TO SEDAN
September 26th. I had been told that if I were at the railway station
just before 9 a.m. I could go by the train which was to carry the
Weimar Landsturm Battalion to Charleville. I arrived in time, but only
to be informed that an alteration had been made in the train time-table
and that this battalion would not leave until later, but that an
ammunition train for Sedan, of about twenty-two “N” wagons, covered
in with tarpaulins, was on the point of starting; if I liked to go by
that, a first-class compartment would be placed at my disposal. A few
passenger coaches were attached to the train, and I seated myself in
one of these. My future travelling companions were the ten or twelve
_Ersatz_ Reservists, belonging to an Ammunition Park Depot established
in Mayence, who were in charge of the train. The latter had been on
the road for eight days and the men had slept eight nights on the
train. Our carriage had strayed here from the north-eastern regions of
Germany, as appeared from its mark: “Prussian-Hessian State Railways,
North-East.” On the wall of my compartment there was a little map of
the railway line from Berlin to Memel.
I had been advised by a friendly soul at the _Hotel Staar_ to take with
me a supply of provisions, as it was more than doubtful whether any
eatables could be found on the way. Four substantial cheese and ham
sandwiches, three eggs and two bottles of mineral water had therefore
been stowed away amongst my luggage in the compartment.
And so we started. We glided smoothly out of Luxemburg Station, and
passed a train shunted into a siding and crowded with soldiers who sat
and talked and laughed and seemed to be in the best of spirits. The
town disappears behind us. We are out in the open country. We pass
by flourishing villages, farms and woods, meadows and pasture lands
with grazing cattle, fields with ploughs at work, country roads and
metalled high roads lined by two long rows of trees vanishing in the
distance. In the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg one sees no houses wrecked by
shells, no people rendered homeless. It is true that the billeting of
German troops has caused some inconvenience, but the inhabitants have
received full compensation for all that has been taken.
On the roads one sees no marching troops, no toiling columns. And
why--so near to the front? It is because, as far as the railways are
worked in conjunction with the German railway system, they carry out
almost the whole of the transport. It is only when railway traffic
comes to a stop that recourse must be had to lines of communication
by road. Hence the country on both sides of the railway looks quite
flourishing, often idyllic. The only thing that reminds us of war are
the sights which meet us at the railway stations, and the guards posted
along the line. These guards are frequently stationed at such short
intervals as to be actually in sight of each other. German railway
corps troops are responsible for the traffic. The Landsturm attends to
the guarding of the line. There you may see men of over forty, clothed
in the dark-blue tunic with red collar and light-blue shoulder-straps,
black trousers with a narrow red stripe, and peakless blue caps with
red band. All are armed with rifles. It is especially at bridges and
other important points of the line that one is sure to see these
loyal trusty fellows, pacing to and fro,--just as they are doing in
every other part of the German Empire. They are always there, always
vigilant. _Lieb Vaterland, magst ruhig sein...._
Our route takes us _via_ Mamer and Kapellen. The country is rather
flat; gently undulating, sunlit fields extend in every direction.
Between two stations the train pulls up--we wonder why. At last we see
a long train of empty carriages, nothing but goods-trucks, running up
by our side on the up line. There does not seem to be a soul in it and
one can hear how empty it is by its hollow ring as it rumbles by. It
has carried a body of fresh troops as a reinforcement for one of the
armies, and is now hurrying back through Luxemburg to fetch another.
When the train has passed by, we run on to Kleinbettingen, where not
a single civilian is to be seen, only some twenty of the usual trusty
blue Landsturm men.
Sterpenich! So we are now on Belgian soil. There is no change in the
landscape. Here, too, German soldiers are on guard, and here and there,
as in Luxemburg, a field is being ploughed. But one is not reminded by
customs officers that one is entering another country as in peace time;
war breaks down all barriers.
We stop for a while in Arlon. We feel tempted to take a stroll through
the town, but as I did not consider my ammunition train dependable, I
contented myself with having a peep at the church with its grey tower
and louvre-turret, and looking at the handsome station building. To the
south-west, the dull but distinct thunder of guns was audible, but my
fellow-travellers could not say whether it came from Verdun or from the
Argonne. The distance would be some sixty kilometres or over.
Meanwhile the train moves on at normal speed, but soon repents this
effort and runs dead slow as if the murderous load which it is
carrying, in the shape of heavy projectiles, will not bear shaking.
We are now running on a high embankment and cross a country road by
an arched stone bridge. At its foot a solitary sentry, alone with his
rifle, looks up at us as we pass.
Here is a village wrecked by shells and burnt. All that is left
standing is some bare walls staring at us from between the trees.
Part of an avenue has been cut down, as also the trees on the fringe
of woods near the railway. At first I thought this had been done to
facilitate watching the line and preventing attempts at wrecking it.
But further on we found the felled trees stacked in piles, and a goods
train on a siding, loaded with hewn timber, suggested that the wood was
to be used for sleepers. Large notice-boards _Langsam fahren!_ (slacken
speed) mark the spots where the straight line changes into sharp curves
and where the German engine-drivers have not yet become familiar with
the ground. Traffic is not particularly brisk, and one does not pass
many trains on this line, though it is a double track.
Lavaux, Cousteumont and Hamipré are small stations. The soldiers of
the guard-pickets are sitting peacefully on the platforms smoking and
reading the latest newspapers that have come through. Longlier and
Neufchâteau are larger stations, where some wrecked houses are to be
seen from the carriage window. This is a memento of the fights of a
month ago, when the Army of Duke Albrecht of Württemberg beat back the
opposing forces. We run into Libramont station alongside a huge troop
train which, like ours, is bound for Sedan. All carriages are decorated
with green branches, as if on the way to a midsummer fête. Sentences
chalked on the sides of the carriages testify to the high spirits of
the passengers:--“To dinner in Paris,--now waiting”; “Every shot a
Russian,--every thrust a Frenchman,--the Serbs must die,”--and such
like jokes. Amidst the jovial song and merry talk of the soldiers the
train then rolls away to an unknown fate.
After an hour’s halt it is our turn to follow in its track. We run
through fields in which fragrant stacks of oats are standing in rows
like soldiers. A road-bridge of stonework crossing the line has been
blown up by the enemy before they retired, clearly in order to block
the railway line passing beneath. The Engineers are now busy repairing
it. Otherwise there are not many traces of warfare to be seen from the
railway in Belgian Luxemburg.
From Libramont our course lies to the south-west. At a small station
we stop once more immediately abreast of a troop train, and glide
slowly past it. It consists of third-class carriages, the interiors
of which are exposed to our view, one by one, through the open doors.
On every imaginable projection the soldiers have suspended their
knapsacks, rifles, tunics and cartridge belts, all in picturesque and
almost impressive disorder. Some are lying stretched full length on
the seats, with their noses in the air, fast asleep; others sit with
crossed legs, smoking, chatting or looking out on the scene outside.
Officers and non-commissioned officers occupy the first and second
class compartments. They are cavalry. The train also comprises “H.Gr.”
carriages filled with horses. There are eight in each carriage, four
on each side, with their heads turned towards each other and they
are separated from the central doorway, with sliding doors, by bars
suspended on short chains. The halters are fastened to the bars.
Between the bars--that is in the middle of the carriage--is a table on
trestles, and two benches. On these some men are seated at their midday
meal--cold coffee and savoury sausage sandwiches.
Bertrix! Another stop of one hour. Through the window one overhears
involuntarily a few scraps of the soldiers’ conversation. “Have you
heard that the Belgians are said to have a secret wireless station near
Arlon, which it is impossible to lay hands on?”--“That was a neat
piece of work of Weddigen’s.”[17]--“But the losses on land are far
greater than at sea--a submarine means twenty men, but a bayonet charge
on land ten or a hundred times as many.”--“Is it true that Rheims has
been taken?”--“It is said that the right wing has fallen back a good
way.”--What rumours one hears in the rear of the fighting line!
[17] See footnote to p. 113.
The station-master of Bertrix comes up to my compartment and engages
me in conversation. He tells me that the stone bridge which we have
just passed was destroyed by the Belgians on the 19th of August during
the fierce engagements which were fought in this region. “But we
railwaymen,” he confessed, “had to sit tight and listen to the guns
in the distance. We cannot go into the firing line and fight with the
rest.”--“Yes, but your work is just as important, after all! How would
the fighting troops fare, as to supplies and reserves, if the railway
traffic were not kept going?”--“That is true, but at any rate it is
terribly trying to one’s patience.”
He further told me that from Bertrix, for thirty-six kilometres
onwards, the railway had been continued by German railway troops to
establish connection with the French railway system. All blasting
work, cuttings and embankments had been almost finished when the war
broke out, but the line in question was not to open for traffic until
1916, as probably a war before then, in these regions, had not been
thought of. The new line is a single track and is of the type of a
“field-railway.” Its section is narrow and will not bear too heavy a
load. Its traffic capacity would therefore necessarily be very small.
This was the reason for our long stop at Bertrix.
At last the train which had been holding up the line arrives and we can
go on. To the south-east a boundless view opens towards far-off regions
wreathed in a dim blue haze, where, beyond the boundaries of Belgian
Luxemburg, Montmédy and Longuyon are situated. One feels glad to see
the oat stacks in the fields; many mouths will need feeding here during
the coming winter. And for the same reason I was glad to observe the
well-fed cattle, of which I caught a glimpse in copses and pastures.
“Have you any recent newspapers?” This from the Landsturm sentries and
railway workers as our train slowly rolls by. “I have already given
away those I had,” I answer. But as I lift up a coat I discover yet
another copy of the _Treves Gazette_, and next time I see a group
of soldiers I throw it out and observe how eagerly they devour the
news--one of them reading aloud and the others listening.
Here stands a curious-looking train, belonging to some fatigue party
or railway corps. Some of the carriages have been fitted up as repair
workshops, with carpenter’s benches and grindstones, and saws, chisels,
axes and hammers are lying about. Other carriages are crammed with
bicycles, wheelbarrows, spades, crow-bars, hatchets, pickaxes and other
tools--entrenching tools, such as used by the sappers.
As we issue from a long tunnel, a beautiful landscape presents itself
to our view--more hilly than before. Below us several high roads
meet, in a vale clad with verdant trees. Towards the nearest road the
embankment slopes down steeply. Near by is a guard-hut, with a small
detachment of Landsturm men close by, resting from their labours and
waiting for their comrades to come out on the line to relieve them. A
number of grey-clothed workers with spades on their backs come up to
the railway line. “Any newspapers left?” asks one. “All gone,” I reply.
“That is very unfortunate,” he answers, without looking up. Had I only
anticipated such avidity for news, I should have bought up the whole
edition of the Luxemburg German newspaper. At a small halting-place we
see some forty blue and grey soldiers near their piled rifles. Is there
no end of all these men in arms? To think of the numbers which the
railways alone absorb!
The sun is setting; it is nearly six. After we have passed another
tunnel, the panorama of the meandering water-course of the Semois
unfolds itself in the valley beneath us. More groups of railway workers
returning to their billets. “You have twenty kilometres to the French
frontier,” one of them informs me, and another points to a wrecked
village on the slope of a hill. We are told that whole piles of corpses
lie buried there.
The sun has now set, but there is still sufficient light to enable us
to see, from a high bridge across the Semois, the main road, deep down
below to the right of us, crossing the river on a handsome stone bridge
with three spans. The banks are thickly covered with foliage, and we
pass through a dusky belt of trees.
The twilight deepens and the shades of night begin to fall. It is
a pity to be robbed of the view over this beautiful country. The line
winds in manifold curves, now rising, now descending.
[Illustration: WOODED HEIGHT BETWEEN SEDAN AND DONCHERY]
On we travel, desperately slow; the train groans and the timbers of the
carriages creak under the burden of their load. Ahead of us appears
another tunnel. At its entrance a little hut has been erected, where
a patrol of Landsturm soldiers are just engaged in preparing their
supper. We are travelling very slowly and are able to exchange a few
words with the blue-clad men. Slowly and steadily we glide into the
dark mouth of the tunnel. The engine pants and snorts, the tunnel
is filled with smoke, and we quickly close the windows. We advance
more slowly still, and the steam makes a horrible roar in front.
Now the engine breaks down, and we come to a standstill! One of my
fellow-travellers comes into the pitch-dark compartment, carrying a
little lamp, which makes us feel more cheerful. The smoke becomes
thicker and fills the compartment--if this goes on much longer we shall
be asphyxiated. I open the window for a moment and peep out--nothing
but darkness and smoke! But through the cloud one can see the sparks
flying from the engine, which seems to be gathering strength. This
train is loaded with powder and shot, and if it should explode just
here in the tunnel--well, the railway corps will have their work cut
out!
The engine gives another snort, making the walls of the tunnel re-echo.
We begin to move again. A light appears ahead--probably the mouth of
the tunnel. But no, it is only a lantern dimmed by the smoke. A little
later it is the reflection of the engine-fire that looks like the
dawning of daylight. Will this eternal tunnel never end? We have been
in it for more than half an hour, when at last it gets clearer and we
can breathe fresh air again. But there is now little daylight left; the
dusk obliterates the outlines of the landscape and the moon, yellow and
mocking, floats over the troubled earth.
By about eight the satellite has whitened, and is perched in the
tree-tops. It is clear and cold. How easy it would be for snipers to
send their bullets from some lurking-place in the woods through the
faintly lighted windows of the train! But no shots echo through the
night; all is hushed and silent outside. There is nothing to remind one
of war--one travels as in times of profoundest peace.
We have left behind to the west of us Bouillon, once the dukedom of
Godfrey the Crusader, and are now at Messempré-Messincourt, the first
station on the French side. One of my fellow-travellers has met an
acquaintance from Darmstadt, and gives him messages for his home just
as the train moves out into the darkness. A sheaf of flame issues from
the funnel of the engine, tinging the steam red. Probably the fire and
the powder on board are used to each other by now, after having kept
company for a whole week. Over the flat French meadows floats a film
like the whitest hoar-frost, but it is only a very thin stratum of
mist, lit up by the moon....
About midnight I fell asleep for the rest of the journey, and at 3
o’clock on Sunday morning, the 27th of September, I was awakened by
one of my fellow-passengers who told me that we were in Sedan. We had
been travelling for eighteen hours. The Commandant of the station,
Major von Plato, is already up at this early hour, cheerful and
sprightly; he receives me with a hearty welcome and places a room in
the station building at my disposal. But before I take possession of my
new quarters I must have a cup of tea with the Major and a few other
officers, as wide-awake and lively as he. Our early breakfast is served
in a strange-looking dining-room belonging to the commissariat station
established here, where sixteen lady volunteers provide for up to four
thousand wounded daily. In their kitchen huge caldrons are always
boiling, filled with nourishing soup. Immediately after the occupation
of Sedan, a wooden shed was erected in two days in the station yard,
where troops and wounded passing through are now fed at long tables.
This morning, too, several seats were occupied, whilst outside a
detachment of Landwehr were waiting for their morning coffee and roll.
Each man was also to receive dry rations for the day--bread and ham--to
take with him on his journey to the front. All were merry and cheerful,
no one would guess that these men would shortly stand in the fighting
line, to conquer or to die. It was said that, on an average, five
thousand men a day had been passing through Sedan, on their way south,
during the last five weeks. Meat and vegetables for the maintenance of
these troops are supplied by the Sedan “Line of Communication Depot
Commandant’s District,”--a French district the boundaries of which
have been defined within the sphere of the Chief Command of one of the
German Armies. The provisions are supplied, on requisition, by the
French local civil authorities,--such is the custom in war time. The
invader lives on the invaded. It will be readily seen how advantageous
it is to be able to carry on warfare beyond one’s own frontiers. Woe to
the vanquished! The invaded country must feed, not only its own army,
but also that of the invader. As long as grain was to be had, it was
simply requisitioned, but now, towards the end of September, flour had
been procured from Germany to supply the requirements of the troops. In
the coffee kitchen a dozen large caldrons were bubbling away, and an
old Frenchwoman, garrulous but cheerful, was busying herself among them.
The room which was now to be mine had been set apart for Major von
Plato and his Adjutant. They were to use it in turn to rest in, but
they had never had occasion to do so, as they were working day and
night and only snatched a short rest, often without undressing, in the
refreshment-room of the station, which did duty as Station Commandant’s
Office. The detachment told off for guarding the railway station had
its quarters in the third-class dining-room. The men were lying on the
floor, and were just about to get ready for the morning roll-call.
Our round also brought us to the waiting-rooms and store-room, where
the Base Hospital wards had been established. In one of them none but
badly wounded French soldiers were lying, nursed by the Red Cross
staff. One ward contained Germans awaiting the day when they could bear
being conveyed eastward. I was once more impressed with the importance
of being able, even in an intermediate base, to clear the hospital
wards immediately. A notice had just been received that a train with
wounded was on its way to Sedan, and that five hundred ambulance
carriages had been requisitioned by the Commander of the Army--which
suggested fierce fighting and bloody engagements. When the train
arrived, there was much bustle on the platforms. The sisters of mercy
and volunteer civilian workers hurried from carriage to carriage with
pails and cans of steaming coffee and large round baskets filled with
bread. Bearers stood ready with their stretchers to carry those of
the wounded whose condition was critical out to the motor-ambulances
which were to take them to the hospital in the town. All goes like
clockwork--everybody works with zeal and zest in this labour of
charity. However many may come, there is always sufficient food for
all, stretchers and bedding are never lacking, and the helping hands
never tire. The wounded Frenchmen are treated with the same kindness as
their own wounded, perhaps even better, as nearly all have a feeling
of compassion for those who have fallen into an enemy’s hands and who,
apart from their wounds, must suffer at the thought that their native
country is bleeding under the hostile invasion. Sedan station is like
a swarming beehive. Ambulance trains are not the only ones to be seen;
frequent trains loaded with fresh troops also run into the station.
There is also a considerable number of prisoners. Most frequent of
all are the supply and ammunition trains from the north, and trains
with captured or worn-out war material from the south. Now night is
hovering, cold and starry, over Sedan, rich in memories of the past.
But to those who are working here for the sake of tending the wounded
and providing food, there is no difference between night and day. It is
a puzzle to me how the officers, doctors, nurses and working staff can
stand it. The force which impels them and prevents their breaking down
with fatigue, is the love of their fatherland, which is now fighting
its greatest and most fateful war.
During our hurried round the Major narrates some episodes of the
locality. The bridge across the Meuse was blown up by the French, and
after the street-fighting some civilians fired from the windows. A fine
of two hundred thousand francs was therefore levied on the town. A few
days later, shots were fired again from houses in the town, and the
war contribution was increased by half a million francs, to be paid
within forty-eight hours. The Maire was given the somewhat unpleasant
task of raising this sum. It was paid after fruitless representations
as to the difficulties. If we try, in an entirely objective manner,
to enter into the psychological currents which in such cases stir
the minds of the French and of the Germans, we come to the following
result: The Germans consider that, when a town has been conquered by
them in honest and open fight, they are its masters, and the fight is
therefore ended. The French citizens who are armed and have seen that
their own troops are unable to defend the town, nevertheless nourish
a mad hope that they can check the invasion and prevent the enemy
from taking up his quarters there. They fire in frenzy and hatred,
forgetting that a few fatal shots signify nothing in the serried ranks
of disciplined soldiers. Nor do they realise that they are doing an
evil service to their fellow-citizens, and that the war levy will
become much heavier. An open honest fight is _one_ thing, but shots
by civilians, after a decisive issue of the fight, are looked upon as
murder, and must be punished, according to usage of war, by shooting or
hanging, bombardment or imposition of a war contribution. No rules of
civilised warfare recognise sparing the lives of sniping _franctireurs_
or civilians firing from an ambush.
The sufferings which war brings in its train for the populace visited
by it are severe enough without being intensified by cowardice
and stupidity. It is best, while there is yet time, to create for
oneself an efficient army--_that_ will always command respect.
Characteristically enough, such attempts as described here are defended
and approved by individuals who, in times of peace, oppose the regular
military training of their people. When the day of retribution comes
they shout themselves hoarse at “right being trampled under foot.” But
it is futile to disguise the betrayal of one’s own country. It is then
too late. Jurisprudential sophistries are silenced when the guns talk
in their voice of thunder.
When Major von Plato came to Sedan, in the early part of September, the
railway station looked more than wretched. Dead horses were lying about
everywhere at and on the line. The fallen soldiers had been buried in
very shallow graves, contributing to some extent to the unbearable
stench which filled the air. The Maire was requested to call out French
labourers, whose task was to scour the whole neighbourhood and bury
the bodies properly. Now the ground around the station looked well and
properly kept.
In the afternoon I went with Major Heyn and a couple of other
officers--one of whom was ordinarily a judge at Frankfurt-on-Main, and
had now become _Kriegsgerichtsrat_ or “Court-Martial Councillor”--for
a motor drive to the historically famous spots outside Sedan, the very
name of which evokes, in the breast of every Frenchman, memories of
grief and sorrow.
We drive through the town. The citizens who have remained or returned
are not few in number, but the well-to-do have gone away and taken
up their abode elsewhere. Some shops are open, and those in which
articles of food, preserves, or tobacco are sold, are emptied of stock,
the owners having done a brisk business. But the tradesmen on whose
shop-signs one reads _Teinturerie_ (dyer), _Imprimerie_ (printer),
_Bijouterie_ (jeweller), and the like, might just as well have put up
their shutters. A school has been converted into an intermediate base
hospital, and the Place d’Alsace is the “motor-vehicle hospital,” or
open-air workshop. This may not be photographed, as the sentry informs
me when I approach with my camera. On one of the “patients” undergoing
treatment here, the inscription “Mannheim Brewery No. 6” indicates its
avocation in peace time. Even such motor-lorries, then, are mobilised
for service in war time! All is arranged and regulated beforehand with
the utmost forethought and exactitude. But, for this very reason,
everything goes like clockwork when the hour has come. The honest
brewer in Mannheim had no need to enquire what he had to do when the
mobilisation order was issued. He knew it, and sent his motor-lorries
to the prearranged spot.
_Impavidus numero victus 1870_ is the inscription engraved on a
memorial near a street still showing traces of the fighting, to which
indeed the marks of bullets on its houses bear witness. Two bridges
across the Meuse, one of stone, the other of iron, have been blown up
by the French and replaced by the Germans.
We are now out in the open country and pass over the scene of the
hotly contested sanguinary fights of the 25th and 26th of August. The
entrenchments have not been filled in, and the parapets and trenches
are still in the same state, though they have crumbled here and
there. I was told that many of them had been thrown up by the local
population, whose assistance thus gave the defenders an advantage over
the attack.
Near the village of Frénois we run up to the little château of
Bellevue, where after the great battle of the 1st of September, 1870,
the capitulation of the French Army was signed on the morning of
September 2nd, and where King William I. of Prussia had his historic
meeting with the Emperor of the French, Napoleon III. The two monarchs
met on the small glass veranda on the ground floor, which forms a porch
or vestibule to the château.
The furniture which was there at the time has all disappeared and there
is no relic of those days remaining. Yet there is one! The aristocratic
and venerable lady--who owns Bellevue, is still there, bowed with age
and grief, and is now witnessing for the second time all the phases of
a Franco-German war. Her hair was snow-white and she was bent with
age, but it seemed nevertheless that she held her head high, and her
carriage was proud and commanded respect. We asked whether we might see
the interior of the château, but she asked us to excuse her--a wish
which, of course, we respected.
It is not to be wondered at that the soldiers, whose way lies past
Bellevue, like to look at the famous veranda. But the old lady asked
that these visits should cease; she wished to be left in peace, alone
with her sorrow. “_C’est bien malheureux; c’est très, très triste!_”
she repeated again and again, and she, like her words, evoked the
deepest sympathy. Bellevue with its round tower stands like a rock
lashed by the tempestuous waves of the two greatest wars of modern
history.
Our next objective is Donchery, the little town which now inspires, in
a twofold measure, such mournful impressions. It was here that General
von Moltke, Chief of the German General Staff, and General Wimpffen,
the French Commander-in-Chief, discussed the terms of the capitulation
late at night on the 1st of September, 1870. Count Bismarck, the
Prussian Prime Minister, was also present, as well as several officers
of both sides. The house where the negotiations took place has been
destroyed in the present war. But Werner’s picture remains. This has a
most stirring effect on the beholder. To the right, the Germanic iron
strength and resolution, which will admit of no compromise; to the
left the beaten Frenchmen in their dire misfortune. Moltke especially
attracts our eyes, as he stands there with his hand thrust upon the
table, categorically demanding the surrender of the whole French
army, and we may well look with emotion on the picture of the “Iron
Chancellor,” sitting with his hand on his sword-hilt;--these two men,
the great strategist and the great statesman, are just about to lay
the foundations of the mightiest empire of modern times;--but the
central figure of the painting is Wimpffen, for he stands there as the
impersonation of the deepest tragedy and the most terrible misfortune
that could befall man. He has just been struck by the blow which the
terms of capitulation involve for him and all France. He can bear no
more--he has risen to go; but he totters, and has to support himself on
the table and a chair. The light of the lamp falls upon his face, which
betrays the deepest anguish and grief. His name will now be coupled
for ever with this calamitous day! A picture of the Corsican hangs
on the wall, and the great Emperor seems to cast a reproving look on
the unfortunate general. The countenances of his companions express
sorrow and dejection for which language has no words. No less grave
is the expression of the Prussians standing on the other side. Their
features betray admiration for the heroism of the French army and its
dauntless courage, which should have deserved a better fate. The artist
has created a scene which suggests to us that all those present were
conscious of the fact that this day would live in memory as one of the
greatest in Prussia’s history and one of the most tragic in that of
France.
Some parts of Donchery have been destroyed by the shells of the
present war, but the Church of St. Onesimus still remains standing
amid the desolation and has not suffered any damage to speak of. The
chancel with the high altar dates from the twelfth century, the nave
from the fifteenth. In front of the altarpiece stands a crucifix of
ivory, and filtering in through the beautiful stained-glass windows, a
multi-coloured light plays upon the pillars. The priest who accompanies
us, assures us that not a single shot has been fired from the windows
of Donchery and that the punishment which was inflicted on the town
was therefore unmerited. But the German documents tell a different
tale. A careful investigation in France and in Belgium will reveal,
in due course, where the root and origin of the participation of the
civilian population in the warfare is to be found. Until the result
of this investigation lies before us, it will be wise to abstain from
pronouncing judgment.
[Illustration: HOUSES WRECKED BY SHELLS AT DONCHERY]
On the return journey to Sedan we also stopped for a while at the
little house by the roadside where Napoleon and Bismarck had an
interview on the morning of the 2nd of September. Accompanied by his
suite of a few horsemen, the Emperor drove over from Sedan in a landau.
He had alighted and stood, broken and prematurely aged, leaning on his
stick, when Bismarck came up alone on horseback. This incident, too,
has been immortalised by Werner in one of his pictures. The victor and
the vanquished then entered the house together, ascended the steep and
narrow stairs and seated themselves in the inner of the two larger
rooms. The host, the weaver Fournaise, withdrew; his wife, twenty-seven
years of age, stayed in the outer room. And Madame Fournaise is still
alive--a worthy and kindly woman, with a cheerful and philosophical
view of life, in spite of the harrowing scenes which she has witnessed
around her abode. The only thing that annoyed her was that two rifle
bullets had gone through her windows and lodged in the ceiling. But
she gave us a regular lecture on that momentous day, forty-four years
ago, and recalled each detail. The Emperor had been friendly and
condescending, Bismarck cheerful and jocular, when they had talked to
her. And when the interview was over, and both of them went their way,
the Emperor had given her four 20-franc pieces, which she still kept,
set in a frame under glass, with the following inscription: _Donné par
sa Majesté l’Empereur Napoléon III à Mme. Fournaise le 2 Septembre,
1870_.
As a memento of our visit we shall keep the stamp which she imprinted
on our note-books: _Maison de la I^{re} entrevue, Donchery_. And the
house itself is known as _Maison du Tisserand_, or “The weaver’s house.”
At last we return by another road to Sedan, in order to cast a brief
glance over the site of the forts which have been razed since 1870, and
to enjoy the fine view over the unfortunate town from the surrounding
heights. One cannot feel cheerful in Sedan; one feels as if one’s
breast were oppressed by a leaden weight. Here is a people, generous
and yet thrifty, which has suffered and is now suffering--which, in the
leading strings of the republican democracy, has been led to an abyss
of misfortunes--a people which has deserved a better fate than to bleed
to death for the sake of its allies--a people whose children vainly
repeat those high-sounding, but in reality empty and hollow words:
_Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité_. What brotherhood is it that never
thinks of anything but revenge; what equality is it that for political
aims sacrifices the fruits of the people’s thrift; what liberty is
it that drives these same people into the arms of the world’s most
despotically governed power?
And yet one cannot but love the French, above all on account of their
fascinating and attractive qualities, their unbounded patriotism, their
brilliant bravery, their ever youthful enthusiasm, their bright wit
and their high level of art. And one deplores the desolation which is
spreading over their glorious country and which might so easily have
been avoided.
Late in the day we drive back into the town, past Place Turenne, where
a statue, nearly one hundred years old, has been erected in memory
of the great victorious marshal, himself a native of Sedan. In the
market-place is the office of the Sedan Intermediate Base Commandant,
located in a better-class café, in which busy clerks have taken the
places formerly occupied by the habitués of the place. Here we happened
to come across a most unusual sight,--a couple of civilians from
Germany, who have come to see about the body of a killed relative. The
dead man had been traced, and if they could identify his body they
would have a zinc coffin made and take him home.
From there I proceeded to the Hôtel Croix d’Or to call on General Baron
von Seckendorff, who is Inspector of the Lines of Communication of the
Fourth Army. The “Inspectorate” comprises, besides its Staff--the Chief
of which is Colonel von Kemnitz--a variety of administrative branches,
with subordinate organisations and establishments. One may truly say
that whole armies and endless processions of transport columns of
various kinds pass through General von Seckendorff’s hands. The task of
the lines of communication organisation in general is, on the one hand,
to arrange for bringing up to the army reserve troops and matériel of
all kinds, and, on the other hand, to relieve the fighting troops of
the wounded, prisoners, booty of war, and all worn-out material. As
already hinted, each class of requirements has its own representative
in the Line of Communication Inspectorate. There are supervisors for
the provisioning and for the hospitals, for ammunition supply and store
maintenance, for the railway traffic, for the telegraph, post-office,
and road and hydraulic construction departments, for administration of
justice and maintenance of law and order, and for civil administration.
It is an immense burden of labour that rests on the shoulders of
an inspector of the line of communication. There must be no hitch
anywhere. The troop trains must not come too late; the ammunition and
commissariat supply trains must arrive at stated times and places.
Nothing must go wrong. The inspector must know how to find ways and
means in all emergencies, must think of and foresee everything,--else
incalculable calamities may arise.
It might not be out of place here to give a short outline of the manner
in which the lines of communication between the fighting troops and the
home base are arranged.
I reproduce a diagram showing the arrangement of the lines of
communication of a German Army. The reader will see how the railway
lines coming from the home bases of the respective army corps are made
to converge towards the main line of transport which leads to the
district of the lines of communication of an army--in a hostile country
to a principal line of communication depot or “intermediate base,” and
how, from this point, a new system of lines of communication of all
kinds--railways, field railways, roads, waterways--diverges towards
the operating units at the front. The whole reminds one vividly of a
tree with its roots and branches. As far as possible, the functions
in connection herewith must be planned in peace time. Of course,
instructions and regulations are drawn up, not only for the transport
system as a whole, but also for each and every detail thereof,
as one can never elucidate with sufficient clearness the various
administrative branches of war: the commissariat, the medical service,
the veterinary department, the field post-office, the field telegraph
department, the field-railway service, the war matériel and the army
pay departments, etc.
The supreme direction of the organisations of the lines of
communication is exercised by an Inspector-General, who is subordinated
to the Chief of the General Staff. The various armies each have their
“Lines of Communication Inspectorate” subordinated to the Chief
Command of the army, organised internally as indicated above. It
controls the respective principal Lines of Communication Depot or
“Intermediate Base,” and has under it the “Lines of Communication Depot
Commandants” who in their turn are in charge of one or several Lines of
Communication Depots with their surrounding districts.
Now what principles are followed, in their work, by these different
controlling authorities of the lines of communication? Well, they have,
in continual _collaboration_ with the commanders of the troops, to
supply to these the requisite information as regards depot, hospital,
and other arrangements on the lines of communication,--such as store
depots of different kinds of war matériel--and to give timely notice of
the arrival of men, horses, matériel and requisites.
Generally speaking, it is the duty of the Lines of Communication Depot
Commandant to look after all the requirements of the system of the
lines of communication itself, and to provide for the detachments
of troops, and transport of remounts and animals intended for
food, which may happen to be stationed in, or pass through their
district of the lines of communication, while the “Inspectorate of
the Lines of Communication,” through organisations and establishments
directly subordinated to it, requisitions what is needed for the
fighting troops from within the whole of its district of the lines of
communication, or from the home bases. In order that the organisation
of the lines of communication may work quickly in the event of urgent
requirements--more especially in case of a battle--it establishes,
as we have seen, store depots of matériel and requisites. Books are
kept as to all that is stored within the respective district. The
“Inspectorate” always enters into close relations with the civil
administration, and in a hostile country may often--if the safety
of the army requires this--take over this administration into its
own hands. Both the “Inspectorate of the Lines of Communication” and
the “Intermediate Depot Commandant’s Office” frequently requisition,
for instance, from the Maire, labour for certain purposes. Some ten
labourers or other civilians may for instance be required to bury dead
horses or to clear a road. The soldiers of the invading army do not do
this themselves.
Frequently, the working of hospital departments attracts, more
especially, the attention of the layman; at least such was the case
with me. One marvels at the enormous sphere of duties that fall
solely to the share of the intermediate base surgeons, subordinated
to the “Inspectorate.” The Chief Surgeon-General at the “Inspectorate
of the Lines of Communication zone of the 4th Army” had under him
hospitals at twenty-eight different intermediate depots, apart from the
transports of sick and wounded passing through this zone of the lines
of communication.
The reader will form some idea of the amount of work which devolves
on the officers in charge on the lines of communication, when I
mention that the Lines of Communication Depot Commandant’s Office in
Vouziers alone, usually received every day six hundred requisitions and
enquiries which all had to be attended to immediately. This needed men
of ready and well-trained skill and energy, who could accomplish the
task of ensuring that the fighting troops always had what they needed
at the right time and in the right place. Dawdling routine work will
never do in war!
[Illustration: Example of Lines of Communications of an Army]
If we had before us a large-scale map, faithfully representing the army
and its connection with the home base, the lines of communication would
appear to form a veritable cobweb, or network, the knots of which would
be formed by the intermediate base depots. But the aspect shown by this
network would only hold good for a certain period, perhaps only for
one day. For, especially in the extreme ramifications of this network,
changes are of course incessantly occurring, owing to the advance of
the positions, or transfers of troops. The whole is like a system of
blood-vessels in the body of the army or of the nation. The transport
columns going west are the fresh blood of the arteries, maintaining
combustion and life in the organism of the army; the trains returning
east, empty, or loaded with wounded, represent the spent blood flowing
back to the heart and lungs to be renovated. You cannot form any clear
idea of this complicated apparatus until you have seen and felt, on the
lines of communication, the throbbing of the pulses of the army.
The army thus rests on the home country, and draws its food and
sustenance from every nook and corner of the whole German empire--just
as the roots of a tree, with their ramifications of fibres, suck up
from the earth the nutritious juices. Every town and village, every
farmstead in Germany feels that it contributes, in its measure, to
the vitality of the army. The whole nation takes part in the war, and
the soldier out at the front, in the trenches, cannot fight with any
prospect of success, unless the peasant at home does his duty. But the
German peasants and the whole German nation are doing their duty, not
as if it were a hard necessity, but gladly and with pride and devotion.
[Illustration: GERMAN INFANTRY]
And now let us return to the “Inspectorate of the Lines of
Communication zone of the Fourth Army!”
General von Seckendorff has,--to use a common expression--plenty to do,
and he works like a galley slave, I must say! He maintains faultless
discipline on his lines and inspects them daily in person. During the
campaign he has already covered twelve thousand kilometres in his
elegant covered car. On the roads he rules with an iron hand and can,
if necessary, roar like a lion at men and officers. But towards me he
was kind, and gentle as a zephyr.
He received me with open arms and invited me to stay to supper in the
large restaurant of the hotel. Here, some forty of the three hundred
officers now in Sedan were assembled--among them a Prince Hohenlohe
who had something to do with the Red Cross. At the moment when we
entered, the gentlemen were already standing by their seats around the
long table and the small side-tables, and the General introduced me,
once for all, with a few forceful yet kindly words. The food served was
the same as for the rank and file--boiled rice, mutton with beans and
potatoes, and pancakes with jam, the last being a luxury in honour of
the Sunday.
After a pleasant evening, in the course of which the General invited
me to accompany him next day to Vouziers, I walked at midnight through
the silent and empty streets of Sedan. The way from Place Turenne to
the railway station, where I was staying, was rather long, and it was
made no shorter by the six sentries who in turn stepped out from the
gloom and challenged me--a suspicious-looking night-bird, perhaps out
on some unlawful errand. Each of them read the “pass” issued to me
by General von Moltke, and then left me to my fate--and to the next
sentry. All were quiet and civil, and they were doing their duty. When
I came to the last, quite close to the railway station, I stepped up
to him and asked whether he had any objection to reading my _Ausweis_.
He replied with a smile: “I suppose it has already been read often
enough; and besides, I have seen you in the company of the Chief of the
_Kommandantur_.”
But this Chief had gone to sleep when I came “home.” He certainly
needed rest after all the trains he had cleared through the course of
the day. And as for myself, I will not deny that I was half-asleep
before I lay down on my bed.