VERSAILLES AND THE SIEGE OF PARIS.
The Advance on Paris--Preparations for the Siege--General Trochu--The
Francs-Tireurs--The Siege.
Versailles, originally a pleasure abode for the most powerful of the
French monarchs, had at last become a place of entertainment and of
public displays for the French people when, in 1870, after the defeat of
Sedan, it acquired new importance from its occupation by the enemies of
France.
After Sedan, the enemy hastened to Paris, well knowing that the
occupation of this town, at once the head and the heart of France, would
put an end to all resistance throughout the country. From the moment
that intelligence was received of the German advance upon the capital,
the new Government gave a fresh impulse to the works of defence
commenced under the Regency; and gigantic efforts were necessary to arm
the fortifications at such short notice. To defend the whole of the
works around Paris a hundred thousand men were necessary.
But Paris could muster three or four hundred thousand National Guards,
animated by the most ardent patriotism, invincible behind their
ramparts, and of which a select portion could face the enemy’s fire with
the intrepidity of old troops. It was they who went to guard the
ninety-four bastions forming a continuous girdle round the city. Paris
was in a bubbling ferment of patriotism; everyone, young or old, rich or
poor, hastened to have his name inscribed and to ask for a rifle.
Agitation reigned everywhere, yet without producing the least disorder.
Already, on the 19th of August, a committee of defence for the
fortifications had been formed, composed of distinguished military
officers and statesmen; and under the direction of this committee
between sixty and seventy thousand men were employed to organise the
resistance on the ramparts, where everything was deficient. All the
gates of Paris were isolated from their approaches by the prolongation
of the moat, drawbridges being now utilised. Beyond the moat, obstacles
of all kinds were heaped up to arrest the assailants--branches of trees,
broken glass, planks bristling with nails, and so forth: useless and
almost infantine precautions, considering the formidable means employed
by the Germans to reduce Paris from a distance.
Within the city boundary all was movement, animation, fever.
Gun-carriages were passing to and fro freighted with enormous cannon;
other pieces of ordnance were lying in the interior of the bastions,
awaiting their frames. On the parapets guns already mounted were
established in hollows dug out for the purpose. Two million bags of
earth were piled up, from behind which the defenders could fire in
safety upon the foe.
In the forts the same activity, the same preparations might be observed.
Six were occupied by the marines. As the French fleet could play only a
very insignificant part in this war, these men, with their guns of long
range, were summoned from the sea-ports; and they were destined to
render their country splendid services in the capital. With marvellous
rapidity they fitted their own forts with cannon and earthworks.
At the beginning of the war the artillery were terribly short of arms.
By the regulations each bastion should have been provided with eleven
pieces. At that time there were only three to reply to the Krupp guns of
the foe. By way of reserve, Paris was habitually furnished with two
parks of artillery, each consisting of 250 pieces: but not one piece
remained, the whole supply having been sent eastward. The ammunition for
the cannon was terribly limited, being only sufficient to afford the
guns ten shots apiece. The lack of artillerymen was even more
lamentable; in some forts the entire force consisted of a man in charge
of the battery. Towards the middle of October, however, the numbers of
the artillery were rapidly raised to 13,000 officers, under-officers,
and soldiers, thanks to the patriotism of retired officers of the
marines and of the Gardes Mobiles of the Seine, the Seine-et-Oise, the
Drôme, the Rhone, the Loire Inférieure, and the Pas-de-Calais.
By this time, too, 2,140 cannon had been mounted at the city boundaries,
and the inadequate supply of powder had been increased six-fold. The
director of all this prodigious activity was the indefatigable Minister
of Public Works, M. Dorian, whose services, moreover, in ensuring the
water supply were altogether invaluable.
Whilst such enormous progress was being made with the works of defence,
the enemy was the reverse of idle. Its columns, meeting no obstacle on
their way, were rapidly marching towards Paris. The news of their
approach redoubled the activity of the Parisians. Everywhere in the
capital warehouses were improvised in which were heaped up waggon-loads
of hay and straw, sacks of corn, and provisions of all kinds. The church
of Notre Dame des Champs was turned into a forage-depot: in front of the
École Militaire a large supply of mill-stones was placed, in view of
grinding the corn. The streets were constantly traversed by immense
herds of oxen and flocks of sheep, which were about to be stalled and
penned on the exterior boulevards, in the open spaces, and even in the
avenues of the Luxemburg. Everyone laid in as large a stock of
provisions as his resources would allow: rice, vermicelli, macaroni,
potatoes, hams, sugar, coffee, vanished in a twinkling from the grocers’
shops. Yet the purchasers knew better than to eat freely of their
provisions. They could not tell how long the siege would last.
[Illustration: GENERAL TROCHU.]
Meanwhile the Prussians advanced, the more rapidly from feeling
confident that no force could bar their passage and from being
familiarly acquainted with the country. High-roads, country lanes, the
veriest footpaths, were known to them, for in their ranks, to quote the
words of a French historian, “was that crowd of Germans who had so long
eaten the bread of France, and who were now guiding the invaders. We had
thought them our guests, when they were simply our spies.” On the 11th
of September the Prussians were reported to have arrived at La Ferté, on
their way to Meaux; at Rebais, Coulommères, Crécy, and even beneath the
walls of Soissons. On the 12th they entered Nogent-sur-Seine and
Provins, where the railway-stations were abandoned in all haste. On the
14th the telegraph wires were cut between Melun and Mormant; and
Prussian lancers, the so-called Uhlans--the name being borrowed from the
lancers of Poland--showed themselves in the last-named town.
On the 15th a train fell into the hands of the Prussians as it arrived
at Senlis; and on that same day the stationmaster at Joinville
telegraphed to the Minister of the Interior--“Enemy to the number of
about 10,000 marching upon Joinville. Our troops are concentrating on
the forts. In an hour the enemy will be here.” Almost at the same time
the Governor of Paris received the following despatch from Vincennes:
“The Uhlans are between Créteil and Neuilly-sur-Marne. At this last
point what seems to be the advanced-guard of the column reported this
morning. Are informing and summoning everyone.”
Paris now clearly understood that the enemy was marching upon it, and in
proportion as the Prussians narrowed the circle of iron with which they
were surrounding Paris, the inhabitants hurried from all sides to the
capital, accompanied by carriages laden with furniture hastily got
together, with such articles of value as they had had time to bring
away. “It was a sad procession,” says a writer who witnessed the scene.
“The unhappy fugitives were abandoning their peaceful homes to an enemy
who would destroy them. In what condition will they find on their return
the house and the little garden, the grass plot and the beds of flowers
in which they took so much delight?” As a matter of fact, the deserted
houses were the very ones, and probably the only ones, that were
plundered and devastated. Where a proprietor or his representative, even
if it were only a servant, had been left, so that the foreign visitors
could be accommodated and their needs attended to, things went on in a
sufficiently regular manner. But where no responsible person had been
left in charge, the soldiers, all of them young men of from twenty to
twenty-seven years of age, used, in their rough play, the legs of chairs
as missiles, and fragments of furniture of all kinds as firewood. In
some suburban towns, Villeneuve, Saint-Georges, for instance, the houses
occupied by successive detachments were before long a terrible scene of
destruction--chairs, tables, and looking-glasses all smashed to pieces.
In houses, on the other hand, where the owner or his substitute
remained, no damage was done. In some cases the work of demolition was
due not to recklessness and wantonness alone, but also to anger, the
German invaders feeling indignant, they said, at being regarded in the
light of barbarians. Then, as if to prove that they were not savages,
they behaved with a certain savagery. It was on the 17th of September
that Villeneuve, Saint-Georges, and Choisy-le-Roy were for the first
time occupied, the object of the occupation being to get possession of
the lines to Lyons and Orleans and dominate the course of the Seine so
as to establish communications with Versailles, which was to be the
headquarters of the invading army. The Prussians advanced without fear,
knowing well that with the exception of a strong division commanded by
General Vinoy, which had advanced from Mézières to Paris the day after
the battle of Sedan, there were no regular troops to oppose them. The
line of investment was, in the first instance, very thin, and it is said
that some observation on the subject was made to Moltke by a member of
his staff. “General Trochu could break through it, no doubt,” Moltke
replied, “but he will not try.” On the 18th of September, it was
reported that the Germans were approaching the walls of the capital in
three large bodies, and the public was informed, through the columns of
the official journal, that it must not be surprised if no further
telegraphic communications reached it from outside. The same evening a
number of dull, distant detonations were heard. The bridges of St.
Cloud, Sèvres, and Vallancourt had been blown up. Paris was being
gradually cut off from the rest of France, from the rest of the world.
No more communications, no more despatches, no more news of any kind.
The only means of correspondence left to the great city was by way of
the air.
General Trochu, Governor of Paris, had plenty of troops, or at least of
armed men, under his command. The number of regulars, scarcely more than
thirteen thousand, which General Vinoy had brought from Mézières, was
small indeed; but these, with National Guards, Gardes Mobiles, and
volunteers of various kinds, made up an entire force of 400,000, nearly
twice the number of the besiegers.
It may not be generally known, but it is nevertheless the fact, that
just after the battle of Sedan, when the Prussians were already
advancing upon Paris, the command of the Paris forts was offered to
General Ripley, who had distinguished himself during the American Civil
War by his energetic defence of Charlestown. The general visited Paris,
was perfectly satisfied with all the material preparations, but had no
confidence in the National Guards, whose slovenly appearance, absence
of discipline, and, above all, want of respect for their officers,
impressed him very unfavourably. It must be remembered, however, that
Paris had but few regular troops in its garrison, only, in fact, the
division which, the day after Sedan, General Vinoy had conducted from
Mézières, in the immediate neighbourhood of Sedan, to the capital.
Plenty of brave men, moreover, had joined the army as volunteers at the
beginning of the campaign; and Paris had furnished a large proportion of
the Francs-Tireurs who rendered such questionable service to the
national cause. “What a villain,” says a writer on this subject, “was
the Franc-Tireur in the eyes of the Prussians, who regarded him as a
poacher of the worst kind, shooting men without a licence; and what a
hero in the eyes of his own countrymen, and, above all, countrywomen,
who saw in him the ideal of a patriot!” “Who are these Francs-Tireurs?”
a Frenchman was one day asked by the present writer, at that period one
of the war correspondents of the _Times_. “Young men of good education
who wish to defend their country,” he replied. “Who are the
Francs-Tireurs?” the same correspondent inquired of a young French lady.
“Charming young men, and as brave as lions,” she replied; “I have the
portrait of one of them in my brooch.”
Almost as much nonsense has been written about the Francs-Tireurs in the
German papers as about the Uhlans in the French. They were not
necessarily savages nor assassins, nor anything of the kind. In the
occupied provinces they were simply insurgents, and they led everywhere
the life of insurgents, belonged to the same class or classes of society
from which insurgents usually come, and, like insurgents, were adored by
their own people and shot as felons if they fell into the hands of the
enemy.
The few I came across were certainly not the kind of persons likely to
commit the acts of violence and rapine with which the Francs-Tireurs
were generally credited. The Francs-Tireurs I met were loungers from the
Parisian boulevards, who had put on the semblance of a uniform and gone
out to see whether they could be of any use in stopping the advance of
the Prussians, and they would no more have committed an act of highway
robbery than General Garibaldi would have picked a pocket. But side by
side with the Francs-Tireurs of good education--the Francs-Tireurs whose
photographs were found worthy of being enclosed in lockets--there were
Francs-Tireurs of a lower type: there were escaped prisoners, deserters,
and fugitives, the last remnants of the great armies that had from time
to time been cut in pieces, and the amalgam formed by these different
elements was doubtless not a nice one. Even the gentlemanly
Franc-Tireur, if fallen into bad circumstances, might be a dangerous
person to meet; he would be ashamed to show himself in the character of
a robber, and from sheer self-respect might begin by killing his victim.
The Prussians, however, could not, like the young ladies of France,
distinguish between the noble-minded Franc-Tireur and the Franc-Tireur
who was a mere cut-throat. What they required was that he should carry
papers showing that he belonged to some regularly organised corps, that
he should wear a uniform recognisable at gun-shot distance, and that the
distinctive marks of the uniform should be “inseparable from the
person.” Let him comply with these conditions, and the Franc-Tireur, if
he fell into the hands of the enemy, instead of being shot or condemned
to ten years’ imprisonment, was treated as a prisoner of war.
It seems hard to insist that William Tell shall put on a uniform
“recognisable at gun-shot distance,” and that the distinctive signs of
the uniform worn by Masaniello shall be “inseparable from the person”;
but if William Tell dresses like a civilian he places his enemy at a
notable disadvantage, and the same may be said of Masaniello, if
Masaniello has nothing military about him but his cap, which he can get
rid of at a moment’s notice and replace by a wide-awake or a cotton
nightcap.
There were, I believe, some bodies of Francs-Tireurs regularly
incorporated in the French army, and they, to the Prussians, were of
course like any other French soldiers. Such were “Les partisans de
Gers,” who had account-books showing that they were in Government
service, whose officers carried commissions, and whose military
character was admitted, though their only “distinctive marks” were a red
sash worn over a black coat and a Calabrian hat. Neither, then, of the
“distinctive marks” was inseparable from the person. It was evident, all
the same, that the partisans of Gers were men who had assumed the
character of soldiers in good faith, with the intention of supporting it
to the end.
But the original, typical Franc-Tireur carried no papers, wore no
recognisable uniform; nor were the chiefs of bands responsible to any
superior officer.
As for the individual members of such bands, how were the Prussians to
distinguish between them and men shooting at other men from unpolitical
motives? And, apart from the customs of war, would not the common law,
strictly administered, condemn them everywhere as brigands?
[Illustration: MAP OF THE FORTIFICATIONS AT THE SIEGE OF PARIS.]
Why, then, did not the Francs-Tireurs, for their own sake, form
themselves into regular bodies and never show except in uniform? The
reason was simple enough. They did not wish to be always soldiers. They
desired now and then to retire into private life, and to profit by the
privileges of the civilian. As troops, moreover, in the service of the
Government they would have had to drill, to do regular military duty, to
subject themselves, in short, to discipline, for which, as a rule, they
had no taste. Otherwise, why, instead of becoming Francs-Tireurs, did
they not join the Garde Mobile or the regular army, from which they
could, in the most legitimate manner, have been detached for partisan
warfare?
In less than a fortnight after the battle of Sedan, the King of Prussia,
advancing towards Versailles, had established his headquarters at
Férrières. It was here on the 18th and 19th of September, 1870, in the
château belonging to Baron Rothschild, that Jules Favre, Vice-President
of the Government of National Defence and Minister of Foreign Affairs,
conferred with Count Bismarck; when the latter declared his readiness to
sign an armistice on condition that three fortresses, Strasburg,
Phalsburg, and Toul, were placed in the hands of the Germans. To the
minister who (borrowing a phrase from the oath of the Templars) had
declared that “not one inch of our territory, not one stone of our
fortresses should ever be ceded,” these conditions were for the moment
obviously unacceptable. On the 20th of September the Germans took
possession of Versailles, which was unable to offer the least
resistance, and soon afterwards the town became the headquarters of the
Great General Staff, with General von Moltke at its head; also of the
King of Prussia and Count Bismarck.
[Illustration: THE PRUSSIANS ENTERING PARIS.]
Versailles now became the headquarters of correspondents from all
parts of the world, and a grave question--that of the maintenance of
war-vessels in the Black Sea--having arisen between England and Russia,
it was to Versailles that Mr. Odo Russell was sent, on the part of the
English Foreign Office, to make representations to Count Bismarck, who
had undertaken, in his own language, the part of “honest broker” between
the Powers at variance.
An interesting account of the occupation of Versailles by the Germans
was published three years after the conclusion of peace. It would be
useful for the future historian, whose possible wants have been so much
studied of late years, if the municipal authorities of other French
towns which during the war of 1870 fell into the power of the Germans
would put together and publish the official documents relating to the
occupation, as the authors of this volume have done in regard to the
occupation of Versailles. Strictly speaking, the authors of the work in
question are the Prussians themselves. But the materials, in the form of
requisitions, summonses to appear, condemnations to pay, proclamations,
menaces and occasional remissions of punishment, were collected by M.
Rameau, Mayor of Versailles, and by him entrusted for publication to M.
Delerot, who, considering the hatred he felt and was bound to feel for
the conquerors and oppressors of his country, showed commendable
moderation in his manner of presenting the papers. Invasion must always
be intolerable to the invaded. No Brussels conferences or Geneva
conventions, however much they may alleviate the miseries of the
battle-fields, can soften the hard lines of a foreign occupation in its
general features; and M. Delerot would not be more--he would be
something less--than human were he able to take a perfectly just view of
the conduct of the Prussians in France. The truth is that they behaved
badly if we judge them by a high ideal standard; admirably if we judge
them by the standard of what has been done by former invaders engaged in
invasions on the same vast scale and of the same momentous character as
that of 1870.
The book in question is too full of matter for one to give an idea of
its contents, either by means of notes or by a connected series of
extracts. But some notion of its general character may be conveyed by
the reproduction of a few stories from it.
The king, to begin with the most important of all the personages
assembled at Versailles, was in the habit of receiving anonymous letters
from all parts of the occupied country, and it would appear that he was
quite ready to answer them. Not, however, knowing the authors of the
epistles, he was obliged to content himself with writing notes for
replies on the margin of these curious documents. To one correspondent,
who charges him (on the strength of an accusation originally made by M.
Jules Favre) with having declared, on entering France, that he made war
“not on the French people, but on the Emperor Napoleon,” he justly
answers, “Je n’ai jamais dit cela.” To a correspondent who insults and
curses him, and who signs himself “Un Français qui ne t’aime pas,” he
quietly remarks, “Il me semble!” One writer addresses him, in allusion
to the siege of Strasburg, as “Sire Bombardeur!” Another, after
exhausting all the terms of abuse he can think of in the French
language, calls him, in plain English, “old rascal.”
Mention must not be omitted of the part played, in connection with the
invasion, by the money-lender attached to the Prussian forces. He was no
miserable camp-follower bent on securing much plunder by small advances
of ready money, nor private bill-discounter prepared to “oblige”
officers with loans on notes of hand. He was an officially recognised
financial agent, representing a syndicate of foreign bankers, who, to
enable the municipalities and the occupied towns to execute the
requisitions and pay the contributions imposed on them, offered, with a
generosity rare in time of war, to lend the necessary funds in return
for promises to pay, secured on the local taxes. The arrival of Herr
Betzold was announced in the _Moniteur de Versailles_, the official
journal published by the Germans throughout the occupation; and a few
days afterwards his benevolent project for enabling destitute French
municipalities to satisfy the most exorbitant Prussian demands was made
known through the columns of the little sheet, which thus found itself
transformed for a time into a financial newspaper. A second time
attention was called to the advantages to be derived from the scheme;
but neither the eloquent articles of the _Moniteur de Versailles_ nor
the friendly personal representations of Herr Betzold himself had any
effect upon the municipality. The mayor refused to pledge the future
resources of the town, or rather, refused to pledge them to the
Prussians. A loan was found indispensable, but the bonds were offered to
and taken by the inhabitants. The interest was fixed at five per cent.,
principal and interest both to be paid off within three months of
signing the peace.
While on the subject of contributions and the means taken to enable the
conquered populations to pay them, I may point out--what some professors
of international law are perhaps unaware of--that the Prussians no
longer recognise the right of maritime Powers in time of war to seize
merchant vessels belonging to the enemy. The contribution of 1,000,000
francs per occupied department, to which M. Delerot devotes some pages,
was ordered by way of reprisal, and as an indemnity for the losses
inflicted upon German commerce by French men-of-war.
The most serious charge brought by M. Delerot against the Prussians is
that at Bougival they attacked and wounded a certain number of the
inhabitants, on the ground, and apparently under the distinct
impression, that they had been fired at with an air-gun: an instrument
which, as M. Delerot assures us, is found only in scientific
laboratories. The Prussians to whom the outrage in question is
attributed were temporarily retreating in face of a sortie from Paris;
and according to M. Delerot, they simply deluded themselves into a
belief that the inhabitants of Bougival had assumed towards them an
attitude which, under the circumstances, inhabitants are likely enough
to adopt.
The fact that a formal trial was instituted, and that it resulted in two
of the inhabitants being found guilty and shot, would seem to show that
there must have been some sort of evidence against them, though M.
Delerot will have it that the Prussians were under a delusion on the
subject. It is clear, however, from the facts, adduced as such by M.
Delerot himself, that the Prussians wished, not so much to act with
severity as to be thought severe. The object, indeed, of most
punishments in civilised warfare is, not to punish offenders
retributively and in a spirit of vengeance for what they have done, but
to deter other possible offenders from imitating their example. No one
imagines that there is anything morally wrong in a civilian’s wishing to
defend his country. But if troops do not molest the civil population,
they consider that they have a right to require in return that civilians
shall not molest them. One day, then, when a number of peasants taken in
arms were brought to Versailles, the Prussians announced loudly their
intention to shoot them. But M. Delerot and his friends observed that,
instead of being taken to the place of execution, the peasants were
imprisoned. On leaving Versailles, the Prussian authorities gave up to
the mayor a list of the persons thrown into gaol during their
occupation; and M. Delerot republishes it, with the names of the
prisoners, the offences charged against them, and so on. The list
certainly shows that many persons were incarcerated on trivial
accusations: among others a servant-girl for having returned a box on
the ears to an officer; someone else for having been found “in
possession of a diary containing insulting expressions addressed to the
King of Prussia”; a third for having recognised a Prussian spy; a fourth
for having “followed Count Bismarck.” M. Delerot would, perhaps, have
preferred that this last victim of precautionary measures should have
been allowed to pursue Count Bismarck, who, walking out alone, was
sometimes completely mobbed; so that on one occasion he reproached his
pursuers with their ignorance of the “usages of war,” adding that if
some impetuous young officer found himself surrounded in such a manner,
he would probably make use of his sword. Thus, if Count Bismarck ended
by objecting altogether to followers, he did not do so until they had
become a serious nuisance.
The arrest of a man who had “recognised” a Prussian spy is interesting
as an example of an action perfectly innocent, and, indeed, praiseworthy
in itself, but which of necessity entailed upon its author a period of
forced seclusion. A spy recognised, even by one individual, is a spy
lost unless the individual who has recognised him be at once removed
from public life.
To a large extent, M. Delerot’s work, independently of the fact that it
is well put together and contains a mass of valuable and interesting
information, is impartial. “Impartiality!” exclaims Victor Hugo in his
“Napoleon le Petit.” “Strange virtue for an historian, which Tacitus
never possessed!” Thereupon Victor Hugo proceeds to “déchirer” his
victim “en style de Juvenal.” M. Delerot claims to have seen things, and
to state them precisely as they took place. But, with the best
intentions, such an attitude would be impossible for a citizen and
official of Versailles writing the moment after the occupation had come
to an end, with the wound constantly and inevitably inflicted on his
patriotism still fresh. He has nothing extenuated, and he has set down
much, if not in malice, at least in anger. But he has striven, though
not always with success, to render justice to the Prussians, especially
to the Crown Prince, Count Moltke, and even Prince Bismarck.