from fulfilling their duty to France. Week after week passed
by; a fifth of the besieging army was struck down with sickness; yet
Bazaine made no effort to break through, or even to diminish the number of
men who were consuming the supplies of Metz by giving to separate
detachments the opportunity of escape. On the 12th of October, after the
pretence of a sortie on the north, he entered into communication with the
German headquarters at Versailles. Bismarck offered to grant a free
departure to the army of Metz on condition that the fortress should be
placed in his hands, that the army should undertake to act on behalf of the
Empress, and that the Empress should pledge herself to accept the Prussian
conditions of peace, whatever these might be. General Boyer was sent to
England to acquaint the Empress with these propositions. They were declined
by her, and after a fortnight had been spent in manoeuvres for a
Bonapartist restoration. Bazaine found himself at the end of his resources.
On the 27th the capitulation of Metz was signed. The fortress itself, with
incalculable cannon and material of war, and an army of a hundred and
seventy thousand men, including twenty-six thousand sick and wounded in the
hospitals, passed into the hands of the Germans. [544]
[Bazaine.]
Bazaine was at a later time tried by a court-martial, found guilty of the
neglect of duty, and sentenced to death. That sentence was not executed;
but if there is an infamy that is worse than death, such infamy will to all
time cling to his name. In the circumstances in which France was placed no
effort, no sacrifice of life could have been too great for the commander of
the army at Metz. To retain the besiegers in full strength before the
fortress would not have required the half of Bazaine's actual force. If
half his army had fallen on the field of battle in successive attempts to
cut their way through the enemy, brave men would no doubt have perished;
but even had their efforts failed their deaths would have purchased for
Metz the power to hold out for weeks or for months longer. The civil
population of Metz was but sixty thousand, its army was three times as
numerous; unlike Paris, it saw its stores consumed not by helpless millions
of women and children, but by soldiers whose duty it was to aid the defence
of their country at whatever cost. Their duty, if they could not cut their
way through, was to die fighting; and had they shown hesitation, which was
not the case, Bazaine should have died at their head. That Bazaine would
have fulfilled his duty even if Napoleon III. had remained on the throne is
more than doubtful, for his inaction had begun before the catastrophe of
Sedan. His pretext after that time was that the government of France had
fallen into the hands of men of disorder, and that it was more important
for his army to save France from the Government than from the invader. He
was the only man in France who thought so. The Government of September 4th,
whatever its faults, was good enough for tens of thousands of brave men,
Legitimists, Orleanists, Bonapartists, who flocked without distinction of
party to its banners: it might have been good enough for Marshal Bazaine.
But France had to pay the penalty for the political, the moral indifference
which could acquiesce in the Coup d'État of 1851, in the servility of the
Empire, in many a vile and boasted deed in Mexico, in China, in Algiers.
Such indifference found its Nemesis in a Bazaine.
[Tann driven from Orleans, Nov. 9.]
[Battles of Orleans, Nov. 28-Dec. 2.]
[Sortie of Champigny, Nov. 29-Dec. 4.]
[Battle of Amiens, Nov. 27.]
The surrender of Metz and the release of the great army of Prince Frederick
Charles by which it was besieged fatally changed the conditions of the
French war of national defence. Two hundred thousand of the victorious
troops of Germany under some of their ablest generals were set free to
attack the still untrained levies on the Loire and in the north of France,
which, with more time for organisation, might well have forced the Germans
to raise the siege of Paris. The army once commanded by Steinmetz was now
reconstituted, and despatched under General Manteuffel towards Amiens;
Prince Frederick Charles moved with the remainder of his troops towards the
Loire. Aware that his approach could not long be delayed, Gambetta insisted
that Aurelle de Paladines should begin the march on Paris. The general
attacked Tann at Coulmiers on the 9th of November, defeated him, and
re-occupied Orleans, the first real success that the French had gained in
the war. There was great alarm at the German headquarters at Versailles;
the possibility of a failure of the siege was discussed; and forty thousand
troops were sent southwards in haste to the support of the Bavarian
general. Aurelle, however, did not move upon the capital: his troops were
still unfit for the enterprise; and he remained stationary on the north of
Orleans, in order to improve his organisation, to await reinforcements, and
to meet the attack of Frederick Charles in a strong position. In the third
week of November the leading divisions of the army of Metz approached, and
took post between Orleans and Paris. Gambetta now insisted that the effort
should be made to relieve the capital. Aurelle resisted, but was forced to
obey. The garrison of Paris had already made several unsuccessful attacks
upon the lines of their besiegers, the most vigorous being that of Le
Bourget on the 30th of October, in which bayonets were crossed. It was
arranged that in the last days of November General Trochu should endeavour
to break out on the southern side, and that simultaneously the army of the
Loire should fall upon the enemy in front of it and endeavour to force its
way to the capital. On the 28th the attack upon the Germans on the north of
Orleans began. For several days the struggle was renewed by one division
after another of the armies of Aurelle and Prince Frederick Charles.
Victory remained at last with the Germans; the centre of the French
position was carried; the right and left wings of the army were severed
from one another and forced to retreat, the one up the Loire, the other
towards the west. Orleans on the 5th of December passed back into the hands
of the Germans. The sortie from Paris, which began with a successful attack
by General Ducrot upon Champigny beyond the Marne, ended after some days of
combat in the recovery by the Germans of the positions which they had lost,
and in the retreat of Ducrot into Paris. In the same week Manteuffel,
moving against the relieving army of the north, encountered it near Amiens,
defeated it after a hard struggle, and gained possession of Amiens itself.
[Rouen occupied, Dec. 6.]
[Bapaume, Jan. 3.]
[St. Quentin, Jan 19.]
After the fall of Amiens, Manteuffel moved upon Rouen. This city fell into
his hands without resistance; the conquerors pressed on westwards, and at
Dieppe troops which had come from the confines of Russia gazed for the
first time upon the sea. But the Republican armies, unlike those which the
Germans had first encountered, were not to be crushed at a single blow.
Under the energetic command of Faidherbe the army of the North advanced
again upon Amiens. Goeben, who was left to defend the line of the Somme,
went out to meet him, defeated him on the 23rd of December, and drove him
back to Arras. But again, after a week's interval, Faidherbe pushed
forward. On the 3rd of January he fell upon Goeben's weak division at
Bapaume, and handled it so severely that the Germans would on the following
day have abandoned their position, if the French had not themselves been
the first to retire. Faidherbe, however, had only fallen back to receive
reinforcements. After some days' rest he once more sought to gain the road
to Paris, advancing this time by the eastward line through St. Quentin. In
front of this town Goeben attacked him. The last battle of the army of the
North was fought on the 19th of January. The French general endeavoured to
disguise his defeat, but the German commander had won all that he desired.
Faidherbe's army was compelled to retreat northwards in disorder; its part
in the war was at an end.
[The Armies of the Loire and of the East.]
[Le Mans, Jan. 12.]
[Bourbaki.]
[Montbéliard, Jan. 15-17.]
[The Eastern army crosses the Swiss Frontier, Feb. 1.]
During the last three weeks of December there was a pause in the operations
of the Germans on the Loire. It was expected that Bourbaki and the east
wing of The Armies of the French army would soon re-appear at Orleans and
endeavour to combine with Chanzy's troops. Gambetta, however, had formed
another plan. He considered that Chanzy, with the assistance of divisions
formed in Brittany, would be strong enough to encounter Prince Frederick
Charles, and he determined to throw the army of Bourbaki, strengthened by
reinforcements from the south, upon Germany itself. The design was a daring
one, and had the two French armies been capable of performing the work
which Gambetta required of them, an inroad into Baden, or even the
re-conquest of Alsace, would most seriously have affected the position of
the Germans before Paris. But Gambetta miscalculated the power of young,
untrained troops, imperfectly armed, badly fed, against a veteran enemy. In
a series of hard-fought struggles the army of the Loire under General
Chanzy was driven back at the beginning of January from Vendôme to Le Mans.
On the 12th, Chanzy took post before this city and fought his last battle.
While he was making a vigorous resistance in the centre of the line, the
Breton regiments stationed on his right gave way; the Germans pressed round
him, and gained possession of the town. Chanzy retreated towards Laval,
leaving thousands of prisoners in the hands of the enemy, and saving only
the debris of an army. Bourbaki in the meantime, with a numerous but
miserably equipped force, had almost reached Belfort. The report of his
eastward movement was not at first believed at the German headquarters
before Paris, and the troops of General Werder, which had been engaged
about Dijon with a body of auxiliaries commanded by Garibaldi, were left to
bear the brunt of the attack without support. When the real state of
affairs became known Manteuffel was sent eastwards in hot haste towards the
threatened point. Werder had evacuated Dijon and fallen back upon Vesoul;
part of his army was still occupied in the siege of Belfort. As Bourbaki
approached he fell back with the greater part of his troops in order to
cover the besieging force, leaving one of his lieutenants to make a flank
attack upon Bourbaki at Villersexel. This attack, one of the fiercest in
the war, delayed the French for two days, and gave Werder time to occupy
the strong positions that he had chosen about Montbéliard. Here, on the
15th of January, began a struggle which lasted for three days. The French,
starving and perishing with cold, though far superior in number to their
enemy, were led with little effect against the German entrenchments. On the
18th Bourbaki began his retreat. Werder was unable to follow him;
Manteuffel with a weak force was still at some distance, and for a moment
it seemed possible that Bourbaki, by a rapid movement westwards, might
crush this isolated foe. Gambetta ordered Bourbaki to make the attempt: the
commander refused to court further disaster with troops who were not fit to
face an enemy, and retreated towards Pontarlier in the hope of making his
way to Lyons. But Manteuffel now descended in front of him; divisions of
Werder's army pressed down from the north; the retreat was cut off; and the
unfortunate French general, whom a telegram from Gambetta removed from his
command, attempted to take his own life. On the 1st of February, the wreck
of his army, still numbering eighty-five thousand men, but reduced to the
extremity of weakness and misery, sought refuge beyond the Swiss frontier.
[Capitulation of Paris and Armistice, Jan. 28.]
The war was now over. Two days after Bourbaki's repulse at Montbéliard the
last unsuccessful sortie was made from Paris. There now remained provisions
only for another fortnight; above forty thousand of the inhabitants had
succumbed to the privations of the siege; all hope of assistance from the
relieving armies before actual famine should begin disappeared. On the 23rd
of January Favre sought the German Chancellor at Versailles in order to
discuss the conditions of a general armistice and of the capitulation of
Paris. The negotiations lasted for several days; on the 28th an armistice
was signed with the declared object that elections might at once be freely
held for a National Assembly, which should decide whether the war should be
continued, or on what conditions peace should be made. The conditions of
the armistice were that the forts of Paris and all their material of war
should be handed over to the German army; that the artillery of the
enceinte should be dismounted; and that the regular troops in Paris should,
as prisoners of war, surrender their arms. The National Guard were
permitted to retain their weapons and their artillery. Immediately upon the
fulfilment of the first two conditions all facilities were to be given for
the entry of supplies of food into Paris. [545]
[National Assembly at Bordeaux, Feb. 12.]
[Preliminaries of Peace, Feb. 26.]
The articles of the armistice were duly executed, and on the 30th of
January the Prussian flag waved over the forts of the French capital.
Orders were sent into the provinces by the Government that elections should
at once be held. It had at one time been feared by Count Bismarck that
Gambetta would acknowledge no armistice that might be made by his
colleagues at Paris. But this apprehension was not realised, for, while
protesting against a measure adopted without consultation with himself and
his companions at Bordeaux, Gambetta did not actually reject the armistice.
He called upon the nation, however, to use the interval for the collection
of new forces; and in the hope of gaining from the election an Assembly in
favour of a continuation of the war, he published a decree incapacitating
for election all persons who had been connected with the Government of
Napoleon III. Against this decree Bismarck at once protested, and at his
instance it was cancelled by the Government of Paris. Gambetta thereupon
resigned. The elections were held on the 8th of February, and on the 12th
the National Assembly was opened at Bordeaux. The Government of Defence now
laid down its powers. Thiers--who had been the author of those
fortifications which had kept the Germans at bay for four months after the
overthrow of the Imperial armies; who, in the midst of the delirium of
July, 1870, had done all that man could do to dissuade the Imperial
Government and its Parliament from war; who, in spite of his seventy years,
had, after the fall of Napoleon, hurried to London, to St. Petersburg, to
Florence, to Vienna, in the hope of winning some support for France,--was
the man called by common assent to the helm of State. He appointed a
Ministry, called upon the Assembly to postpone all discussions as to the
future Government of France, and himself proceeded to Versailles in order
to negotiate conditions of peace. For several days the old man struggled
with Count Bismarck on point after point in the Prussian demands. Bismarck
required the cession of Alsace and Eastern Lorraine, the payment of six
milliards of francs, and the occupation of part of Paris by the German army
until the conditions of peace should be ratified by the Assembly. Thiers
strove hard to save Metz, but on this point the German staff was
inexorable; he succeeded at last in reducing the indemnity to five
milliards, and was given the option between retaining Belfort and sparing
Paris the entry of the German troops. On the last point his patriotism
decided without a moment's hesitation. He bade the Germans enter Paris, and
saved Belfort for France. On the 26th of February preliminaries of peace
were signed. Thirty thousand German soldiers marched into the Champs
Elysées on the 1st of March; but on that same day the treaty was ratified
by the Assembly at Bordeaux, and after forty-eight hours Paris was freed
from the sight of its conquerors. The Articles of Peace provided for the
gradual evacuation of France by the German army as the instalments of the
indemnity, which were allowed to extend over a period of three years,
should be paid. There remained for settlement only certain matters of
detail, chiefly connected with finance; these, however, proved the object
of long and bitter controversy, and it was not until the 10th of May that
the definitive Treaty of Peace was signed at Frankfort.
[German Unity.]
France had made war in order to undo the work of partial union effected by
Prussia in 1866: it achieved the opposite result, and Germany emerged from
the war with the Empire established. Immediately after the victory of Wörth
the Crown Prince had seen that the time had come for abolishing the line of
division which severed Southern Germany from the Federation of the North.
His own conception of the best form of national union was a German Empire
with its chief at Berlin. That Count Bismarck was without plans for uniting
North and South Germany it is impossible to believe; but the Minister and
the Crown Prince had always been at enmity; and when, after the battle of
Sedan, they spoke together of the future, it seemed to the Prince as if
Bismarck had scarcely thought of the federation of the Empire or of the
re-establishment of the Imperial dignity, and as if he was inclined to it
only under certain reserves. It was, however, part of Bismarck's system to
exclude the Crown Prince as far as possible from political affairs, under
the strange pretext that his relationship to Queen Victoria would be abused
by the French proclivities of the English Court; and it is possible that
had the Chancellor after the battle of Sedan chosen to admit the Prince to
his confidence instead of resenting his interference, the difference
between their views as to the future of Germany would have been seen to be
one rather of forms and means than of intention. But whatever the share of
these two dissimilar spirits in the initiation of the last steps towards
German union, the work, as ultimately achieved, was both in form and in
substance that which the Crown Prince had conceived. In the course of
September negotiations were opened with each of the Southern States for its
entry into the Northern Confederation. Bavaria alone raised serious
difficulties, and demanded terms to which the Prussian Government could not
consent. Bismarck refrained from exercising pressure at Munich, but invited
the several Governments to send representatives to Versailles for the
purpose of arriving at a settlement. For a moment the Court of Munich drew
the sovereign of Würtemberg to its side, and orders were sent to the envoys
of Würtemberg at Versailles to act with the Bavarians in refusing to sign
the treaty projected by Bismarck. The Würtemberg Ministers hereupon
tendered their resignation; Baden and Hesse-Darmstadt signed the treaty,
and the two dissentient kings saw themselves on the point of being excluded
from United Germany. They withdrew their opposition, and at the end of
November the treaties uniting all the Southern States with the existing
Confederation were executed, Bavaria retaining larger separate rights than
were accorded to any other member of the Union.
[Proclamation of the Empire, Jan. 18.]
In the acts which thus gave to Germany political cohesion there was nothing
that altered the title of its chief. Bismarck, however, had in the meantime
informed the recalcitrant sovereigns that if they did not themselves offer
the Imperial dignity to King William, the North German Parliament would do
so. At the end of November a letter was accordingly sent by the King of
Bavaria to all his fellow-sovereigns, proposing that the King of Prussia,
as President of the newly-formed Federation, should assume the title of
German Emperor. Shortly afterwards the same request was made by the same
sovereign to King William himself, in a letter dictated by Bismarck. A
deputation from the North German Reichstag, headed by its President, Dr.
Simson, who, as President of the Frankfort National Assembly, had in 1849
offered the Imperial Crown to King Frederick William, expressed the
concurrence of the nation in the act of the Princes. It was expected that
before the end of the year the new political arrangements would have been
sanctioned by the Parliaments of all the States concerned, and the 1st of
January had been fixed for the assumption of the Imperial title. So
vigorous, however, was the opposition made in the Bavarian Chamber, that
the ceremony was postponed till the 18th. Even then the final approving
vote had not been taken at Munich; but a second adjournment would have been
fatal to the dignity of the occasion; and on the 18th of January, in the
midst of the Princes of Germany and the representatives of its army
assembled in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, King William assumed the
title of German Emperor. The first Parliament of the Empire was opened at
Berlin two months later.
[The Commune of Paris.]
[Troops withdrawn to Versailles, March 18.]
[The Commune.]
The misfortunes of France did not end with the fall of its capital and the
loss of its border provinces; the terrible drama of 1870 closed with civil
war. It is part of the normal order of French history that when an
established Government is overthrown, and another is set in its place, this
second Government is in its turn attacked by insurrection in Paris, and an
effort is made to establish the rule of the democracy of the capital
itself, or of those who for the moment pass for its leaders. It was so in
1793, in 1831, in 1848, and it was so again in 1870. Favre, Trochu, and the
other members of the Government of Defence had assumed power on the
downfall of Napoleon III. because they considered themselves the
individuals best able to serve the State. There were hundreds of other
persons in Paris who had exactly the same opinion of themselves; and when,
with the progress of the siege, the Government of Defence lost its
popularity and credit, it was natural that ambitious and impatient men of a
lower political rank should consider it time to try whether Paris could not
make a better defence under their own auspices. Attempts were made before
the end of October to overthrow the Government. They were repeated at
intervals, but without success. The agitation, however, continued within
the ranks of the National Guard, which, unlike the National Guard in the
time of Louis Philippe, now included the mass of the working class, and was
the most dangerous enemy, instead of the support, of Government. The
capitulation brought things to a crisis. Favre had declared that it would
be impossible to disarm the National Guard without a battle in the streets;
at his instance Bismarck allowed the National Guard to retain their
weapons, and the fears of the Government itself thus prepared the way for
successful insurrection. When the Germans were about to occupy western
Paris, the National Guard drew off its artillery to Montmartre and there
erected entrenchments. During the next fortnight, while the Germans were
withdrawing from the western forts in accordance with the conditions of
peace, the Government and the National Guard stood facing one another in
inaction; on the 18th of March General Lecomte was ordered to seize the
artillery parked at Montmartre. His troops, surrounded and solicited by the
National Guard, abandoned their commander. Lecomte was seized, and, with
General Clément Thomas, was put to death. A revolutionary Central Committee
took possession of the Hôtel de Ville; the troops still remaining faithful
to the Government were withdrawn to Versailles, where Thiers had assembled
the Chamber. Not only Paris itself, but the western forts with the
exception of Mont Valérien, fell into the hands of the insurgents. On the
26th of March elections were held for the Commune. The majority of peaceful
citizens abstained from voting. A council was elected, which by the side of
certain harmless and well-meaning men contained a troop of revolutionists
by profession; and after the failure of all attempts at conciliation,
hostilities began between Paris and Versailles.
[Second Siege--April 2, May 21.]
There were in the ranks of those who fought for the Commune some who fought
in the sincere belief that their cause was that of municipal freedom; there
were others who believed, and with good reason, that the existence of the
Republic was threatened by a reactionary Assembly at Versailles; but the
movement was on the whole the work of fanatics who sought to subvert every
authority but their own; and the unfortunate mob who followed them, in so
far as they fought for anything beyond the daily pay which had been their
only means of sustenance since the siege began, fought for they knew not
what. As the conflict was prolonged, it took on both sides a character of
atrocious violence and cruelty. The murder of Generals Lecomte and Thomas
at the outset was avenged by the execution of some of the first prisoners
taken by the troops of Versailles. Then hostages were seized by the
Commune. The slaughter in cold blood of three hundred National Guards
surprised at Clamart by the besiegers gave to the Parisians the example of
massacre. When, after a siege of six weeks, in which Paris suffered far
more severely than it had suffered from the cannonade of the Germans, the
troops of Versailles at length made their way into the capital, humanity,
civilisation, seemed to have vanished in the orgies of devils. The
defenders, as they fell back, murdered their hostages, and left behind them
palaces, museums, the entire public inheritance of the nation in its
capital, in flames. The conquerors during several days shot down all whom
they took fighting, and in many cases put to death whole bands of prisoners
without distinction. The temper of the army was such that the Government,
even if it had desired, could probably not have mitigated the terrors of
this vengeance. But there was little sign anywhere of an inclination to
mercy. Courts-martial and executions continued long after the heat of
combat was over. A year passed, and the tribunals were still busy with
their work. Above ten thousand persons were sentenced to transportation or
imprisonment before public justice was satisfied.
[Entry of Italian Troops into Rome, Sept. 20, 1870.]
[The Papacy.]
The material losses which France sustained at the hands of the invader and
in civil war were soon repaired; but from the battle of Wörth down to the
overthrow of the Commune France had been effaced as a European Power, and
its effacement was turned to good account by two nations who were not its
enemies. Russia, with the sanction of Europe, threw off the trammels which
had been imposed upon it in the Black Sea by the Treaty of 1856. Italy
gained possession of Rome. Soon after the declaration of war the troops of
France, after an occupation of twenty-one years broken only by an interval
of some months in 1867, were withdrawn from the Papal territory. Whatever
may have been the understanding with Victor Emmanuel on which Napoleon
recalled his troops from Civita Vecchia, the battle of Sedan set Italy
free; and on the 20th of September the National Army, after overcoming a
brief show of resistance, entered Rome. The unity of Italy was at last
completed; Florence ceased to be the national capital. A body of laws
passed by the Italian Parliament, and known as the Guarantees, assured to
the Pope the honours and immunities of a sovereign, the possession of the
Vatican and the Lateran palaces, and a princely income; in the appointment
of Bishops and generally in the government of the Church a fulness of
authority was freely left to him such as he possessed in no other European
land. But Pius would accept no compromise for the loss of his temporal
power. He spurned the reconciliation with the Italian people, which had now
for the first time since 1849 become possible. He declared Rome to be in
the possession of brigands; and, with a fine affectation of disdain for
Victor Emmanuel and the Italian Government, he invented, and sustained down
to the end of his life, before a world too busy to pay much heed to his
performance, the reproachful part of the Prisoner of the Vatican.