Upon that battlefield of Gravelotte, France, driven to bay, fought
like a royal tigress. How many times the dark blue Divisions were
thrown back in their assault upon positions zoned with
death-bellowing cannon and death-barking mitrailleuses, History
relates. So murderous was the fire of her chassepotiers from their
densely manned rifle-pits that you could trace Moltke's plans of
assault in mounds of dead Uhlan cavalry and long regular swathes of
motionless blue objects that had been Schmidt, Schultz, and Kunz....
Yet if the Warlock had said within himself, "_This shall be above all
a battle of cavalry_," it would seem as though the determination had
been formed upon the other side.
For this day that saw the death-charge of Von Bredow's brigade upon
the Gorze Road--Uhlans, White Cuirassiers, and Dragoons of the Guard
hurled in a solid column of shining steel against French
field-batteries and battalions of riflemen--also saw the cavalry of
Frossard, of Ladmirault, and Canrobert ride down whole squares of
German infantry, who rose again and poured in volleys from their
needle-guns, to be beaten down by the storms of leaden hail ground
out by the mitrailleuse.
A glowing, coppery sun looked down on those six square miles of
fiercely contested ground. Over its whole expanse there was not one
patch as big as a National School playground without its _débris_ of
arms and accouterments, its ghastly or ludicrous tokens of war.
In an intermittent lull of the racket you could hear the dry earth,
that had been pounded bare of verdure, sucking moisture as though
after heavy rain. Only the rain was red. The faint, sour smell of
it came to the nostrils mingled with the smell of burnt gunpowder,
human and equine exhalations, and the acrid stifle of burning wood.
For Flavigny was yet smouldering, the farm-buildings at Gorze were
burning, Malmaison was a furnace; houses and barns at Verneville were
wrapped in clouds of black smoke shot with lurid flame.
Exhausted battalions, sick and stupefied with slaughter, were lying
down among the dead and the wounded to snatch a wink of sleep.
Others opened their haversacks to snatch a hasty mouthful, or drained
their canteens of the last drop. Surgeons were going up and down
among them, patching up flesh-cuts with lint and diachylon,
temporarily plugging bullet-wounds of the minor order. "There!" they
would say to the Schmidt, Kunz, or Schultz so treated; "now you are
fit for fighting again!"
Perhaps you can see the Man of Iron in his white Cuirassier cap,
black undress frock with the pewter buttons, and great steel-spurred
jack-boots, standing, grim-jawed and inscrutable, behind his King's
camp-chair. Through the stress and storm of two long days of hot
fighting, that patch of high ground south of Flavigny had been the
point to which orderlies and aides-de-camp furiously galloped from
every point of the compass, and from which they galloped back in even
more desperate haste.
In the rear of the camp-chair, not so close to it as to draw fire,
were the King's personal military staff, a bevy of Princes, and the
representative of the British War Office, Colonel ----. Several
Councillors and Secretaries of the Chancellor's traveling Foreign
Office stood about, stout, gray-haired, important-looking persons in
semi-military uniform. The carriages that had conveyed them waited
at Tronville. The King's charger and those of the other great
personages were in the care of orderlies. The Escort waited by their
horses in the background.
Moltke stood apart, taciturn and inscrutable, nursing his thin elbow
and cupping his long chin. Roon, who contrary to his custom was not
wearing his helmet, gloomily champed his cap-strap, unable to
disguise his anguish of anxiety. He would have given a year of life
to say:
"Old man, so cool in the midst of this hellish slaughter, can it be
that you do not know how things really are going? Since two of the
clock the French have had the best of it! The chassepot you termed a
'magnificent weapon' has justified your eulogism. The mitrailleuse
we despised, not comprehending its terrible capabilities, has
revealed them to our undoing. The Army of United Germany bleeds at
every pore!"
He tore his mustache, the dye upon which had not been renewed
recently. His heart swelled with the flood of pent-up speech.
"The Commander-in-Chief's dispatches to the Queen have been cheered
in Berlin. Throughout Germany they are hailed with joy.... '_France
now fights with her back to the Rhine_,' the people say. '_Our Army
stands arrayed between Bazaine and Paris!_' Is it possible they do
not realize that the situation is critical? Have they no suspicion
that the tables might be turned?"
He wrung his knotted hands together in torment, and the sweat started
in gouts upon his livid skin.
"Before us the Army of Bazaine--behind us at Châlons the Army of
MacMahon. Were the Duke of Magenta with his recuperated Divisions to
advance energetically and swiftly to the relief of his brother
Marshal--could the Crown Prince hold him back? And if he could not,
what were our chance worth?..."
The sentence had escaped Roon without his knowledge. Moltke's
wrinkled visage turned his way. The scarlet-rimmed eyes glittered on
him a moment. Roon leaped as the dry voice said:
"Not so much as a pinch of snuff!"
The War Minister stammered:
"Pardon, Your Excellency! You spoke to me?..."
Moltke answered quietly:
"I asked if you could spare me a pinch of snuff. My box is empty."
He opened the little silver receptacle and turned it upside down,
tapping it on his finger nail: "Neither have I a single cigar!"
Roon had forgotten his cigar-case in quarters. He fumbled for his
snuff-box, thought it must be in his cloak. A resonant voice said
from behind the King's camp-chair: "Will Your Excellency take one of
these?"
"Why not? why not? If they are not too strong for me...." The
Warlock smiled, showing his toothless gums. The Chancellor said,
opening and offering the plain green leather case with the coroneted
B stamped in gilding on it:
"It may be they are stronger than you are accustomed to smoke?"
Moltke's keen, swift glance met the heavy blue stare of the
Chancellor. He returned:
"I will answer Your Excellency when I have tested them."
The case held three Havanas of varying merit. Two were good, one
super-excellent. The withered hand hovered, paused above them, made
selection, while the sharp, glittering glance seemed to say: "So! ...
You are trying again the test you put me to at Königgratz! See! I
am cool enough to choose the better creed!" While Bismarck returned
the case to his breeches-pocket, mentally commenting:
"Excellent. He has chosen the best one. He is not flustered--he has
yet a trump to play!"
Believed, he returned to his post behind the King's camp-chair, a
rugged, powerful figure, with the face of a thoroughbred mastiff,
unwearyingly keeping guard lest meaner influences should undermine
his power and topple his unfinished life-work down.
Watching the battle through these noonday hours, he had, being a
practical soldier as well as a consummate statesman, known some
moments of horrible foreboding. Now his courage revived. The work
would be completed. The well-shaped, sun-browned hand lightly
resting on the chair-back would hold all Germany within its iron grip.
The thrill of conscious power transmitted itself to the King, it may
be, for he moved impatiently in his seat. Sometimes he must have
chafed, the white-haired Hohenzollern chieftain, knowing himself a
puppet in the hands of his powerful Minister.
"How they fight! How they fight! _Ach Gott!_" he muttered.
"Wouldst thou have credited, Otto, that such fire was left in France?"
And the helmeted head of the old chieftain shook with an
uncontrollable nervous spasm. Over it came the scoffing retort:
"It is the fire of fever, the fire of phosphorescence. It will leave
them weak and debilitated--it will glimmer out and go black. And yet
Bazaine, contemptible as a strategist, has his moments of
inspiration. The thrust of the skilled fencer will sometimes puzzle
the master of swordsmanship.... Frossard and Canrobert are devout
Catholics, and no doubt believe in guardian-spirits. They have had a
hint, it may be, from some celestial Field Marshal; St. Louis,
possibly, or the Chevalier de Bayard."
The King murmured, unheeding the jest, his eyes glued to the
field-glasses that jerked in his shaking hands:
"Even a victory could not bring my soldiers of the Guard to life
again. And there! Dost thou see?..."
The Minister turned his own binoculars in the indicated quarter.
What remained of a Division of the Prussian 10th Corps, with a
brigade of cavalry, Uhlans and Dragoons, was locked in the death-grip
with a Cavalry Division of Bazaine's own corps, the Third, on the
plain between the Bois de Vionville and the Bois de Gaumont. And
even the Chancellor's iron hand trembled as with ague, and his
breathing harshened perceptibly as he carefully focused the glasses
on the fight. He said after a moment:
"Those three regiments of cavalry on brown horses with green,
silver-laced dolmans and red-bagged talpacks are Chasseurs of the
Imperial Guard. Fine fellows! They have a man to lead them, it
would seem, in that little Colonel with the big paunch."
The Brigadier of the Chasseurs had been killed by a shell, and upon
Paunchy had devolved the leadership. Twice he had led the green
dolmans in shattering charges, under the stress of which the dark
blue islands of infantry had hollowed and caved in. Twice he had
fought his way out at the head of his shrunken and mutilated
squadrons. Now, sweeping round, the Dragoons and Uhlans had attacked
the Chasseurs furiously in the rear.
All that could be seen, even through the binoculars, was a shifting
kaleidoscopic jumble of gay uniforms. Men's heads and arms rising
and falling, flashing swords, flickering lance-pennons, and the
crests and hindquarters of plunging beasts.... Hence Kraus, Klaus,
and Klein of the blue infantry could not fire into the _mêlée_ for
fear of shooting their countrymen. Red Breeches hesitated to use his
chassepot on the same count.
About a bushy knoll to the left of the struggle, the German cavalry
circled like swallows, greedily assailing a swarm of green and red
dragon-flies. The chasseurs' cartridge-boxes being empty, they used
their long sabers as they had used their carbines, coolly and
effectively; and Paunchy, lifted above the press by the little knoll
referred to, encouraged them with looks and gestures and words.
"Courage, my children! ... Follow me! ... Bravo! ... One moment's
breathing-space, and at them again!"
He was only a green and scarlet speck in the midst of an aggregation
of other specks on the vast battlefield, yet the King and the
Minister watched him with fixed regard.
"_Grosser Gott_! How that man fights!" the King muttered at one
point in the conflict, and the rejoinder came from overhead:
"He is gallant, certainly, but a bit of an actor. Would not one say
that flourish was meant for the ladies in the orchestra-stalls?"
"Because he has kissed a medal or a relic?" the King muttered,
tugging at his white whisker. "Doubtless he is Catholic.... We
ourselves have many brave soldiers of the Roman faith!"
For as his squadrons ever thinned and dwindled, every instant paying
toll to the great swords of the Prussian Dragoons and the
blood-thirsty Uhlan lances, they had seen the little Brigadier take
from the breast of his green dolman something white and press his
bearded lips to it, and thrust it back again, and sign himself with
the Cross.
"_Hurrah Preussen! Immer vorwärts!_" yelled the Uhlans, as their
dripping lance-points flickered in and out between the red-stained
sword-blades, and the bodies of dead Chasseurs and dead horses rose
in a mound about the knoll where stood the little Brigadier.
Paunchy possessed a great voice. His "_Chargez!_" had reached the
ears of the King and his Chancellor through all the pandemonium of
battle. When his Staff trumpeter's instrument, bullet-pierced, gave
forth no sound but a strangled screeching, the little Colonel's
thundering "_Feu!_" needed no trumpet to make the order plain. Now,
his "_Vive la France! Vive l'Empereur!_" boomed out like the roar of
a dying lion. His melting squadrons gave back the rallying-cry.
But they were lost. Prisoned within the ring of piercing steel that
tirelessly revolved about them, they could kill, but they could not
break through the barrier. Fresh squadrons rushed with hoarse shouts
to the aid of the German cavalry. The Chasseurs were hopelessly
outnumbered, and must inevitably be crushed.
The subaltern who bore the Imperial standard got a lance-thrust in
the shoulder. At the same moment, his horse was shot dead. As the
beast reared in the death-throe and went down under the plunging
hoofs of the maddened horses round him, the Colonel leaned from his
saddle, seized the hand that gripped the staff of the standard, drew
the fainting officer upward, and laid him across his own saddle-bow.
Then, as his gallant horse braced itself to bear the double burden,
the rider lifted high the glistening folds of the tricolor topped by
the golden Imperial eagle, and as the Uhlans charged the knoll he
shouted again in terrible tones the slogan of the dying Empire:
"_Vive la France! Vive l'Empereur!_"
War has many of these sublime moments mingled with her squalid
hideousness. Upon this day many a soldier, French and German, died
as finely as the father of Juliette. You are to see him--bareheaded,
for the fur talpack with the plume of green and scarlet had been
sheared from his head by a glancing sword-cut--lifting a war-flushed
forehead to the sky all sunset-red. Then a mortal lance-thrust
reached him over the body that lay across his horse's withers, and he
reeled upon his saddle, and fell backward, partly swathed in the Flag
for which so many heroes have died.
Through the tricolored folds yet other Uhlan lance-points reached
him. Did any thought of his daughter pass through the brain of the
dying soldier between the sharp pangs of the probing steel?
"_My child ... safe ... neutral territory.... Charles ... honest man
... protect my girl from Adelaide! Now ... death! Ah!--agony!
Save, Jesu! ... Mary, help!_"
A few of his gallant Chasseurs surrendered. But these were only a
handful. Nearly the whole strength of his brigade of three regiments
lay dead upon that patch of common that was cumbered with their
corpses and those of their enemies.