THE GATHERING OF THE HOSTS.
_German Mobilization._
The great contest, thus precipitated by the formal defiance which Baron
Wimpfen bore from Paris to Berlin, excited deep emotion all over the
world. The hour had at length struck which was to usher in the deadly
struggle between France and Germany. Long foreseen, the dread shock,
like all grave calamities, came nevertheless as a surprise, even upon
reflective minds. Statesmen and soldiers who looked on, while they
shared in the natural feelings aroused by so tremendous a drama, were
also the privileged witnesses of two instructive experiments on a
grand scale—the processes whereby mighty armies are brought into the
field, and the methods by means of which they are conducted to defeat
or victory. The German plan of forming an Army was new in regard to
the extent and completeness with which it had been carried out. How
would it work when put to the ultimate test? Dating only from 1867, the
French scheme of organization, a halting Gallic adaptation of Prussian
principles, modified by French traditions, and still further by the
political exigencies besetting an Imperial dynasty, having little
root in the nation, besides being new and rickety, was in an early
stage of development; it may be said to have been adolescent, not
mature. No greater contrast was ever presented by two parallel series
of human actions than that supplied by the irregular, confused, and
uncertain working of the Imperial arrangement of forming an Army and
setting it in motion for active service, and the smoothness, celerity,
and punctuality which marked the German “mobilization.” The reason
is—first, that the system on which the German Army was built up from
the foundations was sound in every part, and that the plan which had
been designed for the purpose of placing a maximum force under arms in
a given time, originally comprehensive, had been corrected from day
to day, and brought down to the last moment. For example, whenever a
branch or section of a railway line was opened for traffic, the entire
series of time-tables, if need be, were so altered as to include
the new facility for transport. The labour and attention bestowed
on this vital condition was also expended methodically upon all the
others down to the most minute detail. Thus, the German staff maps of
France, especially east of Paris, actually laid down roads which in
July, 1870, had not yet been marked upon any map issued by the French
War Office. The central departments, in Berlin, exercised a wide and
searching supervision; but they did not meddle with the local military
authorities who, having large discretionary powers, no sooner received
a brief and simple order than they set to work and produced, at a fixed
time, the result desired.
When King William arrived in Berlin, on the evening of July 15, the
orders already prepared by General von Moltke received at once the
royal sanction, and were transmitted without delay to the officers
commanding the several Army Corps. Their special work, in case of need,
had been accurately defined; and thus, by regular stages, the Corps
gradually, but swiftly, was developed into its full proportions, and
ready, as a finished product, to start for the frontier. The reserves
and, if needed, the landwehr men filled out the battalions, squadrons,
and batteries to the fixed strength; and as they found in the local
depôts arms, clothing, and equipments, no time was lost. Horses were
bought, called in, or requisitioned, and transport was obtained. As
all the wants of a complete Corps had been ascertained and provided
beforehand, so they came when demanded. At the critical moment the
supreme directing head, relieved altogether from the distracting duty
of settling questions of detail, had ample time to consider the broad
and absorbing business problems which should and did occupy the days
and nights of a leader of armies. The composition of the North German
troops, that is, those under the immediate control of King William,
occasioned no anxiety; and there was only a brief period of doubt in
Bavaria, where a strong minority had not so much French and Austrian
sympathies, as inveterate Prussian antipathies. They were promptly
suppressed by the popular voice and the loyalty of the King. Hesse,
Würtemberg, and Baden responded so heartily to the calls of patriotism
that in more than one locality the landwehr battalions far exceeded
their normal numerical strength, that is, more men than were summoned
presented themselves at the depôts. The whole operation of bringing a
great Army from a peace to a war footing, in absolute readiness, within
the short period of eighteen days, to meet an adversary on his own
soil, was conducted with unparalleled order and quickness. The business
done included, of course, the transport of men, guns, horses, carriage,
by railway chiefly, from all parts of the country to the Rhine and the
Moselle; and the astonishing fact is that plans devised and adopted
long beforehand should have been executed to the letter, and that more
than three hundred thousand combatants—artillery, horse, infantry,
in complete fighting trim, backed up by enormous trains—should have
been brought to specified places on specified days, almost exactly in
fulfilment of a scheme reasoned out and drawn up two years before. The
French abruptly declared war; the challenge was accepted; the orders
went forth, and “thereupon united Germany stood to arms,” to use
the words of Marshal von Moltke. It is a proud boast, but one amply
justified by indisputable facts.
_French Mobilization._
How differently was the precious time employed on the other side of
the Rhine. When the Imperial Government rushed headlong into war, they
actually possessed only one formed Corps d’Armée, the 2nd, stationed in
the camp of Chalons, and commanded by General Frossard. Yet even this
solitary body was, as he confesses, wanting in essential equipments
when it was hurriedly transported to St. Avold, not far from Saarlouis,
on the Rhenish Prussian frontier. Not only had all the other Corps to
be made out of garrison troops, but the entire staff had to be provided
in haste. Marshal Niel, an able soldier, and the Emperor, had studied,
at least, some of Baron Stoffel’s famous reports on the German Army,
and had endeavoured to profit by them; but the Marshal died, the Corps
Législatif was intractable, favouritism ruled in the Court, the Emperor
suffered from a wearing internal disease, and the tone of the Army was
one not instinct with the spirit of self-sacrificing obedience. In
time it is possible that the glaring defects of the Imperial military
mechanism might have been removed, and possible, also, that the _moral_
and discipline of the officers and men might have been raised. Barely
probable, since Marshal Lebœuf believed that the Army was in a state
of perfect readiness, not merely to defend France, but to dash over
the Rhine into South Germany. His illusion was only destroyed when the
fatal test was applied. Nominally, the French Army was formidable in
numbers; but not being based on the territorial system, which includes
all the men liable to service in one Corps, whether they are with the
colours or in the reserve, and also forms the supplementary landwehr
into local divisions, the French War Office could not rapidly raise the
regiments to the normal strength. For a sufficient reason. A peasant
residing in Provence might be summoned to join a regiment quartered in
Brittany, or a workman employed in Bordeaux called up to the Pas de
Calais. When he arrived he might find that the regiment had marched to
Alsace or Lorraine. During the first fortnight after the declaration of
war thousands of reserve men were travelling to and fro over France in
search of their comrades. Another evil was that some Corps in course
of formation were split into fragments separated from each other by
many score miles. Nearly the whole series of Corps, numbered from One
to Seven, were imperfectly supplied with a soldier’s needments; and
what is more astonishing, the frontier arsenals and depôts were sadly
deficient in supplies, so that constant applications were made to Paris
for the commonest necessaries. There were no departmental or even
provincial storehouses, but the materials essential for war were piled
up in three or four places, such as Paris and Versailles, Vernon and
Chateauroux. In short, the Minister of War, who said and believed that
he was supremely ready, found that, in fact, he was compelled almost
to improvise a fighting Army in the face of an enemy who, in perfect
order, was advancing with the measured, compact, and irresistible force
of a tidal wave.
The plan followed was exactly the reverse of the German method.
East of the Rhine no Corps was moved to the frontier, until it was
complete in every respect, except the second line of trains; and
consequently, from the outset, it had a maximum force prepared for
battle. There were some slight exceptions to the rule, but they were
imposed by circumstances, served a real purpose, and disappeared when
the momentary emergency they were adapted to meet had been satisfied.
West of the Rhine, not one solitary Corps took its assigned place in
a perfect state for action. All the battalions of infantry, and of
course the regiments, were hundreds short of their proper strength.
Before a shot had been fired, General de Failly, at Bitsche, was
obliged to send a demand for coin to pay the troops, adding notes
won’t pass—“les billets n’ont point cours.” General Frossard, at St.
Avoid, reported that enormous packages of useless maps had been sent
him—maps of Germany—and that he had not a single map of the French
frontier. Neither Strasburg, Metz, Toul, Verdun, Thionville, nor
Mézières, possessed stores of articles—such as food, equipments, and
carriage—which were imperatively required. The Intendants, recently
appointed to special posts, besieged the War Office in Paris, to
relieve them from their embarrassments—they had nothing on the spot.
The complaints were not idle. As early as the 26th of July, the troops
about Metz were living on the reserve of biscuits; there were sent
only thirty-eight additional bakers to Metz for 120,000 men, and even
these few practitioners were sadly in want of ovens. “I observe that
the Army stands in need of biscuit and bread,” said the Emperor to the
Minister of War at the same date. “Could not bread be made in Paris,
and sent to Metz?” Marshal Lebœuf, a day later, took note of the fact
that the detachments which came up to the front, sometimes reserve men,
sometimes battalions, arrived without ammunition and camp equipments.
Soldiers, functionaries, carts, ovens, provisions, horses, munitions,
harness, all had to be sought at the eleventh hour. These facts are
recorded in the despairing telegrams sent from the front to the War
Office. The very Marshal who had described France as “archiprête,” in
a transcendent state of readiness for war, announced by telegram, on
the 28th of July, the lamentable fact that he could not move forward
for want of biscuit—“Je manque de biscuit pour marcher en avant.” The
7th Corps was to have been formed at Belfort, but its divisions could
never be assembled. General Michel, on the 21st of July, sent to Paris
this characteristic telegram: “Have arrived at Belfort,” he wrote:
“can’t find my brigade; can’t find the General of Division. What shall
I do? Don’t know where my regiments are”—a document probably unique in
military records. Hardly a week later, that is on the 27th, Marshal
Lebœuf became anxious respecting the organization of this same Corps,
and put, through Paris, some curious questions to General Félix Douay,
its commander. “How far have you got on with your formations? Where are
your divisions?” The next day General Douay arrived at Belfort, having
been assured in Paris by his superiors that the place was “abundantly
provided” with what he would require. After the War, Prince Georges
Bibesco, a Roumanian in the French Army, attached to the 7th Corps,
published an excellent volume on the campaign, and in its pages he
describes the “cruel deception” which awaited Douay. He writes that,
for the most part, the troops, had “neither tents, cooking pots, nor
flannel belts; neither medical nor veterinary canteens, nor medicines,
nor forges, nor pickets for the horses—they were without hospital
attendants, workmen, and train. As to the magazines of Belfort—they
were empty.” In the land of centralization General Douay was obliged
to send a staff and several men to Paris, with instructions to explain
matters at the War Office, and not leave the capital without bringing
the articles demanded with them. Other examples are needless. It would
be almost impossible to understand how it came to pass that the French
were plunged into war, in July, 1870, did we not know that the military
institutions had been neglected, that the rulers relied on old renown,
the “glorious past” of the Duc de Gramont, and that the few men who
forced the quarrel to a fatal head, knew nothing of the wants of an
army, and still less of the necessities and risks of war.
_War Methods Contrasted._
As the story is unfolded, it will be seen that the same marked
contrast between the principles and methods adopted and practised
by the great rivals prevailed throughout. The German Army rested on
solid foundations; the work of mobilization was conducted in strict
accordance with the rules of business; allowing for the constant
presence of a certain amount of error, inseparable from human actions,
it may be said that “nothing was left to chance.” The French Army was
loosely put together; it contained uncertain elements; was not easily
collected, and never in formed bodies; it was without large as well
as small essentials; it “lacked finish.” And similar defects became
rapidly manifest in the Imperial plan for the conduct of the war. Here
the contrast is flagrant. The Emperor Napoleon, who had lived much
with soldiers, who had been present at great military operations, and
had studied many campaigns, could not be destitute of what the French
call “le flair militaire.” He had, also, some inkling of the political
side of warfare; and in July, 1870, he saw that much would depend
upon his ability to make a dash into South Germany, because, if he
were successful, even for a brief time, Prussia might be deprived of
South German help, and Austria might enter the field. There was no
certainty about the calculation, indeed, it was almost pure conjecture;
seeing that Count von Beust and the Archduke Albert had both warned
him that, “above all things,” they needed time, and that the former
had become frightened at the prospect of Hungarian defection, and a
Russian onfall. Yet it was on this shadowy basis that he moved to
the frontier the largest available mass of incomplete and suddenly
organized batteries, squadrons and battalions. He and his advisers
were possessed with a feverish desire to be first in the field; and
the Corps were assembled near Metz, Strasburg, and Belfort, with what
was called a reserve at Chalons, on the chance that the left might
be made to join the right in Alsace, and that the whole, except the
reserve which was to move up from Chalons, could be pushed over the
Rhine at Maxau, opposite Carlesruhe, and led with conquering speed into
the country south of the Main. Before he joined the head-quarters at
Metz, on the 28th of July, the Emperor may have suspected, but on his
arrival he assuredly found that the plan, if ever feasible, had long
passed out of the range of practical warfare. He reaped nothing but the
disadvantages which spring from grossly defective preparation, and “raw
haste half-sister to delay.” He knew that he was commander-in-chief of
a relatively weak and ill-found Army, and he acquired the certainty at
Metz, that, unless he were conspicuously victorious, neither Austria
nor Italy would move a man.
His mighty antagonist, on the other hand, was advancing to the
encounter with such large resources, and so thoroughly equipped,
that no fewer than three Army Corps were left behind, because even
the admirably man managed and numerous German railway lines were
not able to carry them at once to the banks of the Rhine. Moreover,
General von Moltke, the Chief of the Great Staff, had, in 1868–69,
carefully reasoned out plans, which were designed to meet each probable
contingency, either a march of the French through Belgium, an early
irruption into the Rhenish provinces, or the identical scheme upon
which the Emperor founded his hopes; while, if the French allowed
the Germans to begin offensive operations on French soil, then the
method of conducting the invasion, originally adopted, would come into
play. The memorandum on this great subject, the essential portions of
which have been published by its author, Von Moltke, is, for breadth,
profundity, and insight, one of the most instructive to be found in
the records of war. This is not the place to deal with its general or
detailed arguments. For present purposes, it is sufficient to set forth
the main operative idea. The contention was, that an army assembled on
the Rhine between Rastadt and Mainz, and on the Moselle below Treves,
would be able to operate successfully, either on the right bank of
the main stream, against the flank of a French Army, which sought to
invade South Germany; or, with equal facility, concentrate on the left
bank, and march in three great masses through the country between the
Rhine and Moselle, upon the French frontier. Should the French make
a precipitate dash into the German country towards Mainz, then the
Corps collected near that fortress would meet them in front, and those
on the Moselle would threaten their communications or assail them in
flank. The soundness of the reasoning is indisputable; its application
would depend upon the prompt concentration of the Armies, and that had
been rendered certain by careful and rigorously enforced preparations.
The great Prussian strategist had calculated the move of troops and
railway trains to a day; so that he knew exactly what number of men and
guns, within a given area, he could count upon at successive periods
of time; and, of course, he was well aware that the actual use to be
made of them, after the moment of contact, could not be foreseen with
precision, but must be adapted to circumstances. But he foresaw and
prepared for the contingency which did arrive. “If,” he said, “the
French desired to make the most of their railways, in order to hasten
the assembly of all their forces,” they would be obliged to disembark,
or as we now say, “detrain” them, “at Metz and Strasburg, that is, in
two principal groups separated from each other by the Vosges.” And then
he went on to point out how, assembled on the Rhine and Moselle, the
German Army would occupy what is called the “interior lines” between
them, and “could turn against the one or the other, or even attack both
at once, if it were strong enough.”
The grounds for these conclusions, succinctly stated, were the
conformation of the frontier, an angle flanked at each side by the
neutral states of Switzerland and Luxemburg, restricting the space
within which operations could be carried on; the possession of both
banks of the Rhine below Lauterbourg; the superior facility of
mobilization secured by the Germans, not only as regards the rapid
transition of Corps from a peace to a war footing, but by the skilful
use of six railway lines running to the Rhine and the Moselle; and,
finally, the fact that, fronting south between those rivers, the
advancing German Army would be directed against an adversary whose
line of retreat, at least so far as railways were concerned, diverged,
in each case, to a flank of any probable front of battle. The railway
from Strasburg to Nancy traversed the Vosges at Saverne; the railway
from Metz to Nancy on one side, and Thionville on the other, followed
the valley of the Moselle; and as the important connecting branch from
Metz to Verdun had not been constructed, it follows that the French
Army in Lorraine had no direct railway line of retreat and supply. The
railway from Metz to Strasburg, which crossed the Vosges by the defile
of Bitsche and emerged in the Rhine valley at Hagenau, was, of course,
nearly parallel to the German front, except for a short distance west
of Bening. The frontier went eastward from Sierck, on the Moselle to
Lauterbourg on the Rhine, and thence southerly to Basle. The hill range
of the Vosges, starting from the Ballon d’Alsace, overlooking the Gap
of Belfort, runs parallel to the river, and extends in a northerly
direction beyond the French boundary, thrusting an irregular mass of
uplands deep into the Palatinate, ending in the isolated Donnersberg.
It follows that the main roads out of, as well as into, France were to
the east and west of this chain, and it should be observed that the
transverse passes were more numerous south than north of Bitsche, and
that, practically, while detachments could move along the secluded
valleys, there was no road available for large bodies and trains
through the massive block of mountain and forest which occupies so
considerable a space of the Palatinate. Thus, an army moving from Mainz
upon Metz would turn the obstacle on the westward by Kaiserslautern
and Landstuhl; while if Strasburg were the goal, it would march up
the Rhine valley by Landau, and through the once famous Lines of
the Lauter. If two armies, as really happened in 1870, advanced
simultaneously on both roads, the connection between them is maintained
by occupying Pirmasens, which is the central point on a country road
running from Landau to Deux Ponts, and another going south-east to
Wissembourg.
The influence of this mountain range upon the offensive and defensive
operations of the rival armies will be readily understood. The French
could only unite to meet their opponents in the Prussian provinces at
or north of Kaiserslautern; while the Germans, assuming that their
adversaries assembled forces in Alsace, as well as in Lorraine, would
not be in direct communication until their left wing had moved through
the hill-passes and had emerged in the country between the Sarre and
Meurthe.
It has been seen that the available French troops, including several
native and national regiments from Algeria, had been hurried to the
frontier in an imperfect state of organization and equipment. There
were nominally seven Corps d’Armée and the Guard; but of these, two,
the 6th and 7th, were never united in the face of the enemy. Marshal
Canrobert, commanding the 6th, was only able to bring a portion of
his Corps from Chalons to Metz; and General Douay, the chief of the
7th, had one division at Lyons, and another at Colmar, whence it was
sent on to join the 1st Corps assembling under Marshal MacMahon near
Strasburg. The principal body, consisting of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th
Corps, ultimately joined by the greater part of the 6th, and the Guard
were posted near and north of Metz; while the 5th occupied positions on
the Saar, and formed a sort of link, or weak centre, between the right
and left wings. Nothing indicated cohesion in this array, which, as we
have shown, was adopted on the vain hypothesis that there would be time
to concentrate in Alsace for the purpose of anticipating the Germans
and crossing the Rhine at Maxau.
No such error was made on the other side. The German troops were
divided into three armies. The First Army, consisting of the 7th and
8th Corps, under the veteran General von Steinmetz, formed the right
wing, and moved southward on both banks of the Moselle. The Second
Army, composed of the Guard, the 3rd, 4th, and 10th Corps, commanded
by Prince Frederick Charles, was the central body, having in rear the
9th and 12th Corps as a reserve. They were destined to march on the
great roads leading from Manheim and Mainz upon Kaiserslautern. The
Third Army, or left wing, under the Crown Prince, was made up of the
5th and 11th and the two Bavarian Corps, together with a Würtemberg and
a Baden Division. Each Army had one or more divisions of cavalry, and,
of course, the due proportion of guns. By the 31st of July, the whole
of these troops, except the Baden and the Würtemberg Divisions, were on
the west of the Rhine, with foreposts on the Saar, below Saarbrück, in
the mountains at Pirmasens, and on the roads to the Lauter; the great
mass of troops being close to the Rhine. The advantages, in point of
concentration, were already secured by the German Staff; the First Army
alone, one-half at Treves, and the other strung out between the Moselle
and the Nahe, was in apparent danger; yet little apprehension was felt
on that score, because the country through which it moved was highly
defensible—its right was covered by neutral Luxemburg, and part of the
Second Army was sufficiently forward to protect the left.
A week earlier, there had been, indeed, a slight perturbation
in Berlin, where the head-quarters still remained. By unceasing
observation, a careful collation of reports, a diligent use of French
newspapers, the King’s Staff had arrived at a tolerably accurate
estimate of the strength, positions, and internal state of the French
Corps. They were cognizant of the prevailing disorder, and were well
aware that not one Corps had received its full complement of reserve
men. Arguing that the enemy would not have foregone the advantages of
mobilization unless he had in view some considerable object, such as an
irruption into the Palatinate, the Staff modified the original plan,
as it affected the Second Army, and, on the 23rd of July, directed the
Corps of which it was composed to quit the railway trains transporting
them on, and not beyond, the Rhine. This was purely a measure of
precaution, the contingency of which had been foreseen; yet one which
was needless, as the French had already learned that they could not
take the offensive in any direction. No other changes were made, and
the only result of this modification was that the soldiers had to march
further than they would have marched, and they probably benefited by
the exercise. During this period, the bridge at Kehl had been broken,
the boats and ferries removed from the Rhine from Lauterbourg to Basle,
the railway pontoon bridge at Maxau protected, a measure suggested
by the presence of river gunboats at Strasburg, and an unremitting
watch had been kept on the land frontier by small detachments of horse
and foot. Not the least surprising fact is that no attempt was made
by the French to destroy the bridges over the Saar at Saarbrück, or
penetrate far beyond that river on its upper course. On the other
hand, parties of German horse and foot made several incursions between
Sierck and Bitsche, and one small party rode as far as into Alsace at
Niederbronn. It was not until the end of the month that large bodies of
cavalry were sent to the front to begin a career demonstrating afresh,
if a demonstration is needed, the inestimable services which can be
performed by that indispensable arm. The German Army had been placed
in the field in little more than a fortnight, although the 1st and
6th Corps were still _en route_ from the far North. The Crown Prince
reached Spires on the 30th, and the next day, the King, with the Great
Staff, left Berlin for Mainz. He had restored the “Order of the Iron
Cross,” and had warmly expressed his gratitude for the unexampled
spirit manifested by the whole German nation, “reconciled and united
as it had never been before.” Germany might find therein, he said, “a
guarantee that the war would bring her a durable peace, and that the
seed of blood would yield a blessed harvest of liberty and unity.”
Here it may be stated that a French squadron had appeared off the coast
of Denmark on the 28th of July, but only to disappear with greater
promptitude, thereby relieving the timid from any apprehension of a
descent. Large German forces were set free to face westward, and in
a brief space, not only the French marines and sailors, but the ship
guns were vehemently required to fight in severe battles and defend the
capital of France.