WHY THE FRENCH WERE BEATEN IN 1870.
Everyone accounted for our disasters of 1870 after his own fashion. The
most ingenious theories were brought forward, and we very well know why
we believe it to be indispensable and patriotic to learn German.
"Ah!" cried some, "if we had only known German, we should not have been
defeated." And forthwith instruction in German was decreed obligatory.
"That is not it," said others, "it is our geography, of which we did not
know even the rudiments, that has been the cause of all the evil. On
leaving Paris, our officers, ignorant of the meanders of the Seine,
thought that they were beating a retreat each time they came to a fresh
bend of that river." And the study of geography received a fillip.
Others again would have it to be that if the visors of our soldier's
_kepis_ had not been lifted upward in front, the Prussians would have
had a warm time of it. Down came the visors without delay.
I pass over the pious people, who saw in our disasters only the just
chastisement of our faults, and will only give the opinion of Thomas
Carlyle. This philosopher, whom the hazard of birth had made English,
but who was a perfect German, cried out that "Germanic virtues had
triumphed over Gallic vices."
Some few worthy folks, perfectly destitute of genius, but possessing an
ounce or two of common sense, attributed our defeats to the fact that
the Germans had an army of 1,200,000 men, whereas our own forces
scarcely numbered 350,000. I fancy it is these latter that history will
show to have been in the right.
The virtuous Germans that vanquished us, were they, after all, so clever
at geography and French? This is how they learnt the geography they
required, and how they made themselves understood in French:
A few Uhlans would approach to within a respectful distance of a
village. There they would seize upon the first peasant, old man, or
child, that passed, place a pistol to his throat, and after asking, "Are
there any French soldiers in your village?" would say: "Show us the way
to such and such place, and tell us the names of all the people around
here, who have wine in their cellars, or hay in their barns. And you had
better take care to tell the truth, or we will blow your brains out, and
set fire to the four corners of your village."
Loaded pistols and lighted torches are magical quickeners of slow
intellects; a deaf man would understand such arguments as these. If I
took by the collar the first lad I came across in Germany, and, lifting
my stick to his head, shouted into his ear: "You young rascal, I will
knock your head off," I will warrant he would understand me as quickly
as if I spoke the purest German.
If we have any spare time, let us learn German that we may be able to
read Goethe and Schiller; from the practical point of view, the utility
of German is but secondary. If we should ever demand of Germany the
provinces that she wrenched from us, we shall find we have enough
German-speaking mouths, if we can only put into the field as many mouths
of cannon as Wilhem II.