METZ (1870)
Metz surrounded--Taken for a spy--Work with an ambulance--Fierce
Prussians rob an old woman--Attempt to leave Metz--Refusing
an honour--The _cantinière’s_ horse--The grey pet of the
regiment--Deserters abound--A village fired for punishment--Sad
scenes at the end.
One Englishman, the Special Correspondent of the _Manchester Guardian_,
contrived to enter Metz shortly before it was besieged. But he had not
been there long before a disagreeable experience befell him. He was
riding quietly outside the city towards the French camps which were
pitched all round it, when suddenly a soldier stepped across the road,
and cried, “Halt!”
Two men seized his reins, asking, “Have you any papers?”
“Yes; here is my passport,” he replied confidently.
The passport puzzled them; it was taken to a superior officer, who knew
that it was English, but looked suspiciously at the German visé which
it bears.
The Englishman was taken to a General across the road, who shook his
head and remanded him to another officer of the staff, a mile back
towards Metz. It begins to look serious; this man may be shot as a spy.
Two gendarmes were called up to guard him; soldiers came up to stare
with savage scowls--he was a spy undoubtedly; but cigarettes were
offered by the spy, and things began to look less cloudy. Then up came
General Bourbaki, and fresh questions were put and answered; then
a mounted messenger was sent to Metz to find out if the prisoner’s
statements were correct. On his return with a satisfactory account, the
prisoner was told to mount and ride with escort to the head-quarters of
the Commander-in-Chief, Marshal Bazaine. As he rode soldiers jeered and
prophesied a speedy death in a ditch, which made him feel ill at ease.
A ride of a mile brought him to a pretty château, where he was received
with courtesy and kindness. At a long common deal table in a wooden
pavilion in the garden sat the Marshal and some twenty officers of the
staff. Dispatches were being written, signed, and sent off by mounted
messengers. In the corner was an electric telegraph, ticking off
reports from distant points.
When the conference broke up, Marshal Bazaine motioned the suspect to
a seat, and questioned him, made him show on a map where he had been
riding, found he understood no German and was a fool at maps (perhaps a
little stupidity was put on), then he left him to his secretary.
The latter said, with a sly glance: “We have so many spies that we
are bound to be careful, but the arrest in this case is a stupid
thing (_une bêtise_). I will give you a _laissez-passer_ for the day,
monsieur.”
So he went off, relieved at not being shot for a spy, but somewhat
mortified.
There was hard fighting going on in the country round Metz. Our
countryman managed to get attached to an ambulance, and went on to a
battle-field at night.
“We lit our lanterns,” he says, “and went cautiously into the valley.
There were Prussian sharpshooters in the wood beyond, and I confess I
was very nervous at first: the still night, the errand we were on, all
awed one. But so soon as we reached the outskirts of the battle-field
all personal feelings gave way to others. Here at every turn we found
our aid was wanted. Thousands of dead and wounded were around us, and
we, a few strangers sent by the International Society of London, were
all that were present to help them. Plugging and bandaging such wounds
as were hopeful of cure, giving a life-saving drink here and there,
moving a broken limb into a more easy position, and speaking a word
of encouragement where the heart was failing--this was all we could
do. But all that night each worked his utmost, and when our water
failed two of us walked back four miles to Gravelotte and brought a
bucketful. We can dress, but not remove, the wounded now. Often have
I been tempted to put a poor fellow out of his pain; it seems kinder,
wiser, and more Christian to blow out the flickering lamp than let
it smoulder away in hours of anguish. Daylight begins to dawn, and
we seek carriages--that is, jolting unhung carts--to convey some of
the wounded. Now, as we raise them up and torture their poor wounds
by moving them, for the first time we hear a cry. The groans of the
dying, the shrieks of the wounded, are absent from the battle-field,
but far more dreadful and awe-inspiring is the awful stillness of that
battle-field at night. There is a low, quivering moan floats over
it--nothing more; it is a sound almost too deep for utterance, and it
thrills through one with a strange horror. Hardly a word is uttered,
save only a half-wailed-out cry of ‘Ohé! ma pauvre mère!’ Nothing is
more touching, nothing fills one’s eyes with tears more, than this
plaintive refrain chanted out as a death-chant by so many sons who
never more on this side the grave will see again that longed-for
mother--‘Ohé! ma mère, ma pauvre mère!’
“We select sixty or seventy of those whose wounds will bear removal,
and turn our faces towards Metz. Slowly and sadly we creep out of the
death-valley. The quaint hooded forms of the sentinels who challenge
us cut out strangely against the green and gold of the morning sky.
Not a walking-stick, not a pipe is left us: they were cut up into
tourniquet-keys. I am ashamed to say I regretted my pipe; but it came
back to me after many weeks, being brought to me by the man whose
life it had saved. Very grateful he was. As we toil upwards, musing
on life and death, bang! right in our very faces spits out a cannon.
Good heavens! they surely are not going to begin this devil’s work
again! Yes; there goes a battery to the crest of the hill. We must take
care of ourselves and those we have so far rescued from slaughter. On
we tramp, but there is no food, not a crust of bread, not a drop of
water for our wounded. It is nine miles more back to Metz, and tired
as we are, we must walk it. Very tired and hungry and cross we enter
Metz, and there see the French ambulances waiting with waggon-loads of
appliances and well-groomed horses. They had stopped to breakfast, and
many hundreds have died because they did so. Well, we have earned ours,
at any rate.”
It was now the 28th of August. Metz was blockaded. No letters could be
sent, for the German hosts were holding the heights all round. Ruthless
rough-riders were riding into every French village. In one of these,
the story goes, a poor old woman was washing her little store of linen.
She was very old, and her grey hair sprouted in silver tufts from her
yellow skin. All the rest had fled in panic; she alone was left busy at
her tub, when up rode some score of huge Dragoons. They pulled up in
front of her, speaking their barbarous tongue. One Dragoon dismounts
and draws his sword. Poor old woman! she falls upon her knees and lifts
up wrinkled hands and cries feebly for mercy. It is in vain! Neither
age nor ugliness protects her. Raising his sword with one hand, he
stretches out the other towards her--the Prussian monster!--and grasps
her soap. He quietly cuts it in two, pockets the one half and replaces
the other on the well wall, growling out, “Madame, pardon!”
The reaction was too great. When they rode away laughing, the old woman
forgot to be thankful that they had not hurt her, and swore at them for
hairy thieves.
On the 15th of September there were around Metz 138,000 men fit to take
the field, 6,000 cavalry and artillery. The Prussians had not anything
like that number. They were dying fast of dysentery and fever, and yet
Bazaine did nothing. Yet, though Metz was not strongly held, it was
very difficult to get through the lines, and many a man, tempted by the
bribe of 1,000 francs, lost his life in the attempt.
The English journalist tried to be his own courier and carry his own
letters. He presented himself at the Prussian outposts in daylight,
showed his passport, and demanded permission to “pass freely without
let or hindrance.” In vain. The German soldiers treated him to beer
and cigars, and suggested he should return to Metz. Next time he
dressed himself up as a peasant, with blouse, and sabots on his feet,
and when it was growing dusk tried to slip through the posts. “Halte
là!” rang out, and a sound of a rifle’s click brought him up sharp. He
was a prisoner, taken to the guard-house, and questioned severely. He
pretended to be very weak-headed, almost an idiot.
“How many soldiers be there in Metz, master? I dunno. Maybe 300.
There’s a power of men walking about the streets, sir.”
They smiled a superior smile, and offered the poor idiot some dark
rye-bread, cheese, and beer, and some clean straw to lie down upon.
Officers came to stare at him, asked him what village he was bound
for. One of them knew the village he named, and recognized his
description of it, for luckily he had got up this local knowledge from
a native in Metz. However, he was not permitted to go to it, for before
dawn next morning they led him, shuffling in his wooden sabots, to a
distant outpost, turned his face towards Metz, with the curt remark:
“Go straight on to Metz, friend, or you will feel a bullet go through
your back.”
Grumbling to himself, he drew near the French outposts, who fired at
him. He lay down for some time, then, finding he was in a potato-field,
he set to work and grubbed up a few potatoes to sell for a sou a piece.
So at last he found his way back to Metz, and got well laughed at for
his pains.
He then tried his hand at making small balloons to carry his letters
away; but the Germans used to fire at them, wing them, and read the
contents.
Many spies were shot in Metz, and some who were not spies, but only
suspected. It was the only excitement in the city to go out to the
fosse and see a spy shot.
There was one man whom all raised their hats to salute when he passed.
He was a short, thick-set man, wore a light canvas jacket and leather
gaiters. Under one arm hung a large game-bag, and over the other sloped
a chassepot rifle. His name was Hitter, and he had made a great name
by going out in front of the _avant-poste_ and shooting the Prussian
sentinels. One night he encountered some waggons, shot down the escort
from his hiding-place, and brought four waggons full of corn into Metz,
riding on the box by the driver, pistol in hand. This man organized a
body of sharp-shooters for night work, and many a poor sentinel met his
death at their hands.
One favourite dodge was to take out with them a tin can fastened to a
long string. When they got near the Prussian outposts they made this
go tingle tangle along the ground. Then cautious heads would peep out;
more tangle tingle from the tin can, until the sentinels jump up and
blaze away at the weird thing that startles them in the dark. Their
fire has been drawn, and Hitter’s men have the outpost at their mercy.
They either shoot them or bring them into Metz as prisoners.
At length Marshal Bazaine heard of Hitter’s prowess, and sent for him,
wanting to decorate him; but Hitter was sensitive, and thought he ought
to have been decorated weeks ago. He came reluctantly.
“My man, I have heard of your doings--your clever work at night--and in
the name of France I give you this decoration to wear.”
“I don’t want it, Marshal. Pray excuse me, if you please.”
“Nonsense, my fine fellow. I insist on your acceptance of the honour.”
“Oh! very well,” said Hitter, “if you insist, I suppose I must; but, by
your leave, I shall wear it on my back--and very low down, too.”
The Marshal glared at Hitter, turned red, and ordered him out.
As the siege went on the poor horses got thinner and thinner. Their
coats stood out in the wet weather rough and bristly; often they
staggered and fell dead in the streets. They were soon set upon, and
in a short time flesh, bones, and hide had vanished, and only a little
pool of blood remained behind to tell where some hungry citizens had
snatched a good dinner.
One day a _cantinière_ had left her cart full of drinkables just
outside the gate while she went to the fort to ask what was wanted.
She tarried, and her poor horse felt faint, knelt down, and tried to
die. No sooner was the poor beast on his knees than half a score of
soldiers rushed out to save his life by cutting his throat--at least,
it made him eat better. They quickly slipped off his skin and cut him
up in all haste. So many knives were “e’en at him,” they soon carried
off his “meat.” Then, in a merry mood, seeing the gay _cantinière_ was
too busy flirting to attend to her cart, they carefully set to work
and built him up again. They put the bones together neatly, dragged
the hide over the carcass, and arranged the harness to look as if the
animal had lain down between the shafts. Then they retired to watch
the comedy that sprang out of a tragedy. Madame comes bustling out of
the fort. Eh! what’s that? Poor Adolfe is down on the ground! The fat
woman waddles faster to him, calls him by name, taunts him with want
of pluck, scolds, gets out her whip; then is dumb for some seconds,
touches him, cries, weeps, wrings her hands in despair. Sounds of
laughter come to her ears; then she rises majestically to the occasion,
pours out a volley of oaths--oaths of many syllables, oaths that tax a
genius in arithmetic: _diable! cent diables, mille diables, cent mille
diables!_ and so on, until she loses her breath, puts her fat hand
to her heart, and again falls into a pathetic mood, passing later on
into hysteria, and being led away between two gendarmes. Poor madame!
She had loved Adolfe, and would have eaten him in her own home circle
rather than that those _sacrés_ soldiers should filch him away.
Well, they ate horses, when they could get them; but donkeys were even
more delicious, though very rare, for they seldom died, and refused to
get fat. Food was growing so scarce in October that when you went out
to dinner you were expected to take your own bread with you. Potatoes
were sold at fifteen pence a pound; a scraggy fowl might be bought
for thirty shillings. The Prussians had spread nets across the river,
above and below, to prevent the French from catching too many fish. As
for sugar, it rose to seven shillings a pound. Salt was almost beyond
price. The poor horses looked most woebegone. Many of them were Arabs,
their bones nearly through their skin, and they looked at their friends
with such a pitiful, appealing eye that it was most touching. You
might have gone into a trooper’s tent and wondered to see the big tear
rolling slowly down the bronzed cheek of a brave soldier.
“What is it, m’sieur? I have just lost my best friend--my best friend.
He was with me in Algeria. Never tumbled, never went lame. And he
understood me better than any Christian. He would have done anything
for me--in reason! Now he has had to go to the slaughter-house. Oh, it
is cruel, m’sieur! I shall never be the same man again, for he loved me
and understood me--and I loved him.”
At last there was only one horse left in that camp, and this was how
he survived: He had laid himself down to die; his eyes were fogging
over, he felt so weak; but one of the sick soldiers happened to pass
that way, and being full of pity from his own recent sufferings, he
bethought him of a disused mattress which he had seen in the hospital
close by. He returned and took out a handful of straws, with which he
fed the poor beast, a straw at a time. The flaccid lips mumbled them
awhile. At last he managed to moisten the straw and eat a little.
Another handful was fetched, and the horse pricked his ears, and tried
to lift his head. That was the turning-point; life became almost worth
living again. The story rapidly spread, and it became the charitable
custom to spare a bit of bread from dinner for the white horse of the
Ile Cambière. In time that spoilt child would neigh and trot to meet
any trooper who approached, confidently looking for his perquisite of
crust.
There were 20,000 horses in Metz at the beginning of the siege; at the
time of the surrender a little over 2,000.
We are told by an Englishman who was with the German Army outside Metz
that in October a good many Frenchmen deserted from Metz. On the 11th
a poor wretch was brought into the German lines. He said that his
desertion was a matter of arrangement with his comrades. The man was an
Alsatian, and spoke German well. His regiment was supposed to be living
under canvas, but the stench in the tents was so strong, by reason of
skin diseases, that nearly all slept in the open air. The skin disease
was caused by the want of vegetables and salt, and by living wholly on
horse-flesh. The deserter reported that the troops had refused to make
any more sorties, and they were all suffering from scurvy.
There was one village, Nouilly, which contained secret stores, to which
the French used to resort, and which the Germans could not find; so the
order was given to burn it. Most of its inhabitants had gone to live in
Metz.
“I was sitting at supper with Lieutenant von Hosius and Fischer when an
orderly entered with a note. It was read aloud:
“‘Lieutenant von Hosius will parade at nine o’clock with fifteen
volunteers of his company, and will proceed to burn the village of
Nouilly.’
“Von Hosius was fond of herrings, so he stayed at table to finish them,
while Fischer went out for volunteers. In a few minutes von Hosius
was putting on his long boots, taking his little dagger, which every
officer wore to ward off the vultures of the battle-field in case of
being wounded; then, taking his revolver, he sallied out to meet his
little band. The service was full of danger, for the French lay very
near, and had strong temptations for entering it by night. If he did
encounter a French force inside the village, where would his fifteen
volunteers be?
“A little group of us watched by the watch-fire as they marched down
at the German quick step. For a while we could hear the crashing
through the vines, then the hoarse challenge of the German rear
sentry; then all became quiet. For a few minutes the officer in
command of the outpost and myself were the only persons who enjoyed
the genial warmth of the fire; then through the gloom came stalking
the Major, who squatted down silently by our side. Presently another
form appeared--the Colonel himself--and in half an hour nearly all the
officers of the battalion were round that bright wood fire. They all
tried to look unconcerned, but everybody was very fidgety.
“Von Hosius was a long time. An hour had gone, and Nouilly was but ten
minutes or so distant, and the Colonel’s nervousness was undisguised
as he hacked at the burning log with his naked sword. Suddenly the
vigilant Lieutenant gave a smothered shout, and we all sprang to our
feet. Flame-coloured smoke at last, and plenty of it. But, bah! it was
too far away--a false alarm.
“The Colonel sat down moodily, and the Major muttered something like a
swear. One thing was good: there was no sound of musketry firing.
“Another half-hour of suspense, and then a loud “Ha!” from both
Lieutenant and sentry. This time it was Nouilly, and no mistake. Not
from one isolated house, but in six places at once, belched out the
long streaks of flame against the black darkness, and the separate
fires made haste to connect themselves. In ten minutes the whole place
was in one grand blaze, the church steeple standing up in the midst of
the sea of flame until a firework of sparks burst from its top and it
reeled to its fall.
“Presently they came back, von Hosius panting with the exertion (he
was of a portly figure). The duty had been done without firing a single
shot, and they brought with them a respectable old horse which they had
found in a village stable.”
One evening, when the German officers were discussing the causes of the
French defeats, a First Lieutenant told this story to illustrate it:
The Chief Rabbi of the Dantzic Jews had taken a new house, and his
flock determined to stock his wine-butt for him. On a stated evening
his friends went down one after another into the Rabbi’s cellar, and
emptied each his bottle into the big vat. When the Rabbi came next day
to draw off his dinner wine he found the cask was full of pure water.
Each Jew had said to himself that one bottle of water could never be
noticed in so great a quantity of wine, and so the poor Rabbi had not
got a drop of wine in his butt.
Now, it was just the same with the French army. One soldier said to
himself that it would not matter a copper if he sneaked away; but the
bother was that one and all took the same line of reasoning, and the
result was that nobody was left to look the enemy in the face.
In order to bring about the fall of Metz a little sooner, the Prussians
drove out all the peasants from the neighbouring villages, and forced
them down to Metz. The Mayor of Metz ordered them back; then the
Prussians fired over their heads, and tried to frighten them down
again. Meanwhile, the women and children were worn out and hungry,
and sat down to cry and wish for death. These are some of the glories
of war. Sometimes, when they returned to their village home after a
week’s absence, they found a remarkable change. They had left a pretty
villa, trim gardens, and tiny pond and summer-house. This is what an
Englishman saw one day:
“I came on a little group, the extreme pathos of which made my heart
swell. It was a family, and they sat in front of what had once been
their home. That home was now roofless. The stones of the walls were
all that was left. The garden was a wreck, and the whole scene was
concentrated desolation. The husband leaned against the wall, his arms
folded, his head on his chest. The wife sat on the wet ground, weeping
over the babe at her breast. Two elder children stared around them with
wonder and unconcern--too young to realize their misfortune. No home,
no food, a waggon and a field with four graves in it--a sight enough to
melt the hardest heart.”
But there were so many similar scenes, and some much more terrible to
witness.
On the 29th of October, in torrents of rain, the French soldiers went
out of Metz, casting down their rifles and swords in heaps at the gate,
many glad enough to become prisoners of war and have a full stomach.
The Germans came in very cautiously, examining fort and bastion and
bridge, to prevent any mine explosions, and in a few hours “Metz la
Pucelle” had become a German city. Marshal Bazaine, who had done so
little to help them, was the object of every citizen’s curses. The
women pelted him with mud and called him “Coward!” as he set off for
the Prussian headquarters.
From “The Siege of Metz,” by Mr. G. T. Robinson, by kind permission
of Messrs. Bradbury and Evans.